ABSTRACT
Discussions about race and ethnicity are confusing unless terms are defined. As Polley (1998:136) quite rightly says ‘it is worth thinking critically about the terminology and ideology involved’. Coakley (1998:249) defines race as ‘a category of people regarded as socially distinct because they share genetically transmitted traits believed to be important in the group or society’. Further, Coakley maintains that when people talk about ‘races’ they assume the existence of a classification system used to categorise all the people of the world into distinct groups on the basis of certain biological traits or dispositions present at birth. Groups such as Asians, Australian Aborigines, American Indians, Whites and Blacks are some of the most popular distinctive groups. It must be realised, however, that many people cannot be neatly pigeon-holed into these categories. For example, Daley Thompson, a double Olympic gold medalist in the decathlon is the son of a black Nigerian father and a white Scottish mother. When approached for an interview for a book entitled Black Sportsmen by Ernest Cashmore (1982) Thompson declined to be interviewed as he did not perceive himself to be black. A person’s own perception of themself is crucial in this regard (Polley, 1998).
