OP's referring (I think) to how black people in the USA were discouraged from "white" recreational activities like camping, hiking, skiing, and beach-going.
(FWIW, back in high school a black friend of mine explained to me one day that black people don't go skiing, etc., because their lives are so dangerous already that it doesn't make sense to go do dangerous things for entertainment. It kind of blew my mind.)
The financial aspect seems much more plausible. I have to imagine that for skiing in particular, the most likely demographics are going to be whoever happens to grow up near mountains and have very high amounts of disposable income... not just for the equipment, but also to take the financial risk of recovery in the U.S. We could maybe afford some second hand cross-country skis, but we didn't live near mountains either so it didn't seem that interesting.
I forgot to add here that if danger itself was the factor, you probably wouldn't see many black skateboarders, but you do, and causally or not skateboarding isn't on the same level of cost as skiing
Skateboarding too. When I was a kid black skateboarders were hella rare. To the point where today when I see a black kid skating I think, "Hey! We're making progress!"
I just did an image search for "skateboarding" and every skater on the first three pages (that's as fer as I looked) was white, except for one who was a bulldog.
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Not to spell it out, but the "danger" my friend was talking about wasn't just the danger of the sport itself. It was also the danger of getting beaten, robbed, or killed for being black. Black Americans published a guidebook for themselves the Green Book, to help each other avoid violence at the hands of racists.
Ya I maybe didn't consider that last bit in cintext with a different time as much, but if it's logically sound, then more black people in those various disciplines would probably signal some amount of progress.
Idk how much a google search of anything is all that representative of the demographic, or for that matter any media algorithm's results. Except for the bulldog, that's legit, they love skating for some reason. Presumably those results would be informed by a number of factors.
In my local spot, for sure I know a fair number of white people, but there's just as many if not more people of different apparent visual characteristics. Very diverse no natter how you cut it, gender, ethnicity, income level, sexual orientation, skill level, age, fashion sense
Take a skim through this video that includes those spots if you're curious, though admittedly it's somewhat specific to the city
OP's referring (I think) to how black people in the USA were discouraged from "white" recreational activities like camping, hiking, skiing, and beach-going.
(FWIW, back in high school a black friend of mine explained to me one day that black people don't go skiing, etc., because their lives are so dangerous already that it doesn't make sense to go do dangerous things for entertainment. It kind of blew my mind.)