The White Outdoors

…with ethnic minorities often deterred from heading into the outdoors due to deep-rooted, complex barriers…
We know from mathematics that any complex barrier has a real component and an imaginary component. I’m willing to wager that a graph of this barrier would have a slope so steep as to be almost asymptotic.

I realize that Minnesota is a long way from Scotland (though Macalester college has a killer bagpipe corps), but I gotta say that if I saw Ms. Mahmood on a hiking path around these parts, I wouldn’t give her a second glance. Hell, she could pull a Buff over her head in lieu of the burka and nobody would ever know the difference.
Now, if she’s prostrate on the ground beside the path, then she’s certainly going to have people making sure she’s okay, and if she were a decent human being, she’d be grateful to receive the care and concern of strangers, no matter how pale their skin. But no: “sometimes I just want to enjoy my time outdoors and switch off.” See, the thing about ostentatious displays of prayer is that, well, they draw attention. If she finds one of the pillars of her faith to be an occasional annoyance, she needs to understand that that’s the whole point! Does she really understand so little about her own faith?
I’m reminded of the argument I had long ago with an Amish neighbor of mine in Pennsylvania. What started as a devotion to humility and modesty led to the shunning of any adornment or modern convenience that might be considered “fancy.” Fair enough, but the resulting costume and lifestyle turned Amish country into the largest tourist destination in the mid-Atlantic. Maybe if you don’t want to draw attention to yourself, don’t go out of your way to draw attention to yourself, yes?
Anyways, forget about the Berghaus collaboration — Buff has you covered (literally!) already.

I admit I don’t have as clear an idea of what *drives* the UK outdoorsman as I do the US outdoorsman, but it very often reflects a forceful personal independence. Like it or not, such personal independence is a highlight of socially-demeaned “whiteness”, and very often not a hallmark of the Left’s well-cultivated farms of social capital of whatever race.
People who settle in enclaves because they’re close to people like them are a different cloth than people who settle a comfortable distance away from everyone because they don’t like *anybody* all that much, really. Quiet self-sufficiency, strong personality, and resolve are to be encouraged only as facets, otherwise combined Those People might Get Their Own Ideas. A preference for solitude is right out.
Such a well-tamed population heading out beyond the suburbs and buying a house and a garden?
“Why would my happy pets leave me?”
So how to make sure a *herd* will perform an activity simulating independence? Make it the *herd* thing to do. Everyone else is doing it, you should too. The flirtation by the semi-idle semi-wealthy with the idea of *looking* like they are independent spirits puts the largest share of money into Outdoors Inc. It’s a preexisting herd-like behavior tailor-made for adaptation, clearly.
What one must do is convince the favored pet of the merits of Performatively Being Outside, without all that icky independence. Unfortunately, when you actively recruit for Performative Minority, you get Performative Minority which is so Performative that it drives Regular Sane Minority away. I defy anyone to say that Ms. Mahmood’s interest in the outdoors is as anything other than a venue for Being Seen To Be Muslim and to garner fashionable attention.
Such a mystery why “Act as entitled as a wealthy white twerp, but as an ethnic caricature version instead!” isn’t appealing.

An obvious solution presents itself that should satisfy everyone. Muslim only hiking groups. Time allotted for prayers, no chance of being exposed to non-halal foods, no unwanted glances from strangers, in fact no interactions with Kafirs at all. Ms. Mahmood has been handed a golden opportunity, Carpe Diem and all that. Wait…you mean you just wanted to whine? Never mind then.

” . . . (though Macalester college has a killer bagpipe corps) . . . “
If you’ve never woken early on a Saturday in Dupre Hall to learn that your next-door neighbor is a piper, you don’t completely understand how appropriate the word “killer” is when referring to bagpipes.

…deep-rooted, complex barriers…
Apparently this may not be an issue for some BAME.

It’s also worth noting that this supposed oppression doesn’t seem to affect all minorities. During my own jaunts into the nearby Peak District National Park, I routinely see East Asian people, often students, enjoying walks and the scenery. They don’t appear to be emotionally crushed by the awful whiteness of it all. The Other Half and I ran into one visiting East Asian chap, a dad with his young son, who was eager to share his appreciation for the landscape, which, to him, was very unusual. While chatting, I’m fairly confident he wasn’t being excluded by my pallor.

…the largest share of money into Outdoors Inc.
Here’s the other thing that doesn’t fit reality. The people who sell outdoorsy clothing and equipment and services are desperate to get kids away from their PlayStations and get parents to take their kids camping or hiking or boating or fishing or hunting or really anything outdoors. The idea that people who love the outdoors would discourage others from enjoying the outdoors is simply absurd.
Per David’s experience in the Peak District, a love of nature and fresh air is the sort of thing that transcends other tribal markers.
I’m starting to suspect that this is less about making BAMEs go outside than it is about making white Grauniadiers feel guilty about, well, about everything.

The British countryside remains a distinctly white and often intimidating place for BAME communities.

Despite our best efforts, snowfalls are not just a thing of the past.

Some offhand observations:
My girlfriend is of Caribbean ancestry, although she was born and raised in Canada in the same suburb I grew up in. Whereas I was thrown out the back door at 10:30 am every Saturday and told “no more cartoons, come back at dinner time”, thus necessitating lengthy explorations of the undeveloped city property adjacent to the suburb, she was raised on a steady diet of Fear of Leaving the House. Getting her to go and do outdoorsy things is a constant challenge as she vastly prefers living in a city. Having seen firsthand her entire family’s reticence to go outside I can say there’s some kind of cultural standard at play, but it’s subtle.
this supposed oppression doesn’t seem to affect all minorities.
The area I live in has a nearby escarpment, which means a lot of public parks with waterfalls, hiking trails, etc. Over the last five to ten years, the massive exodus of people from the nearby expensive city means visiting one of these parks on a weekend has gone from a quiet amble where you might see a dozen other people, to a density of one person for every ten square feet of walkable terrain. And all of them are of Indian/Pakistani ethnicity.
Amish country […] Maybe if you don’t want to draw attention to yourself, don’t go out of your way to draw attention to yourself, yes?
I grew up in Old Order Mennonite[1] country and when the local farming town turned into a tourist trap they closed their businesses and relocated them. They’re pretty serious about the isolation.
“Sometimes, prayer times fall during a walk so I might have to stop and pray, which can cause more unwanted attention and stares. It shouldn’t be something to be gawked at.”
Muslim prayer involves ritual washing beforehand, and combined with the actual prayer can take upwards of ten minutes. I’m guessing the other people would like to get on with the f*cking hike rather than stand around waiting. If you think this is a racism thing, try interrupting a hike to take a ten minute phone call and see what kind of looks you get.
[1] Basically the same thing as Amish[2]
[2] Yes, yes, I do actually know the subtle differences between the various Anabaptist sects but from here it’s all just porkpie hats

Because she can walk up and down hills. Among white people, even.
Stunning and brave! Someone had to say it.

Previously and somewhat related.

Is it me or has ‘journalism’ become a sort of Mad Libs™ with bylines & colour photography?

Maybe she’d be more comfortable if she moved to a country where a majority of the women walk around in hijabs. It seems rather more onerous to try to convince an entire nation to cater to you. I don’t see a lot of Western women going to conservative Muslim countries and demanding to be allowed to walk around in short-shorts and halter tops.

I don’t see a lot of Western women going to conservative Muslim countries and demanding to be allowed to walk around in short-shorts and halter tops.
That’s because, if they are lucky, they are arrested. If not lucky, they are stoned.

white water was for white people. Because only white people are crazy enough to go out in it voluntarily. Something about mad dogs and Englishmen.
Come now, you’re perfectly aware that white people have no culture, only an infective yet nebulous whiteness. Any such cultural norm is all in your head and/or omnipresent and evil, oppressing you as much as you oppress others with it. Rafts are patriarchy, that’s what it is.

Many advocates say public information about parks and outdoor activities are not tailored to communities of color. Posted signs, for example, are mostly in English rather than Spanish.
Or ghettospeak.

Brown people just don’t like the outdoors, at least not in countries with cooler climates.
I don’t know if it is accurate to characterize the dislike as being climate-related. However, I do know that in America a dislike of outdoor recreation seems to be very common among native-born black people, and the dislike goes so far as disparaging it as “white people” stuff. (Sort of like doing well in school is “acting white”? /wink) I tend to attribute it to the fact that such a large fraction of blacks live in central urban areas and reflexively hate anything they see as being “white”. This is far from a universal pattern but it is common. On the other hand it does seem to be slowly changing.

So says the Guardian’s north of England correspondent,
I’m surprised they have one.
Maybe they haven’t totally forgotten their Manchester roots

It’s a townie thing – white, black or in between, urban dwellers don’t understand and are are frightened of the countryside.
I’ve known New Yorkers (and TBF, a couple of my own quasi-city Pittsburgh relatives) freak out at the idea of me walking into my back yard and picking an orange or grapefruit off my own tree and eating it WITHOU IT BEING PROCESSED IN A FACTORY!!! Similar for gigged frogs (though not my thing) or other wild animals.

It’s a townie thing – white, black or in between, urban dwellers don’t understand and are are frightened of the countryside.
I don’t know what side of the Atlantic you’re on, but my ‘old world’ experience is very different. Historically, appreciation of the beauty of nature (as opposed to its utility) is something that emerged with urbanisation. Most people I meet and chat with on hill walks are townies, not necessarily from big cities but frequently so.
After all, if the countryside is where you earn your living, then you don’t need to ‘get away’ to the countryside when you have time off; you spend every working day tramping around fields so it’s probably the last thing you’d view as a leisure activity (for the same reason that professional fishermen tend not to spend their days off messing around on boats).
This can lead to culture clashes between farmers who are trying to run a business and ramblers who don’t understand (or pretend not to understand) that you can’t just walk through a field of crops or scare someone’s sheep. Happily, compromises that work for everyone are usually found.

I forgot to mention my other point. Because appreciation of nature as something beautiful (rather than useful or maybe scary or maybe just there) is a relatively recent historical phenomenon in the West (East Asia has its own historical trajectory), we shouldn’t be surprised that it hasn’t emerged in many cultures and sub-cultures. If you’ve ever gone to somewhere like Kruger Park in South Africa, you’ll have been struck by how few black visitors you see and that’s in a country where black people are the overwhelming majority of the population and many black people have a comfortable Western standard of living (albeit a minority of black people but more than enough in absolute numbers to be noticed if they went to safari parks).
Even in East Asia, while there is a long tradition of nature painting, for example, sticking on the hiking boots and heading for the hills is only beginning to catch on.
‘Brown’ people aren’t being excluded by anyone; they just aren’t into it.

It seems to me that a large part of the problem is that Africans and Asians who live in Britain tend to live in Towns and Cities amongst other people who look and behave just like them. When they travel to the countryside, however, they are forced to confront the fact that they are a member of a minority ethnic group. This, naturally, makes them feel uncomfortable; after all, I wouldn’t expect to feel at home in, say, Japan or Somalia.
We also have the usual demands that: ‘ Things must change!’. Why, exactly? Why should the British have to change their habits, traditions and infrastructure to suit Africans and Asians better?
The whole article reeks of arrogance and entitlement.

Brown people(nay black)very much in charge there
They must have developed an unconscious whiteness and have been oppressing themselves. How tragic.
/s
Truthfully, I was ceding that damn fool reckless outdoorsing of the “mad dogs and Englishmen” kind as The Phantom was referring to is often a province of white folk and their culture(s), but that’s the thing about anything typical to one culture or another, isn’t it? Meant to be shared, with no “appreciating culture” license needed.
I also remarked upthread on (as others better put it, “townies”) and those people who form farms of social capital of whatever race. Your adventurous men on the Zambezi would be a different mentality entirely than any of those.

Yup. But then arrogant and entitled is very much the Guardian house style.
They seem determined to encourage precisely the kind of whiny self-absorption and practised victimhood that, in the real world, tends to irritate and repel.

Heh.

Yeah. Being 6’4″, I know the feeling. Especially when traveling in Italy, or Japan, or the UK, or Mexico, or Ireland. You bastards.
It’s not your height, it’s your taste in shirts.

On the Freedom side of the Atlantic it’s a bit different.
This is why getting older sucks. At one time I am sure I would have understood what this means.

It’s also worth noting that this supposed oppression doesn’t seem to affect all minorities. During my own jaunts into the nearby Peak District National Park, I routinely see East Asian people, often students, enjoying walks and the scenery.
I’m reminded of my visit to the shores of Lake Erie. We were visiting the local university with our son and decided to drive north to see the lake.
There, along the stretch of what can best be described as beach, was a diverse swath of humanity out for a fun day at the shore. Families of all races and hues, and I would have had to take a census to figure out which race dominated. Best I could tell, they were all minorities.
Except for one thing, they were all families, with old people, parents, kids of various ages, and they were all having a blast. I wouldn’t say primitive, but my weird brain kicked up an image of families doing this by the lake for generations, thousands of years even. What group of people, seeing a calm body of fresh water, wouldn’t want to take the opportunity to strip, wash up, splash, pile sand on the shore, and eat and drink? It’s a universal indulgence of pleasure, a momentary glimpse of heaven.

I was informed by A-A coworkers that white people used to go out Sundays to have a picnic, and “picnic” means “pick a n—-r,” and white families would grab black people up and hang them, and then have their lunch under the tree, and that’s why white people like to go outdoors still.

And why do so few virile young black men drive minivans?
Asking for a used car dealer friend.

The White Outdoors
Is it racist to refer to Canada and Alaska as the Great White North?