There has always been controversy surrounding cycling. Look no further than Lance Armstrong’s case to see how cheating and other illegal activities have been intertwined in cycling.
Andscape is instead focusing their attention on something much more shocking – the dearth of black riders in the sport of cycling.
ESPN’s race baiting blog once again is complaining about the lack of melanin in a sport. The race baiting blog took time to point out that the Tour de France will not feature any black riders this year. It starts on Friday. Last year there were only two.
“When you get perceived as white, you have an advantage over someone who’s not,” Nelson Vails, who won a silver medal in the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in cycling, said.
Do we have any way to prove that’s true? No, but that didn’t stop others from trying to frame cycling as a racist sport.
Kevin Evans, the president of Major Motion in Los Angeles, said that he has received several distasteful comments from people who say blacks don’t belong in cycling. Evans is ignoring the potential impact of such situations, even though it’s not good.
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“It’s almost like you have to just keep rolling and [not] say anything,” Evans said. “They’re in vehicles, we’re on a bike … who knows what’s gonna happen?”
Great, so now we’re going to blame the lack of black people in cycling on the irrational fear that some are afraid of being harmed if they go out in public?
Evidently so.
Kevin Hylton (emeritus Professor of Equality and Diversity in Sport, Leisure and Education at Leeds Beckett University) believes that blacks will face persecution for simply being in public areas, regardless of whether it is while they are running or cycling.
“Being in open spaces for people of color can bring dangers in particular places,” Hylton said. “So if you happen to be out running down a particular street, you could be chased by … people who think you shouldn’t be there, and you might get shot just for running.”
These thoughts are absurd and make it appear that cycling wants to discourage black cyclists from participating in this sport. While the anecdotes Evans said are certainly discouraging to hear, it’s wrong to broadly and quickly assume this is why there are few black cyclists in a worldwide sport.
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