Bill Lester

[tmac13]

Nascar itself may not has discouraged black fans or black drivers from being part of the sport..However, have you ever been to any Nascar race in the southeast?..I don't don't about the northern or western races but the stands and the RV alleys in the south are dotted with the stars and bars rebel flags and shirts..I am not saying there is any intentional racism but most black people simply avoid settings like that..

[chillzatl]

it's just stupid. People love to suggest that any time there isn't a 50/50 split among black and whites in ANYTHING that there is racism going on. It's a stupid mentality to have and one that shows just how out of touch so many people are as to what constitute real racism.

There have been blacks in motorsports and lower tier nascar for years. Just because Nascar isn't going out of its way to pull a driver up to the big races just because he's black isn't a sign of anything foul. As the number of black drivers (which is small, because the general interest IS NOT THERE) increases, the numbers will increase everywhere else proportionally.

It's just such a stupid arguement. I'm not afraid to say that blacks, generally, are not interested in motorsports. Apart from nascar, there aren't a whole lot of white people interested in them either.

[CBAreject]

Quote:

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People love to suggest that any time there isn't a 50/50 split among black and whites in ANYTHING that there is racism going on

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LOL...especially since the percentage of blacks in the American population is around 13%. You make a good point, chillz. We were so exuberant about stamping out racism and discrimination that we overshot our goals. The campus newspaper at Duke featured an article recently where the med school admissions director boasted that 30% of the class was an under-represented minority member, vs. 11% for the rest of the nation's med schools. "We're way ahead of the rest of the nation in this area," she said. Way ahead? What is our goal--to have the majority of the spots filled by minorities? Keep in mind that "under-represented" minorities do NOT include asians, a minority over-represented in medicine.

Actually, American born citizens of Asian origin are SELECTED AGAINST in medical school admissions. Why? Because they're such good freaking students that they comprise a greater fraction of the higly qualified applicant pool than would be proportionate. They're born in America and every bit as American as I am (a white male), but they have to make HIGHER grades and scores on average to be admitted than a white student! Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans admitted to med school have LOWER average grades and scores. Why? The problem is, we think AT LEAST 13% of the medical school class should be black, even though less than 13% of the applicants are black. We think 15% of the class should be Asian-American or Indian, even though MORE than 15% of the applicants are Asian or Indian. How do we ensure that we have COMMENSURATE REPRESENTATION? We raise the criteria for Asians, and we lower the criteria for under-rep. minorities, thereby DISCRIMINATING AGAINST the Asians and Indians.

Sure, some of you will argue that certain cultures are at a disadvantage, but that's GENERALIZING and applying a STEREOTYPE. Let's take a guy who grew up in Detroit as a lower-middle class kid in a public school who just happens to have parents from Taiwan who own a struggling take-out joint. Can anyone tell me it's fair that he has to make higher MCAT scores than his upper middle-class buddy from the same town whose parents came in from Puerto Rico and run a successful dry cleaning business? It turns out that the average black student applying to med school has a superior financial background than what is average for blacks, nationally. If we're trying to correct for disadvantages, we should do the same for Asian students who come from impoverished homes. We don't do that because that's not the issue at all.

ALL OF THIS TO FIGHT DISCRIMINATION, AND WHAT HAVE WE DONE? WE'VE JUST ENDED UP DISCRIMINATING AGAINST A DIFFERENT GROUP.

Please stop crying racism every time there isn't equal representation, folks. Sometimes, it's not equal for a very valid reason (less interest, for example). It doesn't mean that the organization hates blacks or Jews or women. Nobody's screaming at the NBA for not having 2/3 white players. That's because nobody fears rebuke if they say that not many white people are good at basketball. In fact, a movie was made about it (see "White Men Can't Jump").

This country is inhabited by a bunch of slogan-spouting, walking cliches who lost the ability to think critically at the last fork in the social evolutionary tree....you know, the place where "Politicus Correctus" split off from "Pontificus Rationus".

[Plainview1981]

That's part of my point.. They seemed to have done alittle to address this issue... Yes, I'm fully aware that percentage of black men into Auto Racing is small. That doesn't justify THREE

black NASCAR drivers in 4 or 5 decades in my book.

The last few years I have noticed an increase in non white fans

or atleast fans coming out of the closet...And I think it would have happend sooner had NASCAR taken the steps it has now a long time ago... More fans, the bigger the chances for more non white drivers.