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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Wow this thread is pretty devoid of actual information but sure is full of mindless generalizations. So congrats.

First I want to point out a problem with OP's argument that is common of racial generalizations on this website: "Asians" and "Asian immigrants to the US" are not the same. There are things that are common Asian immigrants in the US that are not necessarily true of all Asian people.

Also the nature of immigration skews perceptions of US culture. OP is basing their perception on interactions with colleagues. I am guessing OP works in a white collar profession in the DC area and that their workplace is full of UMC white people from UMC backgrounds. OP might have different perceptions if they were working in a different setting. OP has a view of "American culture" that is viewed on a narrow experience and with an outsider bent. All of this tends to skew reality.

Here are some actual statistics on youth sports participation:

[img]https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/595ea7d6e58c62dce01d1625/4bdb485f-371b-43eb-a910-21fe3555f254/core+sport+demographic.jpeg[/img]

While white children participate in sports at slightly higher rates than other races, it is not nearly as dramatic as some of you are portraying it. Also the participation of both white and black children in youth sports has actually declined in the last 10 years whereas rates of participation among AAPI and hispanic children are either holding steady or increasing.

The real divide is in family income -- families with HHIs of 100k or more account for nearly half of all youth sport participation. This should be unsurprising to most people -- youth sports are increasingly expensive and also require a lot of time investment by parents. So there is a clear advantage for families with both more financial resources and the kinds of jobs that accommodate having a stay at home or part time parent, or schedules that are conducive to things like evening and weekend practices (parents doing shift work have a serious issue with these demands).

The narrative that white people care a lot about sports and Asian people don't is both wrong and interesting -- the fact that so many of you are ignoring the participation of black and hispanic kids in youth sports altogether says a lot about who you view as your peers and who "counts" when it comes to cultural perceptions.

https://projectplay.org/youth-sports/facts/participation-rates[/quote]

There’s a lot of grey to this.

I’m Hispanic and I don’t know a lot of other Hispanic families that go hardcore into sports. Our kids play games of soccer organized by themselves, occasional sports at the community center (not every year, not every season), and less often on school teams. It’s not intense unless the kid is showing talent.

I think OP is talking about a culture of sports where parents will take an average child and have them practice organized youth sports multiple times a week and spend weekends at games for a good part of the year. That’s very different imo.

Again, I’m speaking out of what I see and have experienced, but that type of difference, if widespread and not just me, wouldn’t be reflected in the data above.[/quote]

Your experience IS reflected in the data -- you are part of the large percent of hispanic families that don't emphasize sports. It's right there in the data. The chart doesn't say "100% of hispanic families have children in travel sports." Though there are absolutely hispanic families in the US who are obsessed with sports -- please spend literally any time in schools in parts of Florida, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona (I grew up in one of these states and have first hand experience) and then get back to me. Baseball and football in these areas are often dominated by hispanic players. You also see high participation in other sports. No one in Las Cruces New Mexico sits around musing "why are white people so obsessed with kids sports" because that would be stupid.

It also doesn't say that 0% of Asian families have kids in sports. Because that's not true! It's also not true that 100% of white families are obsessed with sports. These are simply not accurate statements and yet it hasn't stopped people on this thread from posting broad generalizations about large groups of people based on their anecdotal observation of how the people they know in their own life behave. Your personal experience may be interesting but it is not a foundation to draw conclusions about how participation in sports varies among races.

Your specific experience is interesting but it's not data and it doesn't undermine the assertion that there are actually pretty minimal differences in sports participation between races in the US, and that the more significant division is between between families based on income.[/quote]

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