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Op-Ed What's missing when you hike the California backcountry? People of color
latimes.com ^ | Aug. 28, 2016 | Nina Revoyr

Posted on 08/28/2016 10:55:31 AM PDT by PROCON


Last month, two friends and I backpacked for a week in the Sierra Nevada. We hiked through meadows dotted with wildflowers, slept beneath snow-draped peaks and met plenty of other hikers: the dad and son whose Green Bay Packers caps sparked a conversation about our mutual ties to Wisconsin; scientists from UC Santa Cruz studying flowers and rock formations; five recent college grads from Kentucky who were hiking the John Muir Trail before they scattered to begin their adult lives.

But as the days passed, I grew increasingly troubled by the people we didn’t meet. There were a few Asian hikers, including a couple of hapas like me (I’m half Japanese and half Polish) and one of my friends was half-Iranian, but not a single backpacker who was Latino or African American.

This near-total absence of people of color — which I’ve noticed on past trips as well — was particularly striking because it was such a contrast to my everyday life. I live and work in Los Angeles. The majority of people in my working life are Latino, African American or Asian, and the people in my personal life, including my Mexican American spouse, are reflective of the city’s population.

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Society
KEYWORDS: backcountry; blackpeople; itsnotfair; liberalism; waaaahhhh; waaaambulance; whitepeople
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To: Mr Rogers
After all...glaciers are WHITE! We have a national park dedicated to whiteness! How oppressive is that?!

Thanks a lot, now I'm on a white guilt trip! :-)

101 posted on 08/28/2016 2:31:56 PM PDT by PROCON ("Lock Her Up! Lock Her Up!")
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To: PROCON

Look, people need to understand they are a culture that does not appreciate the same things that many whites do, because whites do.

There are exceptions both ways, but the truth is the truth. Urban folks like urban things.


102 posted on 08/28/2016 2:34:33 PM PDT by Molon Labbie (Hillary- Time To Change the Bag...)
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To: normbal

“Many criminals, Viet Nam vets, out to escape the world...”

Oh, dear. She’s found me out.

Seriously, the people in the ‘hoods, the ghettos, the projects, they love outdoor recreation. Things like shooting drugs in back alleys, having gunfights across busy streets; it’s all a matter of choice, as I see it. Choice is good, right?


103 posted on 08/28/2016 2:53:21 PM PDT by beelzepug (For English press #1; for Spanish, learn English and press #1)
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To: EinNYC
When my children were young my husband and I would take them to the Philadelphia and Baltimore museums and zoos. In cities that were predominantly black there were almost no blacks and few Latinos in the sites we chose to visit. Mostly there were families who looked like us ( white, older parents, and well educated).

By the way, thank you to all the poor people who paid taxes to subsidized our lifestyle.

104 posted on 08/28/2016 2:54:21 PM PDT by wintertime (Stop treating government teachers like they are reincarnated Mother Teresas!)
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To: JBW1949

I’ve lived rough due to necessity. I live right now what many would consider rough, no need to go out where there are rattlesnakes, cougars and and sleep in a tent to “experience nature”! I like sleeping in my own bed. I can understand for people who live in cities, why they would like to camp. I already live way out there.


105 posted on 08/28/2016 2:56:06 PM PDT by little jeremiah (Half the truth is often a great lie. B. Franklin)
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To: PROCON

You won’t see black people water skiing or swimming. Guess that’s the crackers’ fault, too.


106 posted on 08/28/2016 2:56:28 PM PDT by bgill (From the CDC site, "We don't know how people are infected with Ebola")
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To: little jeremiah

The economy sucks-not much work, so I’m living in a place best described as primitive right now-fortunately I’m no stranger to hard living-when I was younger I lived in a herding shack on the ranch because times were hard, money tight-and I wanted/needed the solitude of that desolate place.

At least I have running water, indoor plumbing and electricity now-there was none of that in the herding shack-but I’d rather be living hard here in the woods than living soft in a city...


107 posted on 08/28/2016 2:56:35 PM PDT by Texan5 ("You've got to saddle up your boys, you've got to draw a hard line"...)
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To: Texan5

I am so much on the same page. I’m on 5 acres and I’m really not far away enough from the neighbors. Surrounded by mountains and countless acres of national forest. If I was younger and healthier I’d love to go on DAY hikes.


108 posted on 08/28/2016 2:58:34 PM PDT by little jeremiah (Half the truth is often a great lie. B. Franklin)
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To: NewHampshireDuo
Wasn’t there an article a few months ago about how threatening the National Parks are to minorities? Can’t quite remember why that was supposedly so.

One reason was, too many white people.

I'll see if I can find that article for ya.

109 posted on 08/28/2016 3:03:04 PM PDT by Roccus (When you talk to a politician, any politician, just say, "Remember Ceaucescu"))
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To: NewHampshireDuo

Here ya go

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3311385/posts

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/12/opinion/sunday/diversify-our-national-parks.html?_r=0


110 posted on 08/28/2016 3:12:10 PM PDT by Roccus (When you talk to a politician, any politician, just say, "Remember Ceaucescu"))
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To: PROCON

Are we suppose to drag them out there by their hair?


111 posted on 08/28/2016 3:13:29 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear (Proud Infidel, Gun Nut, Religious Fanatic and Freedom Fiend)
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To: little jeremiah

I’m on a bit over 3 acres, my shelter is a small, ancient and falling apart mobile home-but there are lots of trees, a deck, I can grow a lot of my own veggies and herbs, the closest neighbor over an acre away-the river and woods are just a few 100 feet past the fence-and I love to hike and spend time in the woods, so it isn’t all bad.

My plan-when work and the economy picks up-is to buy a few acres a couple of roads away near a big creek-where it is even more isolated-and build myself a cabin. If that f’ing Hillary were to win, I’ll likely just be living poorer-my new and better life depends on her losing, bigtime...


112 posted on 08/28/2016 3:20:33 PM PDT by Texan5 ("You've got to saddle up your boys, you've got to draw a hard line"...)
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To: Roccus

That is so ridiculous that it is laughable-the people who write articles like that are not playing with a full deck, in my humble opinion...


113 posted on 08/28/2016 3:23:44 PM PDT by Texan5 ("You've got to saddle up your boys, you've got to draw a hard line"...)
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To: T-Bird45

Glad you liked it. At least it was well written, I’m finding it harder and harder to find things that are.

I shared it on FB too, to my son-in-law and father of the grandson and to my brother who worked at Yellowstone.


114 posted on 08/28/2016 3:45:56 PM PDT by jocon307
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To: PROCON

.
What was really missing from her personal experience on the trail was anyone was not a racist.
.


115 posted on 08/28/2016 4:01:21 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they'd be)
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To: JBW1949

Actually. Most of the cowboys, LE in Indian territories, and original fur trappers in the Rockies were blacks. Most of them lived free lives. Then LBJ came along.


116 posted on 08/28/2016 4:12:12 PM PDT by Safetgiver (Islam makes barbarism look genteel.)
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To: PROCON

That’s okay. I don’t see too many white people everywhere else.


117 posted on 08/28/2016 4:25:25 PM PDT by Oratam
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To: PROCON

Another stupid white person who thinks they know what black people should be doing.


118 posted on 08/28/2016 4:26:08 PM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Safetgiver

I agree...Bill Pickett was very famous...But I’m referring to the way they’ve lived the last 75 years...Inner city....


119 posted on 08/28/2016 4:28:07 PM PDT by JBW1949 (I'm really PC....PATRIOTICALLY CORRECT!!!!)
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To: PROCON
This near-total absence of people of color — which I’ve noticed on past trips as well

Hiking is a bit like work ... takes time, commitment, dedication, and effort. The experiences you get in the backcountry; the things you see and hear and get to do are earned, the hard way, not given to you.

120 posted on 08/28/2016 4:32:14 PM PDT by NorthMountain (Hillary Clinton: corrupt unreliable negligent traitor)
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