CNN: Outdoor Activities Are Steeped In Institutional Racism

Did you ever see an article published by CNN, a.k.a. “Crappy News Network”) and feel like your IQ has been lowered several points afterward? This is what happened to me today.

CNN’s Leah Asmelash went out of her way to analyze (a generous term) the history of outdoor activities and who participates in them. Her evidence included the histories of eugenics and poets such as Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau. She also used inconclusive and muddled pieces to prove that outdoor activities were influenced by institutional racism.

Although Asmelash acknowledges that parks used to be segregated for black and white people, that is still racist. However, that is a long time ago and it is not illegal for anyone to enjoy the great outdoors.

Related: Trail Athletes Claim Outdoor Sports Aren’t Inclusive Enough

However, in the name of “diversity and inclusion,” people of color are insisting that someone make the outdoors a safe space for them to enjoy.

The ironic thing is that their solution to the perceived “racism” in the outdoors is by continuing to separate themselves from the rest of society.

Groups like Black Girls Hike RVA, Outdoor Afro, and Indigenous Women Hike have all formed in an attempt to “change the idea that outdoor recreation is only for White people.” There will also be an all-black group of climbers who will attempt Mount Everest’s summit – they will call themselves the “Full Circle Everest Expedition.”

Groups like this need to have a bigger goal than just showing that black people can fish and hike.

You can ask your friend to take you for a walk through the woods. You can birdwatch and chat with the other trail users, regardless of their skin color.

These strategies seem to promote unity. This is what the country needs more than groups who create nonsensical stories in order to get attention.