What's missing when you hike the California backcountry? People of color

If you are going to talk about racial representation in the backcountry, it should be relative to the overall population statistics. I feel like the Asian presence in the California backcountry is disproportionately high compared to their percentage of population, which is 15%. Is hiking and adventuring a part of Asian culture?

I can count the number of black people I have seen backpacking on one hand. It seems like the majority of black people live in inner cities in communities with no history outdoor recreation. For example, the city I live in (Santa Rosa) has a strong outdoor recreation community with lots of nearby rural areas and local state parks. The black population here is 2.4%. Oakland, which is about 50 miles from here, is part of a large urban area and has a black population of 28%.

Non-white are under represented on trails across the country. It is interesting that I have met very few “African Americans” on trails but one of the few that I did meet literally changed my life. I was hiking the JMT and met a guy that was also hiking SOBO and when reaching Whitney intended to go north on the SHR. He had also done a sub ten day JMT hike which I thought was amazing. BEcause of this meeting, the following year I hiked the SHR, planned my PCT hike then pretty much made hiking a very central part of my life. I wish I could find him and thank him for the impact that he had on my life.

i’m sure we’ve all noticed this phenomenon. i hate that this is the way it is.

the fact that there appears to be a growing conversation about the overwhelming whiteness of wilderness is a baby step in the right direction, as are programs like this one: http://www.bigcitymountaineers.org/

and there is a great blogger on the PCT this year with a unique perspective on this topic: https://browngirlonthepct.com/

Having trotted up Half Dome a numerous times over the last 35 years, I’ve noticed some changes.  Busier.  Way more crowded.  To the point that you have to be on-line, 6 months in advance, and enter some Ticketron lottery to have  small chance of getting a ticket to take that hike.

No African-Americans 35 years ago, except for the friend I brought.  Few very now.  But a lot more Asians on the trail.  Not proportional to the population, but not so vastly under-represented as before.

OTOH, I don’t perceive a lot of poor whites either.  My theory is that your family has to be be a generation or two removed from hard physical work to consider sweating all weekend to be recreational.  We noticed that in the dozen au pair and exchange students we’ve hosted: Those whose parents were shopkeepers or the last generation were farmers did not want to go out hiking.  They aspired to be coach potatoes.  Those whose parents were professionals and who didn’t face a life of being on their feet did enjoy hiking and backpacking with us.

Backpacking is mostly an affluent sport and most affluent Americans are, well, white.

You won’t find many Black or Hispanic American Olympic swimmers either, because, well it is a sport mostly participated by kids from affluent families.

I suspect if you see a person of color in the backcountry, there is probably a good chance that person hung out with affluent people who embraced the sport, and more than likely, this occurred in a college setting where the person of color socialized with a bunch of white people.

As has been stated, blacks just aren’t exposed to the outdoors because of their economic and geographic situation. It’s also a known fact that the upper middle-classes tend to be the most lean and fit. It’s hard to get enthusiastic about diet and exercise when you’re just struggling to get by.

Years ago back in Kentucky, I had a close black friend who used to go canoeing with me a lot. He always insisted on carrying a revolver because he was afraid of what some Deliverance type rednecks might do to him in some isolated hollow. A couple of racists tried to drown his father back in the 1930’s and I think that played into his fears. I believe many blacks may be afraid of what can happen to them in very remote areas.

Being out in the wilderness overnight can also be scary to those who haven’t been conditioned to it. There is a primordial fear of predatory beasts that is naturally imbedded into our psyches. It’s something that has developed through millennia of human evolution. Blacks are certainly every bit as brave as whites, but if you haven’t slept out in bear and cougar country before, it can take a little getting used to.

Yet I still believe the main reasons you see very few blacks in the backcountry is because 1) they just haven’t been exposed to the wilderness, and 2) economics.

Cultural and economic, yes, and also a component of the economic part of the equation, which is TIME, as Nick G wrote about recently and quite eloquently.

There are so many competing hobbies and interests these days that require a lot less effort and time… and sweat and exercise, as reflected in the incredibly high (and rising) rates of obesity.

And how many of us got introduced to camping / backpacking through Scouting?  I did.  I gotta think an inner-city (or poor, rural white area) has less time and money available in families to allow volunteering, financing far-flung trips, and acquiring gear for BPing.  I donate a lot of money, supplies and volunteer a lot of time in our local schools and while that is generous of me, I realize it is also a luxury to have the choice to do that.  A luxury that arises out of being a well-paid professional with a college education in a technical topic, having an even better-paid MD wife, having families that could send us to college and then support us with Bank-of-Mom home loans as we were getting established – there’s an awful lot of privilege that allows for me to coach middle schoolers in math for many hours each week, as would be true for being a Scout leader.  As is true for the Father-daughter and Math-Team camping trips I’ve put together with other local parents.  It would be a real struggle to do that on one (or more) minimum wage jobs.

And how many of us got introduced to camping / backpacking through Scouting?  I did.  I gotta think an inner-city (or poor, rural white area) has less time and money available in families to allow volunteering, financing far-flung trips, and acquiring gear for BPing.

It is not just “poor”.

Most working class families (whatever that means in 2016) tend to work overtime on weekends and/or a second job.  The other spouse tends to work optimized hours so day care is not an expense. And day care is often avoided for cultural reasons, too.  Certain socio-economic and cultural groups have the view that day care means someone else is raising their children…and that is not going to happen.

So the commodity of time is not there to spend on outdoor trips and exposing the children to the outdoors.  A weekend of camping means gas money spent, food purchased, gear purchased that is money spent that could go to something else and TIME spent that could be used to work a Saturday shift and earning time-and-half pay.

Any time off and vacations is usually for house projects, family functions and perhaps the Sunday off when there is no overtime.  The one day off to rest and  a enjoy family dinners perhaps.

That is why something such as Scouts, Big City Mountaineers and other non-profits are  good thing: It exposed children to something they normally would not see through their family background.

However, as Nick said, outdoor recreation is still usually the realm of affluent and typically college educated consumers.

There may be cultural reasons that is closely related as Dave alluded to as well.

People who grew up with parents who were on their feet all day don’t typically view physical activity as something to do for fun. :) Unless, of course they are lucky enough to get introduced to it at young age and a spark is lit.

If a person was introduced to the outdoors at a young age, and then later have the time and economic resources as they get older, they just might spend time recreating in the outdoors as leisure activity in future years…

Recently, a friend and I  took 6 scouts on a 3 day camping excursion. 5 were black and one was white.  We can’t progress quick enough but we must endure.

Class, culture, money, role models. Actually it can mostly be summed up as class, but Americans are very hesitant to discuss the concept, Californians even more so. Add hispanics to the class list. The Boy Scouts stepped up many years ago with some aggressive initiatives to promote inner-city Scouting, which is one path to the outdoors that many of us trod. It is a pity that they held on for so long to their retrograde ideas about gay involvement; they lost a lot of community financial support and free venues. Interestingly some recent experiences in the Sierra and certainly on urban trails around Los Angeles leads me to believe that asians are if anything overrepresented, particularly some Koreans who arrive from a hiking culture.

In my twelve years as a Professor at UCLA I had only two (2) black students.

It’s not just backpacking. Go check out the Los Angeles Philharmonic sometime. Older white people. And…asians.