THE answer to this question is yes.

Here’s why.

— Comments —

Robert writes:

I really like the question. It has always been a  favorite of mine.

The non-metaphysical answer is no. Sound exists only inside the “head”, between the ears of the non and non-non-human animal (see Christine M. Korsgaard, Harvard Philosophy, if you can stand it).

Therefore, racism exists only in the human head. It is thought, not action. Discrimination, on the other hand, is a necessary, critical human and animal survival skill and strength. Every sentient being discriminates not just to survive, but to thrive.

Jenna Yokoyama isn’t a particularly discriminating thinker. She’s ordinary. But, she does discriminate in her own self-interest. Her self-interest deems that “non-white people are… greatly outnumbered by white people in the outdoors community”, and that that is a problem for her interest group. See “qualia”.

More to my point, is the character profiled in the linked article; Israel Borokini, 34, of Reno, who said “when he goes hiking in Nevada he’s often the only black person on the trail. Borokini, an immigrant from Nigeria, described some of the reactions he’s seen from other hikers. When they see a black person walking, hiking, they have a look of surprise,” Borokini said. “They look amazed that they see one black dude hiking.”

“Other hikers” (assume non-colored), “they” (all of them, every time?)  look “surprised and amazed that they see one black dude hiking”.

Borokini describes a white girl’s amazement (meeting him on a hiking trail) that he had so “quickly asbsorbed American culture”.

Borokini Borokini says that he doesn’t “see it as American culture”, clearly meaning that he isn’t participating in this silly aspect of American culture. That isn’t surprising. He’s just mimicking what he naturally did every day back in his Nigerian home (why is he here?), walking to and from his house in the forest where he went to bed every night “to the sounds of howling wild dogs and chatting monkeys”.

Really? Does he live now along that Reno trail, on Nevada state public land, in a state recreational area? Perhaps the “amazed” white girl doesn’t live on that trail either. Perhaps she had to take time off from her job in the city to seek out and join a group of city slickers who hike for vacation on beautiful state managed and maintained recreational trails. To her – this city dwelling white girl – hiking in state parks IS an important part of American culture, a special and unique American pastime. White people don’t live in state parks, or theme parks or zoos or “jungles”. Nigeria is populated by “a rich variety of animals, such as primates (including the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee), elephants, leopards, antelopes, reptiles, amphibians, and a vast array of bird species.”

People are free to come and go in public spaces as they please. No one is unlawfully restricted from any hiking trail because of their color or lack of color. Borokini grew up in a “jungle” (no longer an appropriate term in the West) with “wild” animals. Giggling white girl from Reno obviously did not.

Who is more out of touch with time and place and culture? An amazed white girl on a popular pay-to-enter state-park trail or a young black male Nigerian immigrant also taking time off from his (tech?) job to drive (most likely) his modern SUV out from his (what else?) modern residence in the CITY of Reno to enjoy a hiking trail where he encounters the culturally appropriating, thieving, faux-indigenous, amazed-white-girl who he disdains to smugly giggle at from his morally superior vantage point?

Why is there such a group as the Outdoor Industry Association? Why are they tracking the growing share of racial and ethnic minorities’ outdoor activity participation? Could this be an American cultural phenomenon?

Why the Outdoor Afro group?  Is African American low “participation in outdoors activities” unnatural and socially/culturally constructed? Do African Americans, as a group identify more urban or more wilderness? 10% of American blacks live in the largest western region of the US, and most of them are in urban California.

When Outdoor Afro, not just notices, but makes it their mission to increase low black participation in outdoor American life, how does that square with that evil-white (soon to be one word) “manifest destiny” and any other sort of “right of conquest”?

Here’s a list of fees charged to enter by car, on foot, or on a bicycle; to visit, camp or hike in any one of 28 Nevada’s state parks.

Kathy G. writes:

I find some of the stuff in this article a bit hard to believe. Hiking is generally a pretty solitary activity. No one is forced to associate with other hikers; you go at your own pace. Hikers are also generally easy to get along with, and very often liberal. I’d need a little more than just the vague say-so of this lady to convince me that she was “taunted”. She doesn’t even actually say anyone white taunted her.

Also, redesigning wilderness areas to accommodate people of color who must hike and camp in groups of 40 to protect their ethnicity will destroy the wilderness. But maybe that is the point. I suspect this article, and these associations promoting minorities hiking and camping are a reaction to the growing awareness of the public to the ludicrous elimination of whites from TV commercials and replacing them with blacks hiking, camping, and doing things that whites do overwhelmingly more than blacks. Even black comedians are making jokes about it in their stand up routines, how advertisers like State Farm replacing khaki-wearing white Jake with a black version is so obvious.

In observing this, the natural response is “Why?”, thus Yokoyama tells of her “taunting” while hiking in a “hotbed of white supremacists”, and provides the (threadbare) excuse for the persecution of white people, and the pitting of Americans against each other. I suspect some Soros-funded NGO will soon be paying  groups of hikers of color in groups of 40+ to populate hiking trails and provide the requisite cultural enrichment to white hikers and campers.

A bit off-topic, but this article has the snotty urban sophisticate reek to it. As a rural dweller, it always amazes me how city people know best how “redneck” rural people should live, how people who live in concrete coated metropolises ship their mountains of trash “away” to the ocean or rural areas, even other countries, how they have so little wildlife habitat, but demand rural areas accommodate their ideas of how much habitat must be provided to wildlife, wetlands preserved, etc.. It is irksome. Maybe if they kept some lions and tigers in cities, they could eat the millions of rats infesting them. Possums and coons love garbage. Maybe every apartment building should be required to house one or two? Provide habitat for something other than rats?

Laura writes:

Blacks don’t generally hike for a simple reason: They don’t want to hike.

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