Posted on 07/11/2015 7:57:43 AM PDT by Second Amendment First
SEATTLE MOUNT RAINIER stands sentry over Seattle. On clear days, the mountain is the dominant backdrop, particularly in the citys southeast, where its most racially diverse neighborhoods embrace their majestic setting with names like Rainier Valley and Rainier Beach.
Michelle Perry lives in an adjoining neighborhood and travels to work on Rainier Avenue South. The looming mountain enchants and beguiles nearly the entire way. She knows she can keep driving south and visit Rainier and the national park that surrounds it. Ms. Perry, 58, an African-American, has an idea about what shed find up there mosquitoes, which she hates, and bears, cougars and wolves, which she fears.
The mountains are beautiful to watch, she said, pausing for effect, from a distance.
As it approaches its centennial on Aug. 25, 2016, the National Park Service says it wants to encourage people like Ms. Perry to visit. It has its work cut out for it.
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Jeff Cheatham grew up in southeast Seattle, and still lives in Mount Rainiers shadow. Yet, he said of Mount Rainier and other national parks, Ive never been, and never thought about going. A 29-year-old African-American writer, Mr. Cheatham said he didnt even know what a national park was, or what he would be likely to find at one. As far as I know, its a big field of grass, he said.
A neighbor, Carla DeRise, has been to Mount Rainier and other parks, and is game to go again. She just cant get any of her friends to come along. They are worried about unfriendly white people, hungry critters and insects, and unforgiving landscapes, said Ms. DeRise, 51, an African-American. So she mainly hikes alone, albeit with some anxiety. I dont have a weapon, she quipped. Yet.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Beat me to it.
I have spent a fair amount of time in my life in the GSMNP and I have yet to see any minority hanging from trees. Geez is race all these people thing about? They need to get a life. Oh and I don’t want any Hip Hop concerts in Cades Cove. The whole point of wilderness areas is quiet and solitude not urban chaos. If I want that I’ll spend a weekend exploring downtown Chicago.
>> Why is the NFL so black? <<
Maybe because blacks don’t do well enough in basketball?
Just like libraries.
Do you really think that the whites who frequent National Parks would welcome urban blacks?
Seen from the ‘hood, the Mt. Rainier glaciers look like huge cotton fields and if they show up, they’ll be forced to pick it all.
Liberals changed Illegal Aliens to Immigrants ,burdened your life with recycling and now White Privilege will be what you think when you see a White person
So they don’t go because it’s a racist atmosphere and it’s a racist atmosphere because they don’t go. I have to sit down now, I’m dizzy.
I doubt they even notice other tourists unless they are acting feral in the cafeteria or gift shop, then they might be unfriendly enough to get up and leave
Visiting a national park is not exactly a crowd encounter experience
But then they would need a free car to drive there, right? Because the optics of busing them would NOT be good...
lol
That he was a liberal apologist for black criminality only adds a bit of irony to his tragic ending..shot and killed while out hiking the day before Thanksgiving.
I’ve been to The Grand Canyon & Yosemite and both were swarming with Germans...so they must be Nazis,...that’s it the Nazis are taking over our national parks!
Well then the racist zoning that stops the building of subway lines and bus stops from the inner city to Malibu and Yosemite needs to be changed!
Plus more folks need to be given cars. Electric and hybrid cars of course
They're called Rangers.
Yogi! Is that you?
Looking down at my skin. I have various shades of beige to almost yellow with green and purple where my veins are.
Correct. And I am sure that there are a number of wealthy minorities who visit National Parks, but it seems that the numbers do not match the numbers that some believe should be there based upon some kind of a statistical model.
Frankly, how would the Park service know how many people of any ethnicity are in a park? I do not recall completing an ethnicity survey when I visit National Parks. Are park rangers now running around asking people about their ethnic background?
What do you fear the most while in a park? A group of Rangers, a group of teenage European tourists, a group of teenage Asian tourists, or a group of teenage blacks, a group of bears, or a herd of bison?
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