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7:52 AM
1
Q: Do only white people search for Bigfoot?

PaulA friend suggested to me that "only white people see Bigfoot". When pressed to clarify this remark, I was told to just watch the TV show, and see if any of the people at all who hunt for Bigfoot are any other races than white. So I googled a bit, and found others claiming that "seeing" Bigfoot ...

 
What evidence would you accept as an answer, either way?
 
Most sciences, professions, and even hobbies include practitioners of all races. The claim seems to be that hunting or claiming to see bigfoot is not like that, but is somehow tied to whites culturally or racially. Find some sizeble group of African American, Hispanic, and/or Asian bigfoot "researchers" or even just non-whites who claim they saw bigfoot. Alternatively, further confirm, perhaps through the use of survey data or membership reports, that a large percentage (80-90%+) of bigfoot hunters or people who claim to have seen a bigfoot are white.
 
I'm not a fan of this question. Cryptozoological myths are, by their nature, cultural, so we should expect to see cultural biases in the people exposed to them. Bigfoot & white Americans, Bunyips & Australian Aborigines, Chupacabra & Latin Americans, Yeti & the Himalayan people, etc. Drawing conclusions about a particular culture's socioeconomic standing based on the fact they believe in mythical creatures is not safe.
 
It is fairly straightforward to refute similar statements like "only white people are Christians" or "only white people make good doctors" or "only white people win the Nobel prize".
 
If you asked any of those questions, I would ask you what you would consider to be good evidence. None of those are trivial questions to answer, given the loose definitions of 'only', 'white', 'Christian' and 'good doctors'.
 
7:52 AM
@Oddthinking As to Yeti and the Himalayans, it could be argued from Wikipedia::Yeti that it was a bunch of white British explorers who were out actually hunting the Yeti of local folklore.
 
That is disputable, by simply pointing out that we would have only heard of the white British explorers who did so.
But my real concern is "What conclusion do you hope to draw from this?"
That Bigfoot doesn't exist? Just ask that question directly.
That you need to be middle-class to believe in this stuff? Unsafe conclusion.
That you need to be white to believe in this stuff? Flat out wrong.
The question smells loaded.
 
I thought that too.
That it sounds loaded.
I am aware that Hong Kong Chinese share the ability to be fascinated with UFOs, from listening to a local describe big UFOs over Kowloon and the harbor, where millions of people would have had the opportunity to see them if they were real....
OK apparently there is a popularized Chinese bigfoot, the Yeren. bfro.net/GDB/ASIA/CHINA/as_ch001.htm
Maybe I will withdraw the question.
 
 
9 hours later…
DVK
4:40 PM
@Oddthinking - Especially by people who don't have a clue about obscure cryptozoological legends that are merely not as publicezed as Stuff White People Like :)
 

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