Posted on 10/31/2011 7:21:57 AM PDT by CW_Conservative
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For more than 60 years, the National Park Service has been trying to reach out to African Americans and Latinos. But its 395 parks, monuments, waterways, historic places and recreational areas remain largely the province of white Americans and tourists from around the world.
In an interview, Park Service Director Jon Jarvis reiterated an old lament: Parks must attract a more diverse slice of the American public or eventually risk losing taxpayer support. Yet only about 1% of the nearly 4 million people who visit Yosemite each year are African Americans.
So officials were elated earlier this month when they learned that two groups of African Americans... were touring the park on the same day.
That meant there were more than 65 black Americans on the valley floor on the same day, an event so rare that ranger Shelton Johnson... called it "possibly unprecedented."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I'm a fisherman, but when you have 60 people along 150ft of waterline, each with a chum bucket, it makes for a less than pleasant spot for the family.
Additionally, since mullet don't bite (they must be snagged), so you have 12 foot poles whipping 30’ of treble hooks back and forth overhead.
But hey, the multi-cultural experience is what counts.
Somehow, I believe that is exactly the point.
I dont get special rates when I visit Harlem or Mexico - in fact, I face special dis-incentives to visit those areas.
HAW!
Big dis-incentives!
I was just telling the wife the other day, “You know hon, America needs more ‘diversity’ at our National Parks”. Geesh. Morons.
Create a cartoon character called MC Yosemite Dawg.
I guess they could do busing programs....
/sarc.
What a ridiculous story.
I strongly advise Pat Buchanan’s Suicide of a Superpower for anyone interested in how we got to this point of lunacy and where it leads.
He may be daft a bit on Israel...though not in this book, he actually gives a decent explanation...but he is 110% spot on about how screwed up our’s and western culture is.
I can see it now.
Gang members will learn how to rock climb and we will start seeing gang signs all over Half Dome and El Capitan.
And on every other tree in Yosemite.
Sickening!
I have NO DOUBT that this current administration is not above spending BILLIONS to bus folks from da hood out to Yosemite, free admission, free meals, free camping, etc.
He will probably even supply the spray paint!
Of course, we all want Yosemite and Yellowstone to look like Detroit or Camden, New Jersey, all in the name of "fairness", don't we?
There are many things they could do to increase diversity at these parks.
Have a graduated payment system based on race, underrepresented races would get in free, taxpayers would pay more to promote diversity.
They could accept SNAP at the food concessions, and souvenir stands.
Claim the Grand Canyon was really dug by slaves
Put 26 rims on all tour busses.
Promote vouchers to those in public housing for guest suites at the park resorts.
Hold lotteries every day first prize American citizenship, second prize diversity scholarship regardless of status, third prize a get out of deportation free card.
Maybe I’m alone here, but I’ve never gone to any state or national park because the government was reaching out to me. It’s been something that interested me, so I packed up and headed out.
I don’t think it has anything to do with having enough money or means to visit either.
The time of my life when I camped the most at state parks was about 10 years ago when my annual salary was under $10,000 a year.
The government will set up an outreach program to pay for vacations for minorities, who obviously have no interest in Yosemite, to visit the park and raise the headcount of non-white faces in the crowd.
The new-found "right" of minorities to a paid vacation will soon become an entitlement.
Minorities will complain that they are being forced to vacation at National Parks when others (white) take their vacations anywhere they want.
The government will expand the program to provide all minorities an annual vacation of their choice anywhere in the world.
Soon minorities, both legal and illegal, will complain that they are treated as second-class people when they vacation because they do not have the same spending money, extensive wardrobes, jewelry, sports paraphernalia, access to yachts, and the accoutrement's as other vacationers.
The government will provide whatever is necessary to ensure vacation equality.
Minorities will sue the government for back vacation compensation (vacation reparations) for all of the vacations they would have liked to take in years past but were denied because they didn't have the wherewithal.
The government will settle generously before the case goes to court. (ala "Pigford")
Eventually the government will be hard pressed to provide the necessary funds to pay the vacation reparations and the cost of the annual vacations for all minorities, both legal and illegal.
As a cost cutting measure national parks, like Yosemite, will be closed. The only group impacted will be non-minorities who pay for their own vacations.
The closures will have little impact on the minority community as minorities no longer take simple, low cost domestic vacations. For the most part they spend their vacations flying to posh resorts and touring foreign countries.
"Greenies" will hail the closures as a significant step in their fight to stop destruction of the earth and reduce carbon emissions.
People that precipitate nature seek it out.
Not much for the “diverse” at the Park.
Yosemite has no welfare offices, no La Raza or Black campers association camp sites.
People that appreciate nature seek it out. There’s no need to seek the people out.
Not much for the “diverse” at the Park.
Yosemite has no welfare offices, no La Raza or Black campers association camp sites.
So I can see it coming, bus them to the forest.
Concur. This is equivalent to trying to raise the diversity index of meat markets by appealing to vegetarians.
the highlights in the article offer a study in bad government.
About 5 years ago the wife and I were site seeing at Mount Rushmore.
We were surprised at large numbers of non english speaking Europeans that were there. Then we began to notice the large number of non english and english speaking Asians that were there.
A black american child ran by and we started noticing the small number of black americans. We saw only three black american families during our stay.
Of course there were a large number of english speaking caucasians around the visitors center.
It is my guess that the ratio of black americans was 1 in 100 or less of the total number of people at the Mount Rushmore Visitors Center.
un effing believable.
Is any further proof needed that we have a racist federal government? Virtually everything is viewed in terms of skin color.
The irony of this all is that, although we have deified Rev. Martin Luther King, we completely ignore his basic message, that a man should be judged by his character and not the color of his skin.
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