#bc I was told I'm welcome back so I'd like to attempt to hang onto that.

[nukenai]

Man horse people just really don't wanna admit that a huge amount of horse people are gross racist conservative shitheads that would be more than willing to call you slurs. I live in eastern fucking New York and every barn around here is run by yeehaw rednecks flying trump flags with confederate belt buckles you only see once you stop being distracted by their pink bedazzled cowboy hat. They'll happily tell you how well they treat their horse and how they love and respect everyone of course, support local farmers and shit, then when you turn around they start talking about the Fucking Queers or whatever. It's 99.999% white people, at my last barn there was ONE entire person of color and more than once I heard her - an adult woman - referred to as "THAT LITTLE BLACK GIRL" by other people.

English riding communities are also not exempt from this shit but they 100% think they are. There's just like Extra Classism thrown in most of the time.

I remember reading an article a few years back about a high school girl who did, I think jumping. And she wrote into her local equestrian magazine or something, about how she noticed the race disparity in Equestrian sports as a whole, and she got SO MUCH SHIT for it. People went insane and blacklisted her from shows and competitions, and she was viewed as a pariah for being a "shit-stirrer". Like holy shit, if your reactions are that horrific then this is DEFINITELY something we need to be talking about more!!!

And that girl lived nowhere near me so I can't just pretend this is a hyper-specific issue with my geographical area (I live right next to the capital city and even my small neighborhood is much more diverse than any horse thing I've ever been to, including barns I've boarded at, events I've been to, and fucking EQUINE AFFAIR).

Whenever I try to causally bring these issues up with anyone at my barn (ALL OF WHOM ARE WHITE) they stare at me like they've never heard of race ever being a concern ever in their life. And like, I AM ALSO WHITE, and it's completely bonkers to me that people can really be so fucking oblivious. But here we are.

And for comparison, there are maybe 2 people out of the 15+ boarders at my barn who could be considered "moderately wealthy".