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In another round of this decade’s revival of “the personal is the political”, racists are dissecting people’s personal leisure activities — you know, things people choose to spend their time and money on for fun, and have gone all frowny-face that not enough black people camp. Which, of course, is white people’s fault.
As millions of Americans escape home quarantine to the great outdoors this summer, they'll venture into parks, campgrounds and forest lands that remain stubborn bastions of self-segregation.@devindwyer reports. https://t.co/Xzmouf4bwM pic.twitter.com/e8PckJcVqn
— ABC News Live (@ABCNewsLive) July 1, 2020
“The outdoors and public lands suffer from the same systemic racism that the rest of our society does,” said Joel Pannell, associate director of the Sierra Club, which is leading an effort to boost diversity in the wilderness and access to natural spaces.
New government data, shared first with ABC News, shows the country’s premier outdoor spaces — the 419 national parks — remain overwhelmingly white. Just 23% of visitors to the parks were people of color, the National Park Service found in its most recent 10-year survey; 77% were white. Minorities make up 42% of the U.S. population.
Joel Pannell trots out the Left’s unsubstantiated phrase systemic racism in trying to explain why black folk don’t choose to spend vacation hours in the national parks. Indeed, in the video above, about the 5:00 mark, he strains to make a connection between not-camping-in-Yellowstone with the recent protests/rioting. He even asserts that black folk don’t have the freedom to visit the parks.
What does this lack of freedom look like? How is it being enforced? Real journalists would have asked those kind of follow up questions.
The other people in the Pravda-media-race-mongering piece talk about their feelings because of their perception that there are just too many white people having WrongFun™ among the pine trees and nature trails. An 8-minute video segment and not one of those interviewed can point to an actual instance of racist discrimination that they encountered within the National Park system.
But but but, the racists cry, 77% of park visitors are “white”, 23% “minority” and — as we all know — 42% of America is minority!! Look at how big the font ABC used on the screen! Must be true, right?
Pravda media lies.
I know, I’m shocked SHOCKED, too.
There are other weaselly slights in the Pravda piece, too, about “some” of the parks being segregated by race, especially with the assertion that the National Park system was originally created to give white people a place to “escape”. And while many the parks that came into being in Jim Crow states did indeed, segregate the camp grounds and services during that post-Civil War period (and lingered because FDR wouldn’t confront Southern Democrats over it), the fact remains that the creation of the park system was about conserving natural places for enjoyment of all people and future generations.
THE ACT OF DEDICATION
AN ACT to set apart a certain tract of land lying near the headwaters of the Yellowstone River as a public park. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the tract of land in the Territories of Montana and Wyoming … is hereby reserved and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States, and dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people; and all persons who shall locate, or settle upon, or occupy the same or any part thereof, except as hereinafter provided, shall be considered trespassers and removed there from …
Approved March 1, 1872.
Signed by:
ULYSSES S. GRANT, President of the United States.
SCHUYLER COLFAX, Vice-President of the United States and President of the Senate.
JAMES G. BLAINE, Speaker of the House.
You know, Ulysses Grant – the abolitionist General who successive prosecuted the Civil War and, as President, helped ratify the 15th amendment and smashed the KKK. But for racist Marxists (I repeat myself), he’s just wipypo so must be destroyed.
There’s no such thing as a good white person.
Here’s some personal advice to media racists. I love camping. Why? Because as a youngster I was a Girl Scout during the time that Scouting was primarily focused on The Great Outdoors and what all the life skills in learning to spend time there taught us. Scouting was focused on the same conservation ethos behind the founding of Yellowstone Park. Let’s be frank, camping, per se, isn’t the easiest of vacations. Staying at a nice resort hotel with room service is oodles easier. Unless people have learned at one point or another how to be a successful camper, modern resorts are going to be the choice of most. You want more future park visitors, campers and hikers of any color? Get back to supporting Scouting in its original, non-woke, configuration and create more such troops.
And leave people alone to make their own choices, especially on leisure-time activities.
Stop seeing racists behind every perceived disparity because looking in the mirror should prove to be enough.
featured image, Adobe stock standard license
NTSOG says: I gather that the BBC in the UK has recently announced that rural England is too ‘white’. Who would have thought that the Nation established by Caucasians over many centuries would be inhabited by Caucasians. Of course rural England in comparison to the big cities, full of ethnic gangs, is still ‘English’ and why shouldn’t it be? If people want a different ‘ethnic’ experience then perhaps they should go to China, the middle East, Mongolia, Japan, and so on. People from different lands who wanted to come to England for its advantages and presumably because it is ‘English’ were welcomed by the English, but now it’s wrong to be English. The perverted ‘logic’ of these wokels is beyond belief.
Andrew B says: I was a National Park Ranger 30 years ago, when this same question was initially raised. The government spent a great deal of money asking minorities why they don’t spend time in the outdoors. The final explanation, after lengthy study, was “Black people don’t go to the woods because black people don’t go to the woods.” Here we are three decades later rehashing the same nonsense. I guess we should pave over Yellowstone so that minorities will feel more comfortable.
Scott says: Growing up, my family was dirt poor, and as a result, ALL of the vacations I took, until I left home for the army were camping trips… So please explain to me how black folks don’t have the freedom to vacation in the woods? In most areas, a campsite at an “improved” campsite with facilities is maybe $20 a night. Even if you rent a camper (maybe $60 a night), you’re still well under the price of a hotel room in those areas. If you have some skills as Darleen points out, or maybe just spent some time learning about it on you tube, rent that same camper, and head to National Forest and save the site fee.. Or spend what a camper would cost for a week and get a tent, and you’re set for years…
As usual, the only racists in this “conversation” are the ones screaming “racist!”..
Cultural norms / preferences, as well as in many cases lack of the traditional nuclear family (also tied to those norms and preferences) is a much more likely explanation..
Ace O'Dale says: I drive for a shuttle provides service to Jackson, WAY and Grand Teton National Park. Among my passengers today were a black family that had just spent a week in Yellowstone and Grand Teton. They said they loved the visit, enjoyed seeing the animals, and getting away from the coastal heat.
I’ve been driving this region for twelve years and this encounter is not unusual. Minorities DO come here. The premise from ABC is pure fallacious race-baiting.
Linda Hagen-Mooney says: I wish, just once, that as a response to this nonsense someone would say something like “then sell all the federal parkland back to the states”. They complain that minorities don’t use it, then fine. Get rid of it. IDC frankly. Let ranchers graze their cattle on it, it makes me no never mind. And it takes it away from them as an issue
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