Racial Fencing...?

[MessiahFencing]

Before I post, I do NOT mean to be stereo typical or racist, I've just noticed things and have wondered if any other people have.

On my team, lets say out of 10 foils, 9 are asian. We always joke with freshman fencers 'You do foil if you're a skinny asian kid'.

Out of 10 epee, 10 are tall 'creepy' white kids who play world of warcraft and smoke pot and have long hair. Not one non-white person under 5'10" is epee ( except for one 5'8"ish who plays WoW )

Out of 10 Sabre, 7 are porbably considered obese, the others are just misfits. "not skinny and not tall"

In our league, the same pattern follows ( for most of it )

now this is just my school, my county, and my league. This obviously varies, but have you ever heard of such similarities?

First day of fencing : You're a skinny asian, go talk to him, he's the foil captain or you're a tall white kid who i know from a WoW raid, go talk to our guildmaster, he is the captain.

talking with like five other towns requently, they say similar if not exact things.

9/10, we have two people, who could pass as twins, fencing each otehr since schools around me follow that 'guide' to sorting noobs. (lol i said noob )

Is this true for your area?

[remistress]

My area:

foilists: no asians, but that may be our demographic. Lots of high schoolers, and a couple community college folks.

epeeists: Generally tend to be tall (no really?), and the older crowd...with a few exceptions. Pretty easy going lot.

sabreists: We have like 2, unless you take the martial artists who show up time to time. Tend to not be fat (not skinny either though), but stocky and broad-shouldered.

[Peach]

Is this true for your area?

No, it's not. I don't recognize any of the stereotypes you mention. And I was at a rather large regional tournament yesterday.

Your sample size is pretty teensy to make such sweeping generalizations. There are certainly many amusing characteristics of each weapon, but not the ones you mention

[MessiahFencing]

well its about 100-200 fencers, and 75-80% fit the description (HS lvl )

and even some coaches I've heard talk about placing kids based partially on body size/race.

[El Chucko]

This, my friend, is a very slippery slope. . .

I would say that certain demographic groups tend to gravitate toward fencing in general more than others. I would guess that it is more of a reflection of cultural or sub-cultural traditions and values.

As far as weapon-by-weapon stereotypes, there have always been certain tendencies by body-type/morphology, but not necessarily by race/ethnicity/etc.

[MessiahFencing]

I'm from NJ, and have a friend in Washington who says all the teams around him are almost identical to what i described, so i just thought it was kinda worth looking at.

I mean to be honest, the only reason i did foil was for the reason above. Inititially, I wanted to do sabre, sounded like a fun aggressive one. But I'm a foilist.

[Sciurus-Rex]

Before I post, I do NOT mean to be stereotypical or racist...

Well, it's nice to know you didn't MEAN to be.

[KD5MDK]

But you've limited yourself to HS boys. That's a pretty limited demographic right there.

[erooMynohtnA]

You're sort of combining common fencing stereotypes of Epeeists are tall, sabreurs have thick legs, and foilists are short with ethnicities.

You're grouping together dissimilar groups in an effort to have greater statistical impact.

The only two racial divides I can draw is that most fencers are white and that most Asians I've seen fencing are foilists (granted I'm a foilist, so that's what I watch and it could be completely wrong).

[fatfencer]

There. It had to be said. Asians PWN all other races in Foil. BWAHAHAHA

I wonder what it looks like when an Asian goose-steps.


Where's Don Imus and Jimmy the Greek when you need them.

Hey guys, I'm starting a band. Fatfencer and the Nappy-Headed Hos.

All t-shirt sales will be donated to science that it is dedicated to homogenizing the races.

Everyone will be 5'10 and weigh 175. Skin color? A sort of cream that weathers well in all types of weather. A kind of light latte.

Eyes will be partially squinted and all languages will be replaced by New Korean and printed from lower right hand corner up to top right and so on. Down to up and right to left.

Why new? Well there's some sounds all y'all whiteys make that don't fit our current phonetic system.

Hair will be a mandatory jet black. Eyes brown.

I'd appreciate it if you'd all donate too so that we can get this cutting edge research off the ground.

Your fearless leader,

Fatfencer

[Blackbird]

XD to ease the ripping of MessiahFencing, i would like to note the existence of many, very humorous fencing stereotypes that make the sport all that much more enjoyable. Previously, these and many other fantastic examples of fencers poking fun at fencing could be found at fencingsucks.com, rest its beautiful, no longer existent soul. The most appropriate of these for this thread, lock up your silver, the fencers are in town if i remember correctly, can be found else where if some search time is put in.
I disagree with the racial application of this sterotyping. I too am from NJ and am an active member of the wonderous world of high school fencing and have seen fencers of all racial backgrounds in all weapons. Admittedly Asians tend to gravitate towards foil, but many of them multiweapon as well.

[swordsen]

Trends like this tend to be self fulfilling in that when a new person walks in he or she will probably stroll towrds others like themselves. Hence the long haired pot smoking WOW will gather with the others. (I find that particular one humorous as I am a bald non WoW epeeist.)

[piste off]

I have noticed that the Chinese national team tends to be all asian, and those of Sweden are generally white.

Visigoths tend to be "creepy."

Rick

[jeff]

This kind of stereotyping is at best silly and at worst creepy.

So, what are we supposed to think - that Peter Westbrook should have fenced foil half the time?

[babz]

i bet u guys have heard this before....


epeeists compare the price of their weapons...
foilists compare the price of their equiptments....

and sabrers compare the price of their WOMEN!!! 0_o

but all these are just for laughs...haha...
i just find it quite amusing...

[fatfencer]

what is WoW???

Also,
No smoking cheeba. This is verboten...we do have kids frequenting this site.
Please refrain from discussing drug usage on the board. I'm not a moderator, just asking.

It's a bad habit, leads to lots of ingeniously useless carpentry, not something we want kids to get into.

Just a request,

Fatfencer

PS: It's ok to racially stereotype, just wanted to make that clear(sarcasm). But seriously though, there are unavoidable truths in stereotypes that are hard to avoid, no matter how small they are. How many of you secretly agree with the Jimmy the Greeks out there but don't have the stones to say it? Oh sure, one can hide behind some notion of propriety...but hell I'd rather someone be racist and let me know than hide it from me. Besides we all have our racial biases. Everyone KNOWS why the NBA is full of black folk. What is the ratio of blacks to whites in the NBA? 5 to 1? 10 to one? Everyone knows why the guys under the bedsheets
are white...because the southern white guys were afraid the blacks were going to take their women.

When we speak of illegals in the US, everyone knows were not talking CANADIAN fugitives. We're talking about our neighbors to the south, Los Chilangos. I'm asian, I sure as hell can't make a burrito as well as those guys. Those street vendors make cat taste like beef yo. Better than the vietnamese. Ooops, I'm sorry, that was dog I meant to say.

AS tasteless as stereotyping may be each and everyone of us U.S. citizens must be willing to lay our lives down for the privilege of saying the stupid crap we say.

We are fraternal members of the greatest fraternity in the world. There are equally horrid sterotypical truths about each of the cultures represented in the US. We should embrace them, laugh about them during the next Carlos Mencia episode, and drink beer with your nearest Klansman.

Why? Because despite his shortcomings, he, like all of us with our shortcomings, is an American citizen first and foremost. AND Unlike most citizens he probably still remembers all 4 verses of our national anthem. Misguided patriots they may be, but patriots still.

Laughter is the best way to bridge gaps and lessen the power of racial s.typing.

FF

[Sciurus-Rex]

But seriously though, there are unavoidable truths in stereotypes that are hard to avoid, no matter how small they are. How many of you secretly agree with the Jimmy the Greeks out there but don't have the stones to say it? Oh sure, one can hide behind some notion of propriety...but hell I'd rather someone be racist and let me know than hide it from me. Besides we all have our racial biases. Everyone KNOWS why the NBA is full of black folk. ... When we speak of illegals in the US, everyone knows were not talking CANADIAN fugitives. We're talking about our neighbors to the south, Los Chilangos. I'm asian, I sure as hell can't make a burrito as well as those guys. ...

OK, I've got the stones to say none of those comments are worth posting in the first place (and actually I'm disappointed I even have to repost them in quote form), and that this thread quickly picked up speed once it started downhill with the first message.

It doesn't matter what your background is to begin with, this racist, stereotyping bullcrap has to stop somewhere. End it here and now. PLEASE. Move on to something more entertaining or actually thought-provoking.

[tkexi991]

OK, I've got the stones to say none of those comments are worth posting in the first place (and actually I'm disappointed I even have to repost them in quote form), and that this thread quickly picked up speed once it started downhill with the first message.

It doesn't matter what your background is to begin with, this racist bullcrap has to stop somewhere. End it here and now. PLEASE. Move on to something more entertaining or actually thought-provoking.

SR is right... who frakkin' cares? Unless you are talking about getting more blacks and hispanics into fencing, or more asians into fencing foil and sabre this discussion is useless at best.

[Chafunkta]

Unless you are talking about getting more blacks and hispanics into fencing, or more asians into fencing foil and sabre this discussion is useless at best.

How does that work? If we shouldn't care about races, as SR says, why would talking about getting more minorities into fencing be a worthwhile discussion?

Does anyone actually think that there's any sort of racial barrier to entering fencing? God, I hope not.

[erooMynohtnA]

what is WoW???

But seriously though, there are unavoidable truths in stereotypes that are hard to avoid

WoW is an abbrevation of World of Warcraft, a MMORPG. It's a very popular computer game.

Unavoidable truths are generally hard to avoid, one could almost say they're unavoidable.