Ouch!
A longer new piece on today’s NBC News explores surfing’s very racist past. I am sometimes surprised to read the opinions of professors of surf journalism, founders and directors of university centers for surf research and authors of political histories of surfing of whom I’ve never once heard.
Surfing is, to me, a small bubble where all the players are known or known adjacent but I suppose in this day of hard interior looks, that is simply my bubble perspective.
I don’t know, however, how a piece can be written without a chat to author of The History of Surfing and the Encyclopedia of Surfing Mr. Matt Warshaw.
In any case, journalist Dennis Romero writes, “The sport that helped popularize the graphic T-shirt, birthed skateboarding and gave the world a name for loafing online is, like other American subcultures, confronting a scourge of racism that has thrived within its own ranks.”
The Outrigger Club in Waikiki in 1911 culturally appropriating surfing and making it white, localism as a form of racial discrimination, The Endless Summer leaving out the word “apartheid”, Windansea kids traveling up to the 1965 Watts Riots for “entertainment”, Jeff Spicoli representing privilege and the racist sentiment associated with those who oppose the “Brazilian Storm” are all probed.
An accurate portrayal?
I don’t think so, especially not where it relates to localism as a form of racial discrimination. I’m certain there are racist locals but surf localism is much broader along with rage-filled surf tribalism and very rude surf shaming, as my transition to mid-lengther is teaching me.
Ouch!
I am also a white male so my opinion counts for zero but what is your opinion? What do you think?
Just kidding. Your opinion counts for zero too.
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Oh my.
I’ve read the NBC piece a couple of times and the idea of trying to paint surfers as some kind of racists is I think totally ludicrist. I think every example they give, is not really a valid. account of racism by surfers as a whole. —– A ‘hand full’ of guys from Wind n Sea misbehave, and “one” guy, ‘one’–may have went to Watts, how does a handful and ‘one’ guy represent a million surfers—the girl at Silver Strand 40 years ago—the locals back in the day there would abuse ‘anyone’, regardless of color. (My young caucasian buds got their boards hammered by some locals there.)
The movie Endless Summer, it was a ‘Surf’ movie, not a ‘political’ piece. The laws restricting land ownership by the coast – I sincerely doubt if any surfers were on the city council who passed it (none mentioned above.) The actions of a miniscule few, don’t make surfers as a whole racist, far from it. Surfers seem to be some of the most culturally accepting people I know. Why try and put a undeserved guilt trip on some one? Seems to me, someone is trying to stir the pot for some individual reasons. Makes for good print and exposure maybe.
Did anyone read the article? Christ, that kind of hand wringing guilt trip schtick is what’s going to hand Trump another 4 years on a platter.
Surfing has always had a way bigger problem with sexism than racism.
Having said that, there’s still a lot wrong with that article. Why single out Surfing for a start. Let’s see… how about America’s Cup yachting. The ultimate sport of the WASPs. Or I dunno, downhill skiing. Ice hockey? Fencing? Way more sliced white bread than Surfing. And no, it’s not a conspiracy by these sports to exclude “people of color”, it’s a function of white people historically having the money, so yeah, more likely to live near the beach or near a ski resort. Yeah, lament that “colored” people aren’t as likely to be wealthy but don’t make out like it’s the sport’s fault.
By the way, Bobby Martinez wasn’t the first latin surfer to make the top 10. Are they fucking ignorant?
Well said, I basically came to the same conclusion, see my post above.
Maybe that 4 years on platter is for the best.
The other lot are a headfuked mess
Look i’m left leaning but I view it all as entertainment where Trump is the anti-hero not the anti-christ. He may as well be the Iron Sheik or Flashman. So many lols to be had when you don’t let it get to you. It’s not like I can vote him out.
But you’d reckon the Dems or Labour in the UK would have the wherewithal to realise all they have to do is occupy the middle ground an run a moderate candidate and they’ll romp it in.
Instead they put up some bozo extremist in the UK and look like they are making the same mistake in the US.
If you wanna see a fuked up mess look at country’s like Iran, Saudi, any of that shit, where to be a woman is to be a slave and a dog and Noone gives a shit. Can you imagine all the women getting around town covered in tents?
And the left are desperate supporters of Islam.
Fuk off cunts.
Offensive statues and TV shows, cops
, T girls, the names on beer bottles, history books, hate filled judgements on people just trying to raise families, and a man with funny hair are where its at.
About 4 different things are more concerning for the left than climate bullshit now, it’s a struggle to keep up
Wake up to yourself – you point out how conservative religious countries are shit while supporting the conservative religious gov in America.
And you are comparing them as the same thing.
Thatll do me.
Youre disqusting.
They are the same thing
As in equally as bad?
I know you can’t be serious
Last time I looked the US dosent have priests as cops
We are just lucky the US has 2 major parties because those shrill religious types can get crazy if allowed to run amok.
It seems Daniel Duane, a late comer to surfing, a Val, started this whole issue of surfers being racist about a year ago, using some of these same ‘invalid’ arguments. Seems Duane was ‘intimidated’ by the words “Kooks go Home” (that had a swastika next to it) on the steps to the beach on one of his first surfs.
I think it scarred his Val psyche a little and he felt a need to lash out a little………..he still seems a little traumatized by it today.
https://www.nytimes.com/201…
The guy is a rock climber who tried to learn to surf and wrote a book about it (not to be confused with the founder of Patagonia). He’s bent out of shape that the early surf movies had guys like Greg Noll and Miki Dora putting on Nazi uniforms brought home by their fathers and being punks.
Yes, I really think these young kids never thought it through what they were doing, just goofing off basicly. And not sure who this Dennis Romero is either, who wrote the article in question above. Was he around when all these events supposedly happened. What ‘personal or first hand facts’ can he provide? What is his motivation for trying to paint surfers as racist.
“The year was 1989. I’d just come home from college hungry to claim the California identity that felt like my birthright. I could not have told you what that identity was except that its highest form appeared to be something like a blue-eyed, blond surfer with a golden tan, preternaturally skilled at riding the waves of his native beach.
I was a pink-skinned redhead who’d grown up too far inland to learn the way you’re supposed to — as a kid, at the surf spot down the block.” -D.D. quote
-Umm, seems Duane had some other mental-emotional issues with his ‘percieved’ view of surfers, they had blond hair and blue eyes (Aryan qualities). Most of my surf bros didn’t. Never heard anybody else raise this issue. Did Duane have some kind of complex over this, combined with being a late starter.
He even got to boast brag, that he was able to stay in the Surfer Mag. house somewhere, ( like that’s supposed to make you a better surfer or something). I think he may need some Therapy.
“Behind the aloha vibe was the other vibe — a locals-only, whites-only vibe,” said Sharon Schaffer, the first African American female pro in the U.S.” ———-whoa, I think she got this “totally”, totally wrong.
Localism had nothing to do with color, dudes would let the air out of your tires, break your windshield wipers off (while you were out surfing) whether you were white, black or purple. “My beach, my waves, go home, go home” ……… sad but true….. happened to me……..
What do they call it if you slash your own tires, smash your own windscreen?
Doc said something about self-loathing
A fuck up.
I just used to call it a pretty standard Saturday night in umina, back in the 90s
Harhahahar – Trust me on this one – astro knows a fuck up when he sees one …
When ur having a shave?
Hahahahar.
Dork.
Have no idea what your talking about.
ah so pray tell which race/ethenticity do you think acts Gentlemanny in the surf?
Hahahahahahar.
(Snort) good one, B !
But eugene has a point – They do love to surf with friends and family ….
Japanese are pretty cool in the water. And deep down they have some weird racist ideas that don’t often surface, but when they do, you go wtf???
In racism adjacent privileged kook news…
Last week JOB was invited by some rich-kid learners who he doesn’t know to surf the KSwavepool on their daddies buck.
Bob Slats has now left Aussie bound for California.
Whether Slaters return to the U.S. is connected to the richkids sneaking JOB into the surfranch is yet to be discussed in this forum.
What are your thoughts ?
Got a link?
It’s just on JOBs latest YouTube flog
Quite embarrassing for all concerned (apart from JOB) I thought, not that they seemed to realise…
That was a eye opener!!
Did he ride every fucking wave other than the lid first up – appears so!!!
The others got heaps
As if JOBS gunna show endless kooks.
They woulda had a ton.
I started the video and thought, I hope they don’t show these barns surf and/or interview them. What a let down! My favorite part is the ‘touching’ scene where Daddy Warbucks expresses gratitude to JOB for showing up for his kids graduation. HA! He showed up to surf the pool!
He had many many waves
More than I’ve seen anyone else get
Yeah well, someone had to cos those kooks who paid for it sure weren’t gonna get many judging by their (non)skill level.
I was a bit bummed that Tina didn’t get to show them how it’s done though…
Me too
They were born lucky
Not their fault.
Daddy kill me, I’m rich?
Blowin cunts are always going to be blowin cunts. When had it ever been about the colour of someones skin.
I don’t know, a lot of maybes, what if’s, Black girls Surf, Textured Waves, Newspapers, Writers, a lot of different stuff going on here, lots of time lines, hard to pin everything down with just a summary reading and without rmore research, but from my point of view, surfers, ‘themselves’, seem to be the most non-racist, easy going, accepting of other cultures and races, group of people I know of.
Able to travel and blend in with other cultures, flexible, able to feel comfortable in 1st and 3rd world countries alike, living with just basic necessities, (Yuppie surfers excluded) ‘enjoying’ the different cultures, while just trying to catch some waves, your everyday down to earth surfer.
Not saying some things didn’t happen in the past, but don’t think surfers, themselves, were directly involved either. l think a lot of people are trying to stir the pot recently, for a lot of different reasons…….
Racism is what you make of it.
well written . nice to see talented writers who actually get asked to write outside the surf world, take a stab at intelligent surf journalism.. im guessing it wont be a biig hit here.
and yes one need look no further than the comments about brazil surfers from priviliged white guys to get a good taste of the racism…….
For those who do hit the link I will say this. 40 years ago rocking up to Silver Strand and paddling out without knowing every person in the line up just didn’t happen. Don’t think it was racial, as the story implies, just a full locals only lockdown. Went there once and didn’t get out of the car.
The people to blame for overcrowding really has to be the brands and in the end the sponsored surfers.
Everyone should snake an ex pro or pro today and everyday
.
Well said, exactly what I was thinking. Nothing to do with color, Silver Strand had a real bad rap back then. Had some Bros who went up there in a van, pretty young guys, 16 or so, after they got out of the water, some locals opened the side door of the van and proceeded to punch holes in their boards with a screwdriver. My buds never went back. My buds were all caucasian, so had nothing to do with color……..
i wish it was like this everywhere
I drove the beatest car in 3 counties, went early, by myself, rode beater boards. Obeyed the rules, and was OK.
Never really enjoyed having to surf that way though. Anywhere, really.
I just wanted to surf, not fight.
Get the time machine out and let’s go back, way back, and um, we’ll, hey man let’s make it perfect, you know we can if we all hold hands and sing a song together.
ah yes adopt indigenous culture and evolve !
I read the story and am struck by how the long and often recorded subduing of every Haole who ever came the to the North Shore, save Butch- one F ing guy, that’s it!, by my Blahlahs, a narrative that really dominated surf publications throughout the 70s and ended up with Rabbit under the bed and Cairns a bloody mess, instead here we are given a new look at this that avoids the highest entitlement and privelege possible on earth, to be a Top Tier Charging Shredding Moke who takes any wave he wants and eats ‘pros’ for puu puus, oh, and there are a ton, and we mean a ton, of bad a$$ charger Titas too who love to slap them around some white meat, not other chicks, they will beat YOU down like a board, as everyone who has ever been there knows … so, this article was through the lens of the few black surfers in LA who were given the shaft by society during their own heydeys but grabbed a giant FU to the square hater world by spending ten years surfing only the best Third Point days with Dora and Fain … another really funny racial surfing story that didn’t make it to the article, since it was written by a kook, which is when Jimi Hendrix just got out of the Army and played a gig at Huntington Pier, he got out of the club there late after the show, no way to get back to Seattle [he came down on the greyhound] and when he encountered some white surfers he started running because we all know there is lots of Nazis and KKK douches in the OC, everyone knows this, F ing Hendrix himself started running towards old downtown Huntington and the old surf ghetto still there at the time, running while carrying his F ing left handed guitar, BUT, it was not some haole haters but actually it was instead Fury, and I think Martinson, and they were already starting up with Hynson and some of what would become the Brothers of Eternal Love and Orange Sunshine, so, they were totally cool and Jimi later said on Maui at Seabury that it was the first time any haoles were ever cool to him, they let him sleep on the kitchen floor … twue stowy … just some honest surfing racial stuff for you groms …
Joe deal
Keepin it real!!
bexie for chuckles check out the surfing Hendrix film Rainbow Bridge if you have not already, a bunch of the Eternal Love crew stars, if you could call quaking on syd starring … Nuuhiwa at B-Wall Lefts too …
If its on YouTube it’ll get a look.
oh yeah clips galore and if you can find it check out revisited with Paul Gebauer, former big waver and one of the early cover boys of Surfer, interviewed about jamming with Jimi …
yeah, that era, acid was gonna change the world!! Check out the crowd wandering in for the contest, one guy wandering around with his board……I think Jimi coulda (woulda shoulda) brought everybody together…but he couldnt deal with it. Choked so to speak… Pali Gap still was one of raddest rambling guitar pieces ever. I used to try and surf the way that song flows…
indeed section, I did hike all the way down the Gap to Kaupo one full moon night on sunshine tho’ … saw Excalibur in Haleakala … yeah, didn’t quite change the world but gave me a wicked buzz …
sometimes i think vitamin sunshine should be a mandatory coming of age ritual, like Huxley suggested. Other times i think…. Bad Idea, lots of people really cant handle that sort of thing.
Alcohol/drugs were disappointing to me after those experiences. Of course, I still had to be an idiot.
Yeah, the hippies though it was good for everyone but in fact it is only good for some and destroys others … personally I prefer peyote.
He played a right handed guitar but it was strung to play left handed and that includes intonating the strings and individually adjusting the bridge fulcrum points.
Listened to Bold as Love today after a long while … not too much like it since, wowza turns out it had all types of first nation race issues in the lyrics too …
I thought it was just upside down, with bass strings on the bottom. Or is that what you’re saying?
I know nothing about guitars.
I think Hendrix dug Dick Dale’s guitar playing also.
Finally – some real surf journalism
Very well written Chas, great ending…
Watch out Chas, anyone promulgating the idea that surfing did not begin in Hawaii is going to be in their sights before long.
But hey it might be a good way to become famous so it you wanna stick your head above the parapet I’ll be cheering you on.
I’d rather read coke and surfing again for my punishment.
did they include the genesis of Quicksilver?
Haven’t read the article yet but I’m sure it’s a white guy trying to feel good about himself as usual
is that Jarrat?
i’m offended, let’s remove the racist cardiff kook statue