Black Lives Matter.
Why is that even a controversial statement? Black Lives Matter. And white "mainstream" society has been acting as if they don't for far too long. I could get into this and write you a whole speech, but there are actual scholars who have written about it far better than I could. Read a book, a few articles. Do your homework on what we are fighting against. Get with the times.
That is not actually what I want to talk about since there are a lot of people better qualified than me who have written a lot of brilliant works on the topic. I'm looking at a specific aspect that got to me for some strange reason.
A number of outdoor brands have shared statements of solidarity with BLM and other anti-racist causes. Many have posted plans to do better going forward. The outdoor industry is dominated by white voices, white images, white (male) people. This is not news. This is not the first (or the last) time that I have delved into this issue. Over the past week or so, many of the outdoor brands that I follow across various social media platforms have posted and been met with extreme anger, hatred, ignorance. Many have been quite diligent about deleting the worst of the comments, but a few of them remain.
These are just a few, from just 2 brands. They are some of the milder ones as the worst of them are being removed.
I was trying to figure out why this specifically bothered me so much, beyond the obvious. And I think it is because outdoor adventure was supposed to be my happy place. A place where safety was defined by survival and adventure skills, not by fearing what other humans would be a direct threat. Because I don't know any of these people. I bet a lot of them are all talk. But behind all that anger, there is some threat. Some lingering threat that even in my so-called happy place, a lot of people don't feel safe, don't feel welcome. Which I did already know. I just expected better. I don't know why, but I did. I liked the illusion of hikers as a bunch of nature loving hippie souls.
I knew, I just tried not to see it. It's why I drifted away from some outdoor groups I had been a part of. Too little diversity, too much of the same voices speaking over, interrupting anyone with a different experience. Too much emphasis on "conquering" the outdoors. Not on being in it, being part of it, bringing more people into that place that was supposed to bring us joy.
In Canada, every time I go hiking or running, I am on stolen land. And I do think about it. And how the people the land was stolen from are never the faces you see hiking in national parks. And I have heard every ridiculous excuse. But not very many people asking why? Why don't BIPOC feel welcome by outdoor enthusiasts, by the hiking groups that show up in my social media feeds? Why aren't we doing something about it?
The thing is, even if we transform the outdoor industry (and the world) tomorrow, it will not be soon enough. People at the political center always talk about "incremental change" and urge patience, but actual people are dead. There is no time for patience. It can't change fast enough.
