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'Everything Is Racist' Now Includes the Outdoors, Except the Accusers Are Exposing Their Own Racism
Townhall.com ^ | August 19, 2020 | Brad Slager

Posted on 08/19/2020 5:16:48 AM PDT by Kaslin

This practice in the media of journalists needing to find a racial problem in society is becoming more than comical; it is bordering on pathological. It feels like an internal memo went out declaring that every member of the press has to come up with at least one systemic racist example by a deadline. How else to explain the dolts who see racism in crosswalk signs, or declare that front lawns at homes are inspired by supremacy. They even declare there is racism within the robot community; somehow the bias towards skin color involves machines which do not have skin.

One of the  more ludicrous accusations is also one of the most revealing. There is a supposition out there that the practice of camping or even visiting the National Parks is rooted in an exclusionary system. More than an idle columnist dreaming up this theory, there have been a number of reports of this nature, detailing racism in nature. When providing the examples of what might be keeping the POC from visiting the national vistas you get some reflexive racism - from those leveling the charge.

ABC News dug into the issue and found that around three quarters of the people who visit national parks are white. They quote an individual from The Sierra Club who declared this was due to systemic racism. Here’s the catch; we never get that racist system illustrated. Our national parks are open to anyone. Nowhere are people turned away based on race. It will be tough to lay the blame on the Trump administration. Following years of President Obama encouraging people to go to parks President Trump appointed the first Latino to head the National Park Service.

And let’s not forget, Trump absorbed quite a bit of media heat for going to Mount Rushmore on the Fourth Of July. 

When the piece eventually gets around to looking at the issue, transportation is one challenge cited, but there is also a cultural blockage -- it seems many who are classified as a minority are simply not as interested in going outdoors or visiting federal nature lands.

Twice as many black and Hispanic Americans said they don't know what to do in national parks than whites. When asked if they share the same interests as people who visit national parks, 34% of Black respondents and 27% of Hispanics said no, compared with only 11% of whites.

So rather than a nefarious racist force keeping the minority citizens away it sounds more like they just do not see the point in going. Is the solution then forced attendance in the name of affirmative action? Joining in the outrage the LA Times also got involved in the outdoors is racist controversy.

Rather than trying to find a system issue they blamed the racist outdoors on another problem -- it is too expensive. Moving past the easy solution, which is you do not elite label camping gear if you go to Wal-Mart and browse its extensive camping gear, there is the built-in assumption. If the LA Times wants to say cost is a challenge to the outdoor experience they are ones who are making the connection to race in this equation. It sounds as if the paper is assuming when ‘’too poor to camp’’ is mentioned that they automatically go to POC being denied.

This soft bigotry also completely misses a reality directly under their own noses. How does the LA Times stipulate that the poor cannot afford camping gear when the city of Los Angeles is beset by thousands who are living on the streets in camping gear and trailers? This kind of unintentional racism on this subject has been going on for years.

Another cause cited for keeping minorities away - the rangers look like cops. Yes, seriously. Says ABC News in its piece, "Park ranger uniforms that resemble what is worn by law enforcement are intimidating to some immigrants and minorities in light of documented cases of profiling.’’ 

When you say the park rangers resembling police or ICE authorities scare off the minorities, but do not affect whites, consider just what is being said. The suggestion that POC have a built-in guilt is an amazing implication.

This echoes speculation made during the Obama administration when it was suggested one thing keeping out some segments of the POC population was the rangers and their vehicles resembled too closely to Immigration Service officers. To arrive at this position you need to have the position that our parks, which are accessible to all citizens, are hatefully scaring off the illegal non-citizens, and this is inherently racist...somehow.

If anything is at issue here is that not as many POC have the interest and desire to go camping or engage in other similar park activities. If this is the case then instead of looking for an unseen evil and trying to assess a blame make the camping/outdoor experience more enticing to those not currently engaged in it. But there is something else not considered.

When you look at the demographics of attendance strictly and see an issue you are ignoring the absence of a negative act. The parks’ gates are open to all. Just because the percentages do not measure up to census figures does not mean something needs to be repaired. Citizens not doing something is not the same as citizens being denied something. 

Some people are seeking out a problem, and they have an interest in fixing it. The issue, as indicated by the poll results they have shown, may be as simple as a number of POC do not have the interest in going to the park.



TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: barackhussein0bama; lawandorder; natparkservice; outrageculture; racism
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1 posted on 08/19/2020 5:16:48 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

I’m white and I have no interest in camping,hiking or going to the parks....


2 posted on 08/19/2020 5:20:33 AM PDT by Hambone 1934
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To: Kaslin

Even poor kids can camp as well as white kids. I am Joe Biden and I approve this message.


3 posted on 08/19/2020 5:21:31 AM PDT by pas
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To: Kaslin
there is no systemic racism....maybe 50 yrs ago....not now, and not in the recent past.....

as for the national parks, if the leftists take full control, bet on it that there will be a national lottery to enter the parks, with preference given to the mattered people....and they won't have to pay...

4 posted on 08/19/2020 5:22:22 AM PDT by cherry
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To: Kaslin

Everything is racist.

The sky is racist. Have you ever noticed that white clouds are peaceful , but yet dark clouds symbolize storms and violence?

Even day and night. Have you ever noticed that daytime is light and bright? Yet nighttime is marked by darkness? Another racism example.

I could go on and on.


5 posted on 08/19/2020 5:27:14 AM PDT by HereInTheHeartland (Leave me alone, I have no incriminating evidence on the Clintons)
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To: cherry
there is no systemic racism....maybe 50 yrs ago....not now, and not in the recent past.....

There is indeed systemic racism. Anti-white systemic racism. Look at hiring policies, grade-school indoctrination, casting for entertainment and commercials, sports BLM advertising, etc.

6 posted on 08/19/2020 5:27:22 AM PDT by Pearls Before Swine
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To: Kaslin

No, the Left is not “racist.” They are anti white. Racism is not some neutral principle that applies across the board. It never was.


7 posted on 08/19/2020 5:37:29 AM PDT by cdcdawg (Biden has dementia.)
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To: Kaslin

Joining in the outrage the LA Times also got involved in the outdoors is racist controversy.

These insane articles serve only as click-bait for a desperate media. I don’t think the writers believe what they’re writing, but the more outlandish the premise, the more hits the story gets. It’s an example junk food “journalism” contributing no actual knowledge to anyone who reads the story.

One might consider conversely in the midst of this panic over Covid, why are there virtually no investigative journalists digging into the origin of the virus at the Wuhan bioweapons lab? The media is strangely incurious about that.


8 posted on 08/19/2020 5:40:02 AM PDT by Flick Lives (My work's illegal, but at least it's honest. - Capt. Malcolm Reynolds)
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To: HereInTheHeartland

Good examples to the extreme. Here’s a comfort for those who see race in everything, most of the Universe is black. Closer to home, once a person gets deep enough in the oceans, it becomes black. Go into a cave/cavern and it is black. There are a few examples that should make racists feel (not think) better.


9 posted on 08/19/2020 5:50:05 AM PDT by A Navy Vet (I'm not Islamophobic - I'm Islamo nauseated. Also LGBTQxyz nauseated)
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To: Kaslin

This is something I noticed years ago. We do frequent forest CG’s, National Parks and state parks. I simply cannot recall seeing any Black people in these outdoors locations. Asians, yes. Hispanics, yes. Black people, no.

There is nothing racist about it. There are absolutely no rules written or implied that are racist. It’s a choice that’s being made not to be outdoors.


10 posted on 08/19/2020 5:55:38 AM PDT by redfreedom
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To: Kaslin

This is something I noticed years ago. We do frequent forest CG’s, National Parks and state parks. I simply cannot recall seeing any Black people in these outdoors locations. Asians, yes. Hispanics, yes. Black people, no.

There is nothing racist about it. There are absolutely no rules written or implied that are racist. It’s a choice that’s being made not to be outdoors.


11 posted on 08/19/2020 5:55:38 AM PDT by redfreedom
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To: redfreedom

Excellent point.


12 posted on 08/19/2020 5:56:43 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Hambone 1934

We used to go camping many years ago at Milford Lake in Kansas when my husband was stationed at Fort Riley. I enjoyed it at first, but then lost interest because I had to do all the work. All he did was make sure he had enough beer.


13 posted on 08/19/2020 6:01:54 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

There is only one place where systemic racism rests in this country: the democrat party. If the dems stopped calling everything racist that wasn’t racist, then everyone would realize just how racist the dems really are.


14 posted on 08/19/2020 6:01:56 AM PDT by Revolutionary ("Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition!")
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To: Kaslin
Come to think of it, racism in nature is responsible for the origin of species.

We'd better ban Charles Darwin's writings and theories.

In fact, we'd better ban the congregation of ALL like creatures--not to mention the flocking together of birds of a feather!

You can't be too careful!

And then there are the plants! What do we do about them?

15 posted on 08/19/2020 6:05:53 AM PDT by Savage Beast (President Trump, loving God, America, and the American People, is on the Side of GOD and the Angels!)
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Comment #16 Removed by Moderator

To: Kaslin

Obama sits with less than six degrees of separation from BLM and the Marxists who have written BLM’s agenda as well as the Marxists writing up “white privilege” and “systemic racism” tomes.

Notice how all the Sierra Club member needed to identify the “systemic racism” in who visits our national parks was the “disparate impact” in the demographic differences in the visitors.

That theme - disparate impact - was the Obama/Holder legal defense for rewriting federal regulations regarding housing - judging housing to be “discriminatory” not because anyone, any individual, realtor, builder or developer demonstrated prejudice, but just because of the “disproportionate” demographic mix of folks residing in some area.

Academics picked that up and started moving the goal posts beyond mere “affirmative action” but judging all “disparate impact” in college admissions as needing non-merit means of deciding all admissions. The earliest impact of those moves, at more than one college/university, was Asian American students with really great academic performance being denied college admissions because TOO MANY ASIANS are qualified. One of those Ivy League colleges was sued by Trump’s DOJ on exactly that issue and lost.


17 posted on 08/19/2020 6:07:27 AM PDT by Wuli
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“Democrats are the real racists” - the rhetoric that failed. Something beyond the Townhall dopes.


18 posted on 08/19/2020 6:09:34 AM PDT by bkopto
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To: Kaslin

But wait, if I watch car ads, it seems every black family has a luxury SUV (and a husband).
So why aren’t they driving to the NPs in their nice SUVs?


19 posted on 08/19/2020 6:13:11 AM PDT by GnuThere
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To: redfreedom

I believe that School classes should go and visit State Parks, but it should be voluntarily, because not every parents could afford the cost.


20 posted on 08/19/2020 6:13:40 AM PDT by Kaslin
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