Does racism exist in climbing?

Karsten Walker wrote: If there aren't really any people chiming in as victims of racist events in climbing, and this is a popular climbing forum, then is MP inherently racist?!?!?

Given how we as a forum responded to the sexual harassment survey, I'm inclined to say that we lack empathy to the point that the difference between our behavior and "true" sexism/racism/ableism/etc is largely academic.

Long Ranger wrote: Historically, yeah there's been some nationalism-borderline-racism going on in climbing. Consider the ascent of the Eiger Nordwand and how it was used as Nazi propogranda to illustrate, "the master race". This is obviously not specific to climbing (just sports in general - look at the German Olympics around that time).

How is the racism demonstrated by Nazis relevant to if climbers are racist today?

Briggs Lazalde wrote: All I wanna know is why a black man can rap and say: " I took a white bitch to Starbucks. That little bitch got her throat f!#×!d" and receives the praise of millions but if I released a song and said "I took a black bitch to Starbucks. That little bitch got her throat f$&×%d"   I'm pretty sure there would be criminal prosecution. Have fun.... What's this "privledge" you say i have? I don't point out differences until others make claims... The differences are there whether we want them or not

It might be because black people didn’t enslave white people for hundreds of years.  Historical context matters.

Also, I can guarantee that you would NOT be prosecuted, because that falls under the free speech protections of the first amendment.  There are full-on White Nationalist and Nazi bands (unfortunately, this is prevalent in black metal) that routinely say much worse things than that and don’t get prosecuted.  There’s also a band called “Anal Cunt”...I’ll leave you to Google their lyrics (or, hell...song titles!).

Briggs Lazalde wrote: All I wanna know is why a black man can rap and say: " I took a white bitch to Starbucks. That little bitch got her throat f!#×!d" and receives the praise of millions but if I released a song and said "I took a black bitch to Starbucks. That little bitch got her throat f$&×%d"   I'm pretty sure there would be criminal prosecution. Have fun.... What's this "privledge" you say i have? I don't point out differences until others make claims... The differences are there whether we want them or not

Found the Tom Macdonald fan. 

Briggs Lazalde wrote:

Even if I agree with you, its the same adage over and over again and most people will lose interest after that first sentence once they see it coming again. Then the gap is widened or remains the same but is never bridged... Equality through "eye for an eye" mentality never works. 

Through that view a black man should be punished less for hanging a white man than vice versa in today's world because of the historical context.... Tell that to a judge (whether he's black or white)

Well, if the history part loses too many folks, then a more nuanced (and, I'd argue, more accurate) retelling isn't going to win any hearts and minds.

That is, when a black man says the first part, the cognitive dissonance of a black man doing such a thing shocks us as much as the brutality in the words, but when a white man says the second part, we are simply shocked by the brutality, because history shows that such actions are neither unprecedented, nor terribly surprising.

"White guys talking about racism is boring as fuck", then making a big to do about going recreating is an interesting point of view. 

Daniel Melnyk wrote:

Dan it's not allowing me to grab your quote as these boards are buggy but my historical reference doesn't  have much to do with today (except for mistreatment of Sherpa which is still a thing?) 

Climbing is rarely about competing against someone so perhaps it's  not a great vessel to show racist superiority. There is still the issue with the general lack of diversity within the hobby.
Complicated topic. I'm  sure within the Racist<->Climber Venn Diagram there is the Racist Climber but less so historically than the Racist Skinhead, which is pretty hard to pull apart at a casual glance. Hard to imagine Skinhead culture being about dancing to music you know? But racists like to take over youth cultures and claim them as their own. Would climbing be a good fit for this type of usurp? Dunno. Hope not. I guess it pays to look what's happened in the past. I won't stand for it. 

Ted,
pretty biased perspective. Actually the very word "slave" comes from the white slavic people of Eastern Europe that were captured by dark skinned muslims from the Ottoman Empire.

Don't get carried away by white guilt. There's plenty to go round.

Ted Pinson wrote:

It might be because black people didn’t enslave white people for hundreds of years.  Historical context matters.

Also, I can guarantee that you would NOT be prosecuted, because that falls under the free speech protections of the first amendment.  There are full-on White Nationalist and Nazi bands (unfortunately, this is prevalent in black metal) that routinely say much worse things than that and don’t get prosecuted.  There’s also a band called “Anal Cunt”...I’ll leave you to Google their lyrics (or, hell...song titles!).

Black people may not have enslaved white people for hundreds of years, but they did enslave other black people for much longer. And white people have been enslaving other white people for a pretty damn long time. Where exactly would you like to draw the line when it comes to "history"

Ron O wrote: Ted,
pretty biased perspective. Actually the very word "slave" comes from the white slavic people of Eastern Europe that were captured by dark skinned muslims from the Ottoman Empire.

Don't get carried away by white guilt. There's plenty to go round.

Don't get carried away by the term "biased" when it doesn't apply.  I don't have white guilt, I just can't help but roll my eyes at white persecution complex.  

I've been climbing in El Potrero Chico for over a week.  I've seen climbers here from all over.  They're right where they wanna be, doing what they wanna do.  My partner is of Indian decent (not Native American Indian).  They're not here, looking for racial segregation and extermination.  People aren't born racist.  It's taught and learned.  My post doesn't directly resolve anything, except for the fact that if it's something you're worrying about, there are probably more negative asses like you.  That type of thinking that's brewing in this world that I share with you isn't making the world that I see a better place.  Thinking about starting this thread is just disgusting.  In the first half dozen or so posts, someone joked about getting in their sweatpants and enjoying some popcorn.  I've been to war in the Middle East and saw a child get shot and killed.  Violence is such a machismo attitude.  Why allow yourself to become detracted from your motivations towards bettering yourself and society and stir some shit up?  Perhaps you're not of benefit to us, or yourself.  Possible racism in our climbing culture will now have potential to gain more traction because of this thread that you launched.  People will talk about it.  This thread may give some "minorities" that enjoy your hobby a bad day.  Great motivation braj!  Let's talk about climbing, and not things that may NOT even exist in climbing, that if they DID exist in climbing,  would degrade what we already love.  I don't hear things like this being discussed at crags, gyms, or campfires.  But I'm sure this OP troll is getting their viral rebound they were hoping for!  What was your big route tick this year?

Briggs Lazalde wrote: All I wanna know is why a black man can rap and say: " I took a white bitch to Starbucks. That little bitch got her throat f!#×!d" and receives the praise of millions but if I released a song and said "I took a black bitch to Starbucks. That little bitch got her throat f$&×%d"   I'm pretty sure there would be criminal prosecution. Have fun.... What's this "privledge" you say i have? I don't point out differences until others make claims... The differences are there whether we want them or not

at least we got five pages out of it before it degenerated.  Must be a new MP record.

racism exists in cams.

there are basically no white cams.   there are black cams... grey cams...

explanations please.

J Squared wrote:

do you honestly think these kinds of behaviors only manifest in humans?

And any point based on non-human animal behavior is completely worthless, as it can be refuted with a different animal. Chimps are violent? Bonobos are not. Bonobos are nice? Well, chimps rip each others arms off. See? 

And what you wrote earlier was gibberish, if you have an actual point you need to make it, rather than spewing strings of loosely related terms like behavior and species. You sound ill informed

what's more ill-informed?  assuming that I meant "all animals behave the same way"  or realizing that the groundwork for ingroup-outgroup interactions has been around for a long time.  

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0018283  - FMRI studies involving humans and their empathy reactions to ingroups and outgroups.
still want to call it gibberish? might as well call yourself ill-informed

spewing strings? loosely related?  sounds like this thread.

or do you actually believe that racism in climbing is so rampant that we need a thread bout it?

rafael wrote:

And any point based on non-human animal behavior is completely worthless, as it can be refuted with a different animal. Chimps are violent? Bonobos are not. Bonobos are nice? Well, chimps rip each others arms off. See? 

And what you wrote earlier was gibberish, if you have an actual point you need to make it, rather than spewing strings of loosely related terms like behavior and species. You sound ill informed

The original comment in question was referring to the genes that manifest in-group and out-group behaviors, such as the fear or general dislike for the "other". Considering a very large portion of the human genome is shared with most mammals, and most of it is shared with most primates, I think that it's a bit foolish to completely disregard genetic evidence from mammals, especially primates.

Most primate species are known to have rather sophisiticated social groups that manifest some of the social dynamics that we see in humans. As far as I know, specific fear for "unusual" or "odd" is an evolved psychological mechanism specific to humans, but it's possible that other primates have evolved similar psychological mechanisms. 

Anyways, the point is that evolved behaviors involving hostility or aggression towards others who belong to a different social group are not unique to humans and exist in other animals.  

I don't think that what your are sensing is due to your race.  I think climbers in general are a little self absorbed and critical of other climbers (or maybe simply insecure about there own size,shape, ability, color what have you)  I am not a typically "built" climber and have sensed a level of non-acceptance at the gym and crags my entire climbing life.  I have had lots of comments over the years and believe that climbers are just a judgemental lot.  You have just got to put it out of your mind and have fun.

Coming from a minority that isn't super represented in climbing in the US... I'd say that I haven't experienced any racism in climbing so far. I do think most climbers I've met fail to empathize or understand how it feels to be a minority in climbing.

It's not the worst thing in the world, but to be totally honest, threads/conversations (Internet or just real life) like this seem to always draw out the worst.

eli poss wrote:

The original comment in question was referring to the genes that manifest in-group and out-group behaviors, such as the fear or general dislike for the "other". Considering a very large portion of the human genome is shared with most mammals, and most of it is shared with most primates, I think that it's a bit foolish to completely disregard genetic evidence from mammals, especially primates.

Most primate species are known to have rather sophisiticated social groups that manifest some of the social dynamics that we see in humans. As far as I know, specific fear for "unusual" or "odd" is an evolved psychological mechanism specific to humans, but it's possible that other primates have evolved similar psychological mechanisms. 

Anyways, the point is that evolved behaviors involving hostility or aggression towards others who belong to a different social group are not unique to humans and exist in other animals.  

Now this is a well written post, with actual points, but see my comment above about chimps vs bonobos. Also I could make a variety of other interpretations of the science sounding word applesauce that jsquared wrote

And, you post also doesn't explain why racists think of other races as "other". Is it just that they haven't been around enough people of different races? Evidence is that is the case, so the point of some sort of evolved racism that you sort of imply is imho not solid

Jsquared, if you want advice on how to not write posts as worthless as yours are, look at Eli's here.