Problematic Walking The Great Outdoors

Black Women Climb Hill

October 13, 2024 by David 106 Comments

Attention, people of the world:

She didn’t see other black hikers. She decided to change that.

In the New York Times, Megan Specia reports on a staggering feat of racial fortitude:

Rhiane Fatinikun called out encouragement as the group trudged upward. She was the reason these women had come together to take on this demanding trek.

Or, Black Women Climb Hill.

Specifically, a hill in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Yes, I know, it’s emotionally overwhelming, the defining triumph of our time.

There are photos and everything.

In 2019, motivated by the racial disparity she saw among British hikers, Ms. Fatinikun founded Black Girls Hike. 

Note the use of the word disparity and its intended connotations of unfairness, of unequal treatment. The implication of some dastardly external force at work. As if the demographics of those taking walks in the British countryside weren’t chiefly a result of personal inclination, of leisure-time choices, or a simple matter of geography and where a person has chosen to live.

Her goal was to help open up the outdoors to people who have often seemed invisible in Britain’s countryside, and to shatter the perception that outdoor pursuits in the country’s natural spaces are for the white middle and upper class.

Or, Black Women Complain About Lack Of Black Women In Place Black Women Seldom Visit.

It occurs to me that a perception of the Yorkshire Dales, or the Peak District, or any of Britain’s National Parks, as some exclusive fiefdom of upper-class white people is the kind of misapprehension one might expect from someone who rarely, if ever, visits such places. One of the features of the nearby Peak District, for instance, is the number of East Asian students enjoying the scenery and walking about entirely unmolested.

And we’ve previously touched on ways in which parochial assumptions of racial “representation” will likely be distorted by proximity to the nation’s capital, which in my lifetime has gone from a native white-majority city, over 90%, to a native white-minority one, around 35%, an arrangement wildly out of step with the rest of the nation. Such that, things denounced as “horribly white,” or whatever the current term of disapproval is, may be puzzling to people who live in, say, Chesterfield or Plymouth.

But back to our tale of self-inflicted sorrow:

“Sometimes it’s actually quite sad, because you realise how people are going through life and just not being seen, not being able to be themselves,” Ms Fatinikun, 37, said of the experience of some Black women who felt excluded from these natural spaces. “But I am glad that they feel like they can be whoever they want to be here.”

Well, a walk in the countryside has much to recommend it. Britain’s National Parks are very easy on the eye, and time spent in them can be both enjoyable and restorative. As to why some demographics deny themselves this pleasure, we find the usual, somewhat vague rumblings of injustice and oppression, albeit of a kind not entirely convincing:

Britain’s countryside has long been viewed by some as synonymous with whiteness, said Corinne Fowler, a professor of colonialism and heritage at the University of Leicester, and can feel exclusionary to people from other backgrounds.

At which point, readers might reasonably expect the author of the piece – and Dr Fowler, our professor of colonialism – to reveal exactly how “people from other backgrounds” are being forcibly excluded from hiking, yomping, and casual walks. These cruelly thwarted attempts to enjoy the scenic parts of the country to which they or their parents had moved.

Alas, we are merely told that, “People are very quick to dismiss the suggestion that there is racism in the countryside.” On this point, no details are forthcoming. No damning particulars are presented to sway the reader. None at all. Though clearly, we’re expected to assume the worst.

We are, however, reminded of other struggles:

Ms Fatinikun admits she had a lot to figure out at the start, but she educated herself along the way – including learning how to understand topographical maps and finding the right gear for dealing with unpredictable weather.

Yes, dressing is hard.

We have, it seems, entered a world in which basic map reading and remembering to take a coat are deemed noteworthy achievements.

Of course, it’s not just a matter of waterproofs and picking out suitable footwear. There are other complexities to be navigated:

“Taking a selfie for social media… is an important way… to feel represented,” Ms. Fatinikun said.

Needless to say, our activist’s heroism has not gone unrecognised:

This year, she was given a royal honour — Member of the Order of the British Empire, or M.B.E. 

Regarding Ms Fatinikun’s accomplishment of walking with other women who look a bit like her, we’re told,

The response to the group from Britain’s broader hiking community has been largely positive, but she has faced racist abuse, much of it on social media, particularly after appearing on Countryfile, a BBC program focused on rural life.

Again, details of this racist abuse are oddly absent, and a news item on Ms Fatinikun’s appearance on the programme refers only to “complaints” from viewers. One of whom objected to the notion of black visitors needing a “safe space” – a term Ms Fatinikun deploys frequently – when among The White Devils, and the implication that the locals – shopkeepers, hoteliers, and sellers of ice-cream – are somehow dangerous.

An omission of particulars that leaves the reader unsure of whether the British countryside is in fact teeming with menacing bigots, people who refuse to sell lunches and fortifying beverages to those deemed alarmingly brown, or whether televised race-hustling is simply disagreeable and unpopular, along with the notion of whiteness as both an accusation and a pejorative.

As if it were the cause of all human woe.

If the above sounds familiar, you may be thinking of this assembly of much the same conceits, published in the Guardian, or any of the near-identical articles that appear on a regular basis. In which we’re invited to be outraged by the scarcity of brown-skinned rock climbing instructors, as if a person can’t possibly learn to climb without an instructor of a matching skin tone, and reminded of the need for “culturally appropriate provisions,” none of which are specified, but which must nonetheless be provided at taxpayer expense.

And in which we’re told that a place being “white,” or “distinctly white,” or “very white,” a “last bastion of whiteness,” is obviously lamentable and indecent, a thing that must be fixed.

Given the above, it may be worth repeating the following, from my comments on that particular Guardian article: 

If I were to move to, say, South Korea and complained in a national Korean newspaper about how I was being deterred from visiting Seoraksan National Park or Namiseom Island, on account of such places not already having sufficient numbers of white Europeans striding about in a suitably affirming manner, you might think me a tad presumptuous.

Or perhaps something worse.

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