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Problematic Walking The Great Outdoors

Black Women Climb Hill

October 13, 2024 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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Reading time: 6 min
Written by: David
Art Politics The Great Outdoors

Indigenous Land Acknowledgement

March 16, 2024 92 Comments

Lifted from the comments, more pretentious agonising:

The Fitzwilliam Museum has suggested that paintings of the British countryside evoke dark “nationalist feelings.” The museum, owned by the University of Cambridge, has undertaken an overhaul of its displays… The new signage states that pictures of “rolling English hills” can stir feelings of “pride towards a homeland”… with “the implication that only those with a historical tie to the land have a right to belong.”

Or, Landscape Paintings Now Deemed Problematic, Racist.

Above, John Constable’s Hampstead Heath, circa 1820. Beware its morally corrupting influence.

The problem, we’re told, is that paintings from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are “leaving very little room for representations of people of colour.” And obviously, even the past must be made “inclusive and representative.” Which seems to mean that we must all pretend that our islands’ population and cultural assumptions have always looked like those of, say, twenty-first century London, a city whose demographics bear little relationship to those of the country as a whole, even in the twenty-first century.

It occurs to me that notions of racial “representation” will likely be distorted by the embrace of rather parochial progressive conceits, and 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%, and which is wildly out of step with the rest of the nation. Things that are denounced as “horribly white,” or whatever the current term of disapproval is, may not seem so to people who live in, say, Chesterfield or Plymouth.

Likewise, the demographics of Cambridge are skewed rather significantly by students, who make up about a fifth of the city’s population, and of which more than 40% are students from overseas. Which, again, may tilt one’s view of what constitutes “representation.”

But apparently, museum visitors must be warned that the sight of a Constable landscape may trigger TERRIFYING BLOOD AND SOIL TENDENCIES. Or at least inspire thoughts of historical attachment, continuity, and belonging – thoughts that may be disconcerting or very much frowned upon, if only by the – wait for it – keepers of our heritage.

Update, via the comments:

It’s worth noting that the museum apparently had its annual Arts Council funding reduced – from £1.2M to £637K – on grounds that the institution “hadn’t fulfilled its targets of diversifying its audience.” Hence, one assumes, the new signage, the fretting about “representation,” and the stern moral warnings about “nationalist feelings.”

It’s not clear to me how one might “diversify” the racial makeup of visitors to the museum, which is what is meant, albeit coyly. And it occurs to me that part of that problem – if indeed it is a problem – might be a “diverse” immigrant demographic that by and large shows less interest in the artistic and cultural history of the country to which they have moved.

See also, the British countryside.

Update 2:

Regarding the urge to correct the racial makeup of museum visitors, Julia asks,

Press-gangs? 

Which isn’t entirely out of step with the general air of farce. The supposedly corrective fretting starts with a dubious, arbitrary assumption – that all racial groups should be visiting the museum in some given ratio, even though they choose not to. Those doing the fretting then set about insulting the people who do visit the museum by claiming that the things they have travelled to see, and with which they may feel some affinity, may result in “dark… nationalist feelings” and other unspeakable beastliness. By liking landscape paintings, they risk moral corruption.

Andy adds,

It seems every regional and local museum has been infected with this madness.

Indeed. It’s very often a condition of taxpayer subsidy, as illustrated above. And of course such ham-fisted measures, along with the encroachment of wokeness more generally, may strike some visitors as inapt or patronising, or vaguely alienating, thereby deterring further visits. While the sought-after “diverse” demographic continues choosing not to visit anyway.

But hey, progress.

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Reading time: 3 min
Written by: David
Anthropology Problematic Walking The Great Outdoors

Walking While Outdoors: A New Frontier For Fearless Homosexuals

March 10, 2022 67 Comments

You may wish to brace yourselves for some intersectional ruggedness, care of Patrick Kelleher, writing in Pink News:

Meet the queer hikers proving the great outdoors isn’t just for cis, straight, middle class folk.

I fear a question may have been begged there, one on which the entire article rests, but hey, let’s push on. There’s oppression to invoke and needless drama to manufacture.

On the last Queer Out Here walk, there was a welcome circle where everyone was asked to introduce themselves, state their pronouns, and tell the group what the outdoors means to them.

Because even simple fun – say, an outdoors walk – has to be organised, you see, and made “quite political,” with lots of declarations and public speaking to keep you in the moment and at one with nature. And a walk just isn’t a walk unless you can make it, like everything else, all about your identity, i.e., all about you. The organiser in question is one Ailish Breen, a being with pronouns, and who offers “queer-only spaces” to those in search of sky and scenery. If you’re “queer, trans, non-binary, genderqueer, gay, lesbian, bi, asexual, intersex, pansexual,” or any sexual-identity niche not yet recognised or invented, this is The Fun Time For You:

Our community is wonderful because of its breadth and diversity. By coming on a hike with us you’re committing to embracing everyone’s uniqueness and welcoming everybody. We don’t tolerate any form of discrimination at our events.

“Straight/cis allies” are, of course, not welcome.

Inevitably, “a lack of equality around access” is invoked, but as so often, particulars remain unmentioned or unobvious. Setting aside the advantages of suitable footwear and something waterproof, the nearest we get to crushing issues of unfairness are,

 Ailish says, “People think it’s for middle class, white, heteronormative families.”

A claim that hangs in the air with no obvious support.

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Reading time: 3 min
Written by: David
Academia Anthropology Feminist Fun Times His Pretty Nails Politics Psychodrama Reheated The Great Outdoors

Reheated (62)

April 21, 2021 55 Comments

For newcomers and the nostalgic, more items from the archives:

Imagine The Picnics.

Emily Zak wants us to know that fresh air and countryside are, like everything else, terribly oppressive.

Naturally, Ms Zak has an extensive, at times bewildering list of excuses for why any outdoors recreation should be tinged with guilt and wretchedness. From the claim that, “our society leverages natural spaces as a tool for capitalism and colonialism,” to the “toxic binary expectations we have about gender.” To spare you the tedium, I’ll summarise: If you can’t borrow a tent or don’t have a pair of suitable shoes, and if you don’t see enough adverts featuring gay people kayaking, and kayaking in a discernibly gay-affirming manner, it turns out you’re being oppressed by society.

Pantomime.

A balding, middle-aged transvestite, a sociology lecturer, wishes to confuse your children.

Dr Cremin doesn’t seem to grasp, or isn’t willing to admit, that his craving for public transgression – to, as he puts it, “sow gender confusion in kids” – by which he means young people over whom he has leverage – reveals quite a lot about his character. And his fitness to teach. I hate to sound prim, but if I were – God help me – a sociology student, I doubt I’d be reassured by the fact that my lecturer felt entitled to use the classroom as a venue for his transvestite fetish. It does rather suggest a pathological level of self-involvement and raises a suspicion that students may find themselves playing captive audience to – or being reluctant participants in – some personal psychodrama. A kind of power game. Some variation of, “I can do this and you can’t stop me without being accused of bigotry.”

They Come To Teach Us.

Polite man encounters Mao-lings. Mao-lings lose their minds, scream abuse, then assault him.

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Reading time: 2 min
Written by: David
Problematic Walking The Great Outdoors

The White Outdoors

December 2, 2020 64 Comments

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

So says the Guardian’s north of England correspondent, Nazia Parveen.

The British countryside being the preserve of the white middle classes is a perception that is backed by stark figures, with ethnic minorities often deterred from heading into the outdoors due to deep-rooted, complex barriers… Only 1% of visitors to UK national parks come from BAME backgrounds, and statistics from the outdoor sector paint a similar picture, with only around 1% of summer mountain leaders and rock-climbing instructors in the UK from ethnic minorities.

I’m sure the relative scarcity of brown-skinned rock-climbing instructors plays a pivotal role.

The reasons behind this reluctance to venture out are complicated.

Ah, but of course. Though some may be more obvious than others. The concentration of minorities in urban centres and the consequent logistics of travel to the countryside being fairly self-explanatory. We’re also told of “a lack of culturally appropriate provisions,” though details as to what these culturally appropriate provisions might be, or indeed why they should be provided, seemingly at public expense, are left to the readers’ imagination. We are, however, steered to the distinct impression that these “last bastions of whiteness” are a very bad thing and that something must be done.

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Written by: David
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In which we marvel at the mental contortions of our self-imagined betters.