00:00:00 Speaker 1: Oh, hey there, and welcome to another podcast at a Bozeman, Montaina called The Hunting Collective. This is episode eighty nine. This episode, I believe it is an important one. It's uh, it's one that's probably a little more perilous than some of the others we've done. It might be a topic that turns some people off, but hey, that's us, right Phil. For those guys, it's important. Yeah, I've dragged you along, kicking and screaming on this d ride that is The Hunting Collective. Um, we're gonna be talking about race and hunting specifically, things like privilege, things like cultural competency, a lot around the history of the outdoors are institutions that are our idols, uh, and conservation and whether that was inclusive of African Americans. And we're gonna do that with uh. Dr Carolin Finney, author author of a book called Black Faces and White Spaces because it's spaces space, It's got it. She's awesome and I really enjoyed talking to her. She's full of life, um, full laughter, a great person to kind of address what can be a tough topic or topic that we don't talk about all that much. So I'm glad to have her on. And prior to that, we had one of my favorite folks in the world, in the media world, specifically Miles Nulte, our director of Fishing, but but really a thoughtful dude and somebody I would go to for his opinion on almost anything in life. He's got a lot to add to any conversation. All right, enjoy Episode eighty nine. I guess I grew up on an older road, a bartle to the meadal. I always did what I told until I found out that my brand new glows a game second hand from the rich kids next door. And I grew up baths. I g it's like grew well. I mean, there's a thousand things inside of my head I wish I ain't seen, and now I just wanted to a real bad dream or being in Like I'm coming of a lot of the seams. But thank you, Jack Daniels. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Hunting Collective Episode eighty nine. Um, we got a lot to get to. Miles Noltes here, I'm here. Uh, you don't really know what we're gonna I actually have no idea why I'm here. Yeah, Um, you asked me to be here. And which is so I walked in Yeah, and so I did I do. It is a very important subject one that I know you're versed on, so I'm not worried about it. That's good. I mean, this is actually my first day back from vacation, so I'm I'm like, oh, yeah, you're feeling good. You're like, I'm pretty bellow right now. Yeah, me too. If we're on like a podcast binging experience. And I just got done, um, interviewing Carolin Finney, who wrote a book called Black Faces, White Places, White Spaces is the correct title, and it's the reimagining the place of the African American in the outdoors. Um, it's cool. It was a good conversation. There's a lot of things that came up that I think we can talk through here. It was one of those conversations where I found her to be awesome. I found a conversation to be enlightening. When I was like going driving home, I was thinking of all the things I wish I had had said, had acts. Actually you tend to do when you when these things come up. So I think we'll just go ahead. And with apologies to Carolyn for not talking about him during the interview, try to bring him up here, set the stage a little bit for what what we're about to talk about there, UM, And in the in the interview, I very much admitted to UM being nervous about the conversation for many many reasons. UM. One, because it's a conversation that's kind of like it's just perilous, like that we can step in a lot of things here, but like we gotta be able to have it, and we gotta be able to have an in constructive way. Well, anytime we talk about race in our culture, it feels perilous generally, UM, for a lot of reasons. There. There's a whole lot of bad ship tied up in our historical and contemporary racial relationships, and a lot of people get spun up on our perspectives about that and very very defensive to the point whereas you're saying, constructive conversations can become very difficult. Yeah, we're just coming off a podcast about regentative agriculture, UM, and now we're diving right into some real social justice type topics. So it's gonna take me a lot to dig out of this progressive liberal hole that I'm digging myself into. I'm gonna have to have a couple of n Ray lobbyists on probably go to a NASCAR race something like that did really even it out. If you go to the NASCAR race, you have to paint your your shirtless self with the Confederate flag if you really want to get Jeff Gordon still good because he's my favorite. If you're asking me, you're asking the wrong person. You're a fan. Yeah, how did you know? Nah, just made it up. Uh, Jeff Gordon was great. That's the last time I was really into Remember the DuPont Chevy. The DuPont Chevy, Kyle Kyle Bush. That seems right, Yes, that seems like a guy. That's a guy Tony Stewart. Hey, we're saying names now, all right, orange shirt both Dale earned hearts, Yes, Junior and senior. And there's probably another dude. There's another named Carrie Earnhardt. Look at me pulling that out of nowhere. I think I just had a small stroke. Uh. So here we gotta get into this, like this conversation, right, you think a lot about race and it's very important, Like it's something that we have to address both from hunting community side of things, where we know that two of our um of the hunting communities, African American of the nation is African Americans. These are things that we know. But beyond that, beyond that kind of like very tangible look at the numbers, there's just wanting to be inclusive, wanting to go to the thing that we love so much, and wanting to do in any possible way that we can. Right, So it doesn't matter if it's whatever minority, whatever part of the country, whether it's urban or rural, white or black, we want people to understand it and come into it and the best way that they can. And so for me, this is just about this is just one step in that journey, and it's specifically focusing on one group of people that has been marginalized and has a history in this country that's not so pretty um and the outdoors is all entangled in that history. As as you'll hear coming up, I mean you'll hear Carolin Finney talking about how John Muir is a conservation hero and a hero in the environmentalist movement, but also a big time racist um in a big time very prejudiced and it's in his writings, it's laid bare and what he writes, So when we celebrate guys like that, Teddy wasn't exactly a bastion of diversity either. Yeah he was. He was a mixed up character in a lot of ways. But he wasn't a huge fan of brown people. Yeah, no, not at all. And so here we are with this, like we have built these folks up and for for what they've done, we see them for what they've done for our lives possibly. But then there's also this mixed history that that Carolyn focuses on and wants to focus on, um because it's a part of her history. UM. And so there's some convenient parts that we ignored or don't talk about it, but that I think is just natural because it's hard. It's hard for us to come to grips with that a little bit, I think so. And and the piece that I'm sure you got into with Carol, and that I think is important. Right, we were going to talk about it in hunting and fishing perspective in terms of this creating or how we think about being inclusive for the folks that we speak to. But if you look at the outdoor recreational community in general, I don't know, I don't know how much time you spend an r e I. But the last time I was an R E I, I wouldn't. I wasn't thinking, you know what, this is a cultural melting pot. I feel like I'm in I feel like I'm in New Orleans right now. That is not my experience when I'm in R E I. White people in Puffy Jack exactly. Like there's a lot of there are a lot of affluent, well to do, well meaning white people in here, and this is that's nothing to say against well me and white people. Yeah. I mean like she did, you know, a really good job of setting up some of these things. And I'm like, and I admit to having anst around how we talk about this in the way that we're to not be reductive about r I is the way it is not because there's a bunch of racist people that that own it. It is because it's like a part of our culture that has gone that way. And Caroline talks about and something that really struck me as effective is cultural competency, like understanding being being competent in both articulate about where we come from, how we got here, and then that's a better way to acknowledge someone coming into a situation going I don't feel comfortable or welcome and this thing you've created, and what I will you'll hear me tell her right off the bat is like, you know what, when I read your book, I'm looking around reading some other things. I feel like, I just want to tell you that it sucks that other people don't feel comfortable in the place that has done so much for me. Like it sucks, Right, that's not great. Um, it sucks, but it's also understandable. Yes, it's understandable. It sucks. Let's do something about it. That's that's where I come from. I don't have any feeling like I want to play until one hand or the other. I just want to make sure we've had this conversation and we understand it's an issue for very very good reasons. But we ignore a lot of a lot of this conversation. Well, it's much more comforta will to stay within your own space with people who look like you and sound like you, and have a you have a shared cultural background and experience with you have a shared knowledge base. Right, you don't have to work hard when you and I get together. Right in case people listening don't know, I am also a white man, just just in case that wasn't immediately obvious. Um, I am bearded. I have my Bosman camouflage on all the time. Um. But when you and I sit down, there is a baseline of expected knowledge that we have that we don't have to recreate, both in the way that we speak and the experiences that we share that other people coming into this room would not have, right, and so there's a comfort there. So I think the point is not that there is some grand conspiracy to make outdoor recreation, particularly hunting and fishing, a uniquely white activity. I don't think that's generally true. I don't think that's true at all, really, But the I think there's a need to recognize that whether it's inten and they're not, that's the experience of someone coming in from the outside. Like I don't go sit down at a mahjong table in Chinatown and feel immediately comfortable. Yeah, I have no touch point for what the hell is going on there. And it might be that Majong is an amazing game that gives people all kinds of insight into their life and and things that I don't have in my own world. And if I could get into that community, I would experience those benefits to but I don't have that. That's the sort of corollary we have to recognize in terms of welcoming people in and saying like, hey, these are things that may not feel immediately comfortable to you. This means the space that may not be something you understand or have any contact with, we think it's valuable. You might want to check it out. It's it's not. And if this argument comes down to like, well, it's it's not a conspiracy and they're welcome any time when I'm not intentionally excluding anyone that doesn't get us anywhere. Yeah, that's where I'm at, right. So you could say you could be you know, a little reductive or about this and say like, I don't you know what am I gonna do? If they want to public lands is a good example. If they want to come to public Lands, are more than welcome there. Like that's that's the great equalizer. Everybody can go and step on those things. You could say all that, and I've said it in the past, but like, it doesn't do anybody any good to disservice to to write this this type of thing off and when you hear Caroline talk, You'll quickly come to realize there's a lot of baggage here, cultural baggage that comes along with all our institutions, all our legislation, all of our leaders that we we so we so idolize, like all these things have baggage, and why not Why wouldn't you, as an intellectual, well meaning person want to acknowledge that baggage and and figure out how to get it, get over it and not. You know, I think sometimes there's some shallow, well also well meaning folks in the hunting industry that just like a black hunter put them up like here they are, yeah, and we talk and we talked about that too in the interview, is like we put them up. Oh my god, they're here, Like that's one way to go. That's fine. But at the same time, like we should be able to meet them where they are and say, hey, look, I get it. I understand that there's some ants here that we need to address. I there's there's a lot of me that just doesn't. I don't know your perspective, so I can't really help. But let me listen to you and let me figure it out with you. Like I think that's maybe reaching across the aisle that exists. There's a difference between being allowed to be somewhere and being welcomed somewhere. And I think that's the ultimately the conversation topic we're having right now, and the I've talked to a lot of folks who disagree with me, who say, well, just having that allowance gets me off the hook I have. I have no more responsibility here other than to say, like, you can do this, I'm not stopping you. And I take it to a different level and say no, there's a responsibility to understand cultural and historical context, which sounds like you dive into significantly. That's the best thing that comes out of this, in my opinion, and that because of that context, I feel more of responsibility. I feel responsibility to do more than just say you're allowed out. I feel responsible to say no, you're welcome, and and I would like to find ways to make this a more comfortable place for you to step into if that's something you're interested in doing. And this is something that came up and I wish I do regret not really diving into this in more detail with Caroline, but we can certainly discuss it here there there is there's there's an idea that she brings up. And another writer that she is friends with named Jonathan Hall, who final was on Anthrew Bordin Show and wrote an article hunting will Black. He's pretty direct and saying like, I'm not comfortable and going on public lands and and it's because there's white people with guns then, and so as I think about that, I'm okay. H This whole podcast, this conversation is partly just understanding that feeling or trying to get a good understanding that feeling. I said, listen, I grew up in Maryland. When I went to Baltimore to attend a sporting event or something, and we went a couple of blocks west of where we probably should have been, I felt very uncomfortable. I felt like I was in danger. Um. But there's a point in in that logic where it falls apart from me or it's like, how do you how are you going to go through life attaching? Is it the same thing to say, like, if I see a bunch of black guys in the corner in West Baltimore, that I'm assuming what they're up to. If you see a bunch of white hunters walking around in deer camp and in the middle of Colorado, you're assuming that there might be inherent danger there, or there might be some inherent bias there, Like it's a tough way to walk around in the world, and that like you're carrying the baggage around with you, um in a way that that just it has to shape your own interactions, in your own perceptions of how people treat you. And so that's one thing that I was thinking about last night after we recorded with Carolyn, and I wish I'm a email her about this just because I think it's important and she would have a great answer to it. So I'm sorry everybody listening that we didn't do this, but we touched on around it. But that's something I was thinking about. I'm like, I don't want to I don't want to write off the fact that Jonathan Hall and Carolyn Finney feel very uncomfortable walking around in public lands. I think Jonathan Hall wrote that he feels like he would have to wear a triple orange, and Caroline told a story like she just didn't want to go right, And so I get that, But at what point are you kind of manifesting and manifesting the thing you don't want. Oh man, I don't know that. That's I think. I'm certainly not gonna speak for I can't speak for anyone else's experience, and I certainly can't speak for the experience of being a black person going hunting. I can't. So I mean, I think the best I could do in this situation is we're having this conversation is to say, like I I the only time in my life when I lived in the city was when I went to college and I lived in Los Angeles and I made a bunch of different friends, a lot of different backgrounds, some of whom I'm still in very contact with. And when I invite friends of mine who are black who still live in l A to come out to Montana and go hunting with me, the response I always get is, I'm really not comfortable running around in the woods of Montana with a bunch of where there's gonna be a bunch of white dudes with guns and you're I hear your point, but I also think that, like, I'm not gonna try and convince them like, yeah, you're You're reality is wrong and that's what everybody here is super cool and won't shoot you. That's why I didn't get to say that to Caroline, But that's I do feel that there's some element of that present, Like that's not You're not gonna go to someone and be like get over it. Because once you hear Caroline speak or some you know, intelligent African Americans speak about kind of their feelings around race and the outdoors and culture, you've very quickly come to realize that, like this ship is real and if you write it off, you're an idiot. Like, but there's also like some things that can be improved on that side of the coin to say, like Okay, like don't generalize all nineteen white hunters in the way that you wouldn't want me to generalize all all people on the other side, Um, whether the generalization is warranted through like millennia of of funked up occurrences between our races, Like it's hard to continue to walk through the world like that, I would think, right, and like it's it's really wearing that baggage in a way that is troublesome. Um, I want to help with a solution there. I'm not saying I'm not calling them out in any way, but it's just something I was thinking of But here's the thing, right, like, and let's set aside any issues of getting shot, because I think that's a little hyperbolic. I don't actually think that people in the woods, no matter how racist they are, gonna be like, there's a black dude, shoot him and call it an accident. I don't. I don't see that as a reality. But what I do see as a reality is, let's be let's be frank, let's be straight up about it. If you brought a friend who was not white into hunting camp, there would be double takes if people hadn't been prepared for that, right and then, and what that means, what I mean by that is that person would immediately recognize that they were in a place where they were the odd person out and they didn't immediately feel like they fit into there. And that's a hard thing to do, right because you have to be the interloper. You have to be the first person to come across the line. It's to to build off analogy. It would kind of be like you walking into West Baltimore. Probably nothing bad is going to happen to you, but there might be a bunch of people who just kind of like, why are you here, dude, are you doing? Why? Why are you here? This isn't your space? Why? And that's an uncomfortable place to be and you have to have good reason and a lot of sort of internal fortitude and self confidence to stay in that space when there are a lot of people looking at you wondering why hell's he here? Yeah, so it's yeah, it's easy. And many of these conversations, like we can fall into the trap of um talking about wanting diversity or talking about wanting more hunters, but then falling short of actually like reaching across that aisle that exists and saying, hey, let's deal with this the way you want to deal with it, instead of me dealing with this issue in the way that I want to and telling you what you should do to come up. It's gonna be a part of this, like what do you want us to do? Because we care? Man like I care. I think a lot of hunters care. UM, And it's never just going to happen on its own. It's quite obvious. There's too many there's too many barriers of economic and cultural and social things that were If they're not going to fall over on their own, we gotta kick them over like, that's just how it is. You like that one. I don't know if that's the analogy I would personally run with. I'll let you go. Whatever I mean, we got, we have to address them, like we have to address those things head on. Hey, come up with a bag. Every one wasn't a while. I get good on the analogies where Miles is like, yeah, I like what you're saying, and I get carried away and get too confident. Kick them, kick them, kick them over, burn them. So I mean things you may or may not know about me. But I don't know if we've recovered this. But I spent two years of my life actually living in Botswana true story, when I was in my twenties. My first job out of college was teaching in Southern Africa, right, and so I had a lot of time living in places where I was quite literally the only white person in that neighborhood and living there in in it's it's a It was an incredibly valuable time in my life and I'm I'm so happy for the time that I spent living and working there. And it was exhausting. And by that I mean constantly being the person who sticks out and constantly being the subject of attention and curiosity and wonderment. Right you are. You are a symbol of wonder like, Wow, what are you? That's like phil that here, that's true? That that that requires that requires a lot of energy all the time. You never get to be relaxed. When you are completely out of your element and you are the thing, the object of curiosity. You don't ever get to be off or just chill. So I think that a hunting camp for a person of color is a very different experience than it is for me having just left hunting camp for the past five days, where I could just be as calm as possible and just be in my space and myself and just be dirty and nasty and not worry about what I'm saying or how I'm saying it, or how I present myself. That is the opposite of the experience that I had when I was living in Botswana for twoyears, where I was constantly aware of how my presence was being interpreted because I was the symbol of all whiteness. Whatever I did, according to these people, because it's their personal experience, was emblematic of white That's a lot of responsibility. Yeah, you're like Hey, let's read a book. White people read books. I do. I like, yeah, And I think there's an understanding that I even would would would admit to not having about those things. UM. And that's I think that's where the nervousness comes from. That's where my own personal acts comes from around these topics, because I don't want to fall in some trap. I don't want to be fall prey to the outrage machine. But I but I do want to understand what you're talking about, um, having never been through it myself. And and and that's when you bring up terms like white privilege. It that things has charged like socially and politically charged as like assault weapon or trophy hunting or all these things that we use. So when you start talking about privilege, immediately like you have to have a thought and generally, yeah, it's you're generally gonna be triggered one way or the other. So I I think Carolin did a great job of addressing that part for sure. But there's a lot of kind of like little booby traps in this in this conversation, I think that the piece and I'm just imagining the folks out there listening to this, who are already being perhaps triggered or skeptical based on like, oh god, damn it, why do I have to think about this in relation to hunting. Why why can't I just have one part of my life where I don't have to think about like privilege or class or socio nigro stuff, Like why do we have to taint it? And I know how I would respond to that, but I'm wondering what your responses to those folks. That's life, Get over it, like it's life. Sports. I love sports. I like football, You like football? You know what football is? Cultural? Social, political, It's like the entertainment industries that way, everything is fraught with. Um, these these big things we have to we have to approach and deal with, and it's up to us to determine how we do that. And if we're going to write that off because we just want to have a good time, you can't. You're never gonna be a really good representative hunting unless you can do these things. I feel, um, A lot of people might disagree with that, but I feel like these kind of ideas and these kind of thought processes, Um, I may have made the mistake of being a little bit self congratulatory within these conversations like I'm doing it and you're not, Like that's stupid, Uh, because like talking to a real smart black ladies somehow courageous. It's not. But but I wanna it should be. We should normalize it at least. Um, we're not gonna overplay it. We're not gonna bringing up every conversation. This is one of very many important issues that we'll discuss on this podcast, but we shouldn't at least normalize getting over it and talking about it and having it be a part of the lexicon. Like that's if we can just do that and make and make everyone comfortable with that, then eventually we'll just move moving the right direction, which we are. Um, but I think the hunting community stands as a mostly white, male dominated thing and we should address that ship and however we do it, it's up to the individual. But in this in this podcast, we're just gonna talk about it, and we're gonna find real smart people like yourself and others to just kind of help us through it. But my question now to you, because I think all that's valid. But and again I know how I would answer this question, but I think people listening want to know how you're gonna answer this question. What benefit does the hunting community get from this conversation? What is the benefit to the honey mean by having to address itself as being primarily white male? And what's wrong with it being a white male space. Okay, there's two things. We'll start by saying, frankly, this I want. I want when something is primarily like you're just discussing, when something is primarily one thing, it's never gonna be welcoming to the folks that aren't that one thing, right, So diverse like diversity in this in this case is allowing hunting to grow in a way that it wouldn't if it's going to be primarily white for the history of time. Like the changing demographics are important, we should want to change the demographs in a positive way. So eventually, when minorities look at hunting, they see a tapestry. They don't see a monolith, like they see this this very bright, colorful thing that has all kinds of cultural influences and it's kind of a mixing pot, melting pot of ideas and experiences and people. That's a that's a welcoming place to be. What's not a welcoming place is white dudes. It's like it's just not gonna be. So if we want to change, on't think that's conceptually one way to do it. And when I look at what I why I'm here, why I'm sitting here, I love hunting. If I remove my personal love for it, there's a collective idea that we gotta grow it, we gotta make it more acceptable. We have to increase its importance in the culture and our society. And the only way, one of the only ways to do that is to bring in people that can both add to our collective juice like that can give us something that we don't currently have. But at the same time, there's more of us, there's more understanding. So if you're not willing to to do this kind of thing and you want to be kind of minimalist and reductionist about how you reach out, then you're never really going to create the thing that needs to be created, like I feel and and so. But there's other elements to why we need to have this conversation. Hunting is falling. We wanted to grow. There's a lot there's of America's African American, but that's the tactical way to approach that. I think that your response addresses why it's good for the two of non white hunters who exist out there. I don't think it necessarily dresses like why that you care? And so I'll put out an idea I thought, Well, I think it does though. I think it says listen, man, like, the only way this goes forward, we've already seen this. The only way I think this goes forward is if it's socially acceptable. The question that is being asked in our culture is is this good? Is it good? And is the motivation good? And if that question is being asked it's being answered by a wide swath of very diverse people that is growing, then we have a better chance of getting what we desire, which is more access, more hunting, you better ways to have our society understand this thing. So if you're in then if you're in the current hunting community and you and you need a better understand that, that's what That's what I would tell you. I would just tell you that this is all about understanding, and we currently have a misunderstanding with this group of people. We just do I would, I wouldn't. I don't even know what steps really just slightly different tech. I would say that I think we live in a culture that is increasingly and more aggressively siloed all the time, and it's easier for us to escape into our small little silos. Whether that's how we consume news, whether it's the way that we choose the socialize with, the way we choose to consume sports, whether it's the way we choose to have leisure activities. It is so easy for us to not leave these pockets of comfort all the time. Now we I can go to work, I can go home, I can watch the shows I like, I can consume the news I like, I can go to the websites I like, and I can almost never be confronted in a meaningful way with ideas or perspectives that are different from or challenging to my own. I think that we as individuals grow and learn and become more dynamic, positive, well meaning, better contributors in general, and more confident people when we have to confront other perspectives and be be comfortable with that, and be able to adapt to that, be able to react to that in meaningful ways. And I think that goes for hunting significantly hunting and fishing. I'm not going to cut fishing out of this. I'm the fishing director. Let's talk about fishing too. Fishing is exceptionally white. It's it fits into the conversation. I think that when hunting and fishing are these spaces where I can just go there and not be confronted with any sense of difference or anything that is challenging. That is a diminishment of my experience because it's too easy for me to just settle into it and never have to see a different perspective. And then that gets into so many other topics, right the death of journalism, like all these things that how we communicate with each other, what we expect from each other, um, what the national consciousness is kind of like the idiocricy that we might slip into if we get well, if we you know, if the rock is the printin next president states like that this is all it's all tied together, like we should have we really should have an expectation that this thing can be better. And this is and I believe this is one of the ways that can I do not so scribe people that know me to social justice, like in the way that it's manifested itself in this world. There are a lot of really good things we can change. Um, there's one big swath of this country that is that is going about it in the wrong way, Like they're using victimhood as a way to gain power, and like there's a lot of ship um that I don't agree with. I push that all aside in this conversation. Like I pushed that all aside, and I'm like, okay, there, there's this is an equation like currently what we're doing ain't working. I mean, I don't have the numbers of growth of African American hunters in this nation, but I'm pretty sure those numbers don't exist because they're not growing. And so we need to address that. And the only way to do that is understand first why it's not happening, and and somewhere like Carolyn Finney can help us get there a little bit further. And that's why I didn't want to just have some black hunter on to tell me their experience. We'll get there, obviously, I mean I've had those folks on this podcast before, but I mean, I think it just takes a broader understanding of that what's going on before we can really go. I I completely agree, and I think that they're the fundamental argument that has to be had before we can start talking about the how is the why right? And so to me, and I can't speak for anybody else, but I'm going to say that my experience as a hunter and as a member of this community becomes more interesting and richer when I'm not just looking at dudes with beards who are white and come from a similar background. For sure, Like our podcast producer Karin has brought all like Carolyn Finney wouldn't be on the show if it wasn't for her, right, and like, but she brings this, She's lived in New York, she brings these different sensibilities to the table, and like, I could either fight that, but no, that's not how we do things. Or when she brings these things up, I'm like, damn, Like, let's find a real nice way to address this thing you brought up. That's that's um, that's valid. And we had an article on our website which you'll remember very well, entitled wait, let me let me is it was it? It was it? A question? Was it framed a question? Question? It's hunting, it's hunting too white? And like that. I think in the arena where that lived. I mean, that's a very like you put that on Facebook, and it's a very like just read the headline and give a comment. In this space where we can have a two hour discussion, it's this is this can actually move us somewhere? That thing all that thing did, We dropped it somewhere, and all that thing did was just get people talking about the subject again in a in what seemed like a pretty healthy way and a lot of uh in a lot of instances. So I think hopefully this will do that. And I do I do very much understand that there's some people who just don't want to listen to this ship and they don't want to have to deal with it, and they don't want somebody to push it on them. And so if that's you, I'm sure you've already stopped listening. You're welcome to stop listening right now. I could give two ships. But if you, if you want to explore this with us, this is hopefully a conversation that will help you understand some things. Because I very much went into conversation with Caroline Finny wanting to learn and wanting just to ask her like Hey, I know I don't get this. I know, I know I don't have the right perspective here, Like what do I do? You know, what what can I do? And then it's up to me to determine from there where I go? You know what I do if I learned want to read more about John Muir and his racist tendencies and and look back at, um, some of the early conservation pioneers and kind of how they felt, and some of the early institutions that were created and the basis on which they were created. Um, that's I think the most tangible thing that I've taken away from this thus far. Um. I'm sure there'll be more, but that that, for me, is where it landed. So I think it's positive, Phil, go ahead and bring us home. But well, I mean, honestly, I think Miles kind of summed up give a really good summary of this whole conversation, Like pretty much right up front was the being allowed versus being welcome, And uh, you can't just ignore thousands of years of historical content to where we are today. No, but I didn't do anything exactly. Yeah, I mean it's like whatever Ben Ben just said that that the term you know, like white privileges immediately, like being like you your hairs stick up and it's uh, it's you have a response to it, but you know it is privileged to be able to ignore things. And uh, I think having an empathy is the most important thing we can have in any any space, and I think it takes a lot of empathy to kind of have these to explore these things. So you're so good at this, Phil, I thought you were gonna say no, I'm not gonna say anything. What you're good? Um, all right, well let's we'll dive into conversation with Carolin Finney. Like I said at the outset of this, it's uh, we're gonna keep having it. We're gonna keep talking about this stuff and find better ways to address It's hoping you fall along with us. But for now, please welcome Caroline Finny. I guess I grew up on an alder row. I don't, Hey, Carolin, how are you? I am good? It sounds like you're all the way in Vermont. I wanted to be there in the room with you today, but I was just telling you. If I had to tell you the story of why I'm not there, it would be longer than the podcast, So we'll do what We're having a rare phone interview. UM. But thanks for taking the time, and I'm excited to talk about some of these subjects. Yeah, well, thanks for having me on the show. I'm excited. Yeah, I've been. I've been. UM. I would just say before we get started, like there's the show that we do here and some of the conversations we have. I get excited when it seems like, at least on its face, that there's a conversation that I'm not supposed to have, or something I'm not supposed to be particularly interested in, or topics that just seem either within the culture that I run or within the culture overall that seemed to be you know, hard to broach or hard to understand. Um, these are things that kind of pique my interest. So when when our producer Karin passed me over your book Black Faces, White White Spaces, UM, it took me a minute to realize the relevance. But as soon as I read it, UM, and and started reading some of your other works and interviews, I realized, like, this is a conversation that I want to have. I just don't know how to have it. So and I want to say to you. And I tell people you know, I work with all the time around this, groups and organizations at that's part of the work, right, It's how to have the conversation. It's not just the substance of what it is that we're reading about or thinking about, but how do we acthlete, you know, being a conversation with each other around this, right, because if if we're being honest, I'm a thirty three year old white male that lives in Boza, Montana, and I have a hunting podcast. Yeah, yeah, I'm not. I don't think I'm expected to or demanded at least and in the hunting community, um, even in the outdoor the greater outdoor community. It's not that I'm being demanded to talk about this or that anybody is pushing me towards the subject. But um, I just it's an important one and I think it's one that a lot of people are nervous about, me included. I don't you know, I don't know, I don't I know, I don't have the proper perspective. So I'm hoping that we can get there today. Yes, absolutely, And uh, you know I always tell people, um, you don't know what you don't know. Yeah, yeah, UM, and I would just I started by I was thinking about how to at least broach the subject of UM African Americans in in the outdoors. And there's a lot you go into a lot of history and a lot of idiosyncrasies within kind of the conversation. But when I read it, I don't necessarily have any I'm not gonna say I have guilt around this, but I want to just lietually say I want to simply say that that the outdoors, specifically in my case, hunting has given me a lot and it sucks for me to think that many people feel as they don't belong in these places because these places I've meant so much to me. So that's I think at first, Like the thing that struck me from your book was that. Yes, and so a couple of things I want to throw out there in no apparent order. UM. One, if you haven't read it, and you probably have, UM, there's a black Hunter. It's a friend of mine named Jonathan Hall who Um. He is a professor in West Virginia, and he wrote a piece for rewire News. It calls notes from an angry Black Hunter, guns genocide, in the stolen ground you own, and it is just really powerful, which picture images of himself because he's a he's a hunter, and um, he's out there all the time and he does a really excellent job. I think of talking about you know, how this is personal and that's the thing that I always come to this. You know, people might you know, can read the book are sort of looking at that I'm talking about history. And actually the reason I've come to this work is because it's personal. I can never leave my skin at home, right. So the fact of the matter is I've spent my time backpacking all around the world and I'm fortunate enough to have also, you know, I travel a lot, and I love that. And you know, at first glance when you see me, now, I'm I'm very urban. I'm from New York originally, and I had this very urban feel about me. But there was a period of time of five years I was just in my backpacking gear in Africa and Asia and Napo. You know, I was just all over the place before social media and when I was a younger, a younger person and doing those things all the time. Um, I want to say that there's something about uh, well, I can never get away from. And Jonathan talks about this as well, is how we are perceived because we live in a country, you know, four hundred five hundred years of history that we've never actually fully reconciled, you know. And the fact of the matter is, while you know, if we talk about the environment broadly defined nature the environment the woods, even though we lived in the country where Jim Crow, segregation was in place for many, many years, and in some places one would argue, you have to you have to think twice about it depending on who you are, if you want to walk in those spaces. Um, even though we didn't talk about nature in the woods being like that, it was also like that it actually didn't matter. So if we talked about you weren't allowed to go into a movie theater in the forties or fifties, you also weren't allowed to go on the beach the same beach as white people during the parties and fifties in some places. The facts of the matter is you it didn't make a difference if it was a beautiful park or beautiful woods to go hunting in. If you were non white, you were there were different kinds of risks you were taking because we I mean, look, we live in a country where one we stole all the land from American Indians. Let's just be real, right, and we still haven't reconciled that, and then we enslaved a whole bunch of people to work as someone else's property to build up our economy, right, so you know, and let's not even talk about everything from the Chinese Exclusion Act to the Japanese Internment to all the things that we have done and continue to do in terms of we've continue to do to to say who belongs here and who doesn't and how one belongs here. So even if you are here, you know how you are treated and how you are seeing. And we don't want to talk about this stuff out loud. Except in the last couple of years, we've been doing it a lot, you know, because we have a present administration that has allowed that in a very different way. Right, So I don't get political, but just to say, I mean, that's it's real. And for a lot of us, like people like myself, there's no there's no surprise here for me, right, there's no surprise. So when some of my white friends are just like, oh my god, I can't believe that people are saying this and I'm just looking at them, going, this is what we've been saying to you that many of us live with this on a daily for years. And it's not to say things haven't improved from this fifties and sixties. They have, and there's a way within which haven't reconciled certain things around that. So whether you're hunting, whether you're out hiking, whether you're camping, you know, whether you're trying to find a job working in an outdoor agency, you know, all of these things are going to impact you know, Um, all of these things are impacted by a history that we have yet to reconcile. Yeah, that term reconciles. Really it seems like it's striking in a lot of ways. And what you talked about, And I was just just looking at Jonathan Hall's article. Yeah, I remember. I remember that he was on Anthony Burnane's Parts Unknown, Um, an episode that I saw him that I thought was really great. Yeah yeah, um, And like he says, of the land is owned by white Americans, there's there's this feeling, at least in my mind, if I could just make it, you know, personally for me, because I think there's a lot of people that are probably in my position where like listen, we celebrate um. I sit on the board of an organization called back Count Hunters and Anglish and we celebrate public lands. I mean, that's what we're all about. Access is a huge term within our space. Yeah, And when I think of access, I don't necessary to think of the history of access. I think of this emblematic public place where anyone can go if they so desire. But but what I have never addressed in my own mind. I think what maybe is scary to think of is the cultural baggage that comes with these things. And that's just something I've never I've never thought about because I've never been faced with it personally, right, And that that was for me, that was beautifully said. That's it, you know. That's why I say, in my most in my most generous way, we don't know what we don't know. If I was going to be a little kind of tougher with it, I would say, privilege has the privilege of not seeing itself. And everyone has privilege. I want to be really clear about this to anybody worsening, But we all don't have the same privileges in the same way at the same time, in the same spaces, and so part of that is really understanding that you haven't had to think about it, which is great. Actually, I wish no one had to think about it, because it sucks. I can tell you, I have to think about it because I'm only I'm so aware and I have been reminded my entire life of my difference for better or for worse. There it is right, and that it plays out in some people's minds in different parts of the country. I mean, I was just living in Kentucky for four years. That's interesting and on many levels. Um And I was just back there a couple of maybe a month or so ago because I was um uh an artist in residence in this retreat with a number of women who were writing about nature, and so we were staying outside of Woulsville on this properties. It's hundreds of acres of this um I think it's owned by some kind of land conservancy, but there's a small piece of it that this foundation had a house in a space for writers and artists to come and spend time, and and they told us they said it's hunting season, so they said, if you want to go out, you can go out walking on the property because it's really beautiful and there's woods and um, but if you're going to do it, you want to wear the orange, you know, the hunting jacket, just so the hunters see you there. I have to tell you whether it was reasonable or not. I didn't go out even with that on, because I thought it myself, you know, And after Jonathan's article and I said, you know, I don't know how I feel about that, you know, I mean, I just the hunters, like everybody else, are individuals and individuals with their own set of biases. We are all biased, right, and frankly, I just didn't want to be out in the woods by myself hunting thing on, you know, just in case. I don't know, it was probably it would probably be fine, even have to consider it, That's what I right. Yeah. Jonathan says that his article, He's like, I don't have public land with white because white men with firearms and a reason to discharge that fires make me incredible nervous. That is something like I would have never I would never have thought of that. There's something I would have been like, come on, like, I would never think that way. But the fact that that some do is is certainly worth addressing and ask you I'm another thing if you for I would offer for your readers the story of Eddie Harris. Eddie Harris is a fabulous He considers himself an outdoor He's a black outdoor sportsman and he loves fly fishing and he's written a number of books. When he was thirty, his first book was called Mississippi Solo because he decided he was going to sail take a canoe down the length of the Mississippi River and he never canoed before. But he tells his story in one of his other books about how he's down somewhere in the South and he's camping and you know, traveling with the gun, but not because he's a hunter, because he's just like, you know, I'm a black man. I'm gonna be out camping in the woods in the South, and the fact of the matter is, you know, you don't know what's up right, and so you have to prepare for that differently and hopefully nothing bad ever happens, but sometimes something bad does happen. I mean, I'm gonna say this. You know, a black woman just got shot in our own home and killed. I mean, for me, these are are not unassociated. So you know, do I do I feel any Am I going to feel any more safe and protected out in the woods? Yeah? Yeah, Listen, I like, I don't. Um here's my comparison. The only like as you, as you speak about this, I try to just kind of in my own mind rationalize some of it and compare some of it. Like I grew up. I grew up in Maryland, and I did not grow up in Baltimore. Grew up in Western Maryland, which is basically east West Virginia. It's just the little panhandle area where you could consider it to be pretty rural in that way. When we would go to Baltimore to go to sports game or go whatever, West Baltimore is a pretty rough place and it's mostly African American, And when I would go there, I would feel I would would drive through there, I would immediately feel uncomfortable, like and I don't. You know, that's not to say that any any of those emotions are right or wrong, but I did because that's just what it was. And so I don't I don't mean to compare that to what you're saying, but just trying to think and relate to what, Yeah, And I think that's important to I mean, we have to. I always say, you've got to start where you are, you know, um. And so while there are differences and differences, I can point to what's real for you and for me as human beings. What what is that that comes up that fear, the fear of not knowing, the insecurity that one can feel about being in a space where, especially when you're in a space with people who are not you, who don't look like who you, and most importantly, who you don't know. And to understand that all of us in this country have been educated either consciously or subconsciously about our history. Are everything that we learn in school? You know, I always say to people, there's all the stuff that we learned, and there's all the stuff we are never told, right, and you know, and there's a lot of that, right, And so there's a lot of there's all those subconscious messages you know that teachers and and books were given and the choices that were made. I'm not saying that they're bad or good. I'm just saying that we have never been given the complete and all the information right out there to choose from, and all of our legislation, all of our policy. You know, if I think about all these environmental organizations historically, their mission statements in part we're founded around and aspiration for, you know, protecting public lands, and I think all that's a really good thing, right. I mean, look, I start on the National Parks Advisory Board for eight years, so I'm also about thinking about public lands actually all lands, but public lands in particular, you know, um, and how we can care for them and being better relationship to them. And I also understand that when a lot of those mission statements were written, again, Jim Crow was in place, So what were they actually thinking? Who were they talking about? Who is the wee right in that, you know, to understand that everybody in that we can operate in the same way, doesn't have the same choice. So if we jump ahead and understand why we don't see a lot of folks of color and leadership positions in these organizations, that's no accident. And I'm not saying somebody set out intentionally and said we're not hiring any block people. What I'm saying is that that's what happens over time. Right, you wouldn't see those folks sitting around the table because they wouldn't have been invited. They weren't part of that um of developing that mission statement. You know, how how could they be? Yeah? Yeah, and I think we and I know in reading Jonathan Hall's article and reading your book, it's like we can be in this especially in this world that we live in now. We there's certain terms that you light people, like privilege. White privilege is one of those times that like, even me as a white man, I'm like, don't label me. Come on, man, don't label me with this. You notice how I said privilege, right right? Yeah, So I think like just to address that, like privilege, Like I like that you say privilege, and I just want to make sure because we have terms in our space, in the hunting space like trophy hunting, assault weapon, all these things that kind of like trigger that trigger of feeling. And then somebody turns turns the logical part. Yeah yeah, tol you uh that like they turn you turn off the logical part of your brain. You start to get emotional about what you just heard, having the baggage of what's already been discussed. So it's worth to address that, it is, And so I want to say something about privilege white privilege, and I want to say something about that too. I purposely said because we all do have privilege. And I said that in a wide variety of ways, in part because my own intention in doing the work that I do in terms of having these conversations is that want to meet people where they are, and what I'm most interested in is our collective capacity to change and being better relationship with each other across our differences. So I'm not interested in coming to a room and shutting people down, because I know exactly what those words are. Having said that, it is also important to me when talking about race in this country, whiteness is not a bad thing. So let's nobody can help the skin they were born in, and white white people are diverse as any other group of people. I want to make sure that I say it really clear, and I want to borrow James Baldwin's words to say that whiteness in this country is about power to understand that again, what gave people the right to kill people, to remove them from land in order to get that to enslave a whole another group of people, And none of those people were white, right, And I'm not saying the Irish third groups. I understand those differences, but understand that his country was built. I mean, we had presidents writing the constitutions who had slaves. That's the complexity of it, you know, it's complex. It doesn't mean that Thomas Jefferson was an awful human being, but it means he's complicated because he actually felt it was okay to have people as slaves. That we have to consider that, We have to consider that. And so white privilege is meant to signify that whiteness when you when things when we use the word normal when we talk about this is the normal thing to do, to be able to say where whiteness is at the center of that, and how whiteness as power right, not the individual, but as power is colored no pun intended. Everything you know, from the language we use to the kind of what we say is right and wrong. What we say is when we talk about morality, all of it, what we have what becomes privileged in that means that everybody else who is not white, who doesn't identify as white, comes up against that all the time and historically has come up against it all the time. So that's really what white privileged means. It doesn't mean that your whiteness is bad. It doesn't mean that you are bad. You can't help the skin. You were born in a right any more than I can. And in this country, whiteness has been privileged. I don't this isn't this isn't an opinion. Actually it is a fact. And all you have to do is look look at the history of understanding how it has been privileged over time. It's privileged in terms of beauty, what we I mean, it is privileged on so many levels. And so how do we how do we contend with that? That's the reconciliation, not It's not about making it bad. I'm not interested in oppressing anybody. So I'm interested in but how do we own how we own our collective path, which I believe we are all complicit in that, And that is like to call for that is slutely appropriate in every way, and like calling for that in this in this day, and it's seems to make people uncomfortable. And I know and I know that Jonathan Hall and his writing is talking about, like can we have conversation about what justice looks like in the aftermath of genocide and anti black violence? And we talk about this and in like feeling welcome on public lands and what it really is. And he said the answer from the hunting community has been a definitely loud but silent no. And I don't I see his his. I don't know that this has been collectively thought about or talked about enough. I don't know that there's been a no. There just hasn't been a push to be like there has been a push to say, we want a more diverse hunting community. We want more people to come and experience this thing that we think makes our lives better. We want them to get their food in this way. But we're just not sure how to do it, and we don't know how to have the conversation about the past because it's it gets a little scary. Yeah, and that is right on point. So because I work with so many UM organizations, predominantly white organizations that are around environment. Sometimes it's nonprofits. I mean, there's it's gotten so diverse now that people who call me in and this is something that I've heard them say almost exactly the way you just said it, which is we're not saying no, what we we just don't know how to do it, And and it's kind of scary to kind of come to this and I'm like, that's real. I get that, and I want to also saying I'm not speaking for Jonathan. I'm just saying that there is UM. One of the things that can be frustrating for those of us like myself we've been doing this for a while, is that that how can I put this, There's a way within which we're not seeing anything change. So when you understand that, you've heard people say that for years and nothing's really changing on the surface. There's not any new leadership of color. There are there not any um real attempt said, so let me let me come at it in a different way if if you want to do something really different. And I always say this to people, this is not about being comfortable, right, there's nothing in this conversation that it's about being comfortable. That is not nor should be. I believe the goal Uh if you think about there are so many of us who have never been comfortable. UM. But I often used an example and you may have heard it or I might have written it somewhere that a couple of years ago, when speed Lana Lazyevich won the Nobel Prize for her working on Chernobyl and she's from Belarus and I heard her on NPR and one of the things that the person on NBR was saying to her, Michelle Martin, was saying, you know, you made a lot of people uncomfortable because a lot of her people in Belarus were mad at her. It's like she exposed the dirty laundry about, you know, how the government was at fault and what the problems were and why Chernoble happened. And she basically responded, she said, I'm not interested in my people being comfortable. I love my people. I want them to be better. And so there's something about how do we shift the thinking from you know, we're all uncomfortable, that's come on board, that's really and that's when you start to build a kind of trust and a relationship, you know, and we can really start to get real about where we all are at, what we're saying we collectively want, and deciding what we're willing to actively do. Because I always say to people, this is about taking risks, and not risks in order not to lose something you already have. It's about you take a risk in order to gain something that you're saying you want. And that's a gamble, which means you have one. A person has to put themselves out there knowing that, oh my god, I might say the wrong thing, I might do this thing in the wrong way. It's it's talking about it may be a letting go of some of those when you want a person I'm not using putting anything in front of it has had a privilege for a long time in terms around the question and the power of being able to stand in a position. Now hard it is to get that person to give any of that up. Yeah, and so how they can say and I recognize that as as a human being, Like, it's just you know, those who believe and have worked hard for what they've got. You know, I think about my father. He worked hard his entire life. He came from pretty much nothing, you know, high school education, fought in the Korean War. Um loves his guns. Can't even talk to that man about his guns. Yeah, Yeah, he's a little you know, I'm his daughter, so you know, but he's got Alzheimer's now, and so it's it's kind of sad to watch the loops and the sort of the decline in the perfect in a certain way. Uh, but there's something the anger that he is held against. How I've watched him over the years when I was younger, just how he's had to always feel like he's had to fight and for everything always it's about even just his presence somewhere and the strategy and the ducking and weaving, and had to have the lack of acknowledgement for for who he is and what he's done and what he's sacrificed. Even coming back from the Korean worry. Talked about that being black and not getting veterans benefits like the whole nine yards, when you've had to live with that your entire life, no matter how hard you worked, no matter how much you've made quote unquote the right choices to support your family. And he's one of thousands you know who have had that experience and continue to have that. Yeah, when you explain when you're just talking about taking a gamble to have this conversation, I was like, yeah, yeah, that's how I feel. I was like to me, I felt like, this is even having this conversation in the public forum as a gamble. But but then when you can relate it to somebody like your dad, and I want you to I want to get to your kind of story going up, because I think in your book and another places really touched on it's important. Um, but it feels like a gamble because you're just not sure if you're gonna say the wrong thing. And then our incredibly woke internet outrage world, like you're kind of everybody's walking on a tight rope, especially in these stances. But here, here's where I start and end the conversation. For me personally, I'm like African Americans make of the U S population. They by all accounts, they they make up less than two percent of American hunters. Like, so if I'm if I'm addressing how to make hunting better, I want them and I want them in this very confusing, very fraught historical boat with me to go and explore these things I wanted. I want them in. And so if I gotta like gamble a little bit and take some chances with this conversation and get to those places, That's what I want to do because I think it'll mean something in the end. Um and kend yes, yes, and a few things I want to say in one And this is not um touting my own blowing my own horn. This is just in part to make the point every this is what I do day in and day out of my I move based on work doing this every time I enter into the conversation, I had to I'm taking a risk. It makes me nervous like you because in the social in the day of social media people, and it's already happened to me. I mean I can a few A number of years ago, I was in California and somebody I knew from high school who I hadn't talked to in Eaters, suddenly sent me through Facebook. She said, I'm sitting in the back of a cab in New York City and the cab driver has the Rush Limboss show on, and they just were talking about how crazy you are because you said trees are racist. I never said that that's crazy, But but you know what I had to get off Twitter for and I don't even do I don't I'm not even on it. But at the time I said, I couldn't look at it because I was getting the nastiest, meanest emails, one person even saying I'm sorry I have to share this earth with you. It was and I don't have thick skin like it says like that hurt. I'm a human being. It really hurt and I said, my god, I don't even know who these are, Like how that's not even what I said. So yeah, I'm taking a risk every single time, and there's a lot of emotional labor. But it's also because I believe in something that that our capacity is human beings to be better than we are and being better relationship with each other without having to become who the other person is, because for me, it's not about assimilation. It's about just how we get better at respectfully, you know, recognizing a person's difference, because that's you know, this conversation. Anything can emerge from this and we have no idea knowing what that is. And that's the beauty of it, especially when having these conversations about how we can do these things differently and how we can show up differently. So the risk. The risk is also about uh, yes, you could say the wrong thing. Number one. I want to say, It's not like I've gone through my life and never not said the wrong things that went through. No, it's not. And I've replace those moments in my head all the time. Right, I can't even believe. I can't believe it. For me, it's how do you show up after you do that? That's the moment, knowing that you may be rejected, that somebody might be mad at you. How do you still show up? How do you How are you accountable for that? How are we all accountable? And for me, I'm not interested in I mean, one of the biggest challenges I'm having with our popular culture right now is that if we see someone, you know, in an effort to show that we're woke, and I say that in quotes, if we see that someone has um this black people, this women, whatever the thing is that we've done in our past, you know, we shut them out. They're out, they're done. We're done with them forever. So there's no opportunity. And I'm saying that whatever they've done, they should be held accountable. But it's not about, you know, leaving them out in the cold, because if we start doing that, pretty much everybody is going to be out in the cold. Because I really don't know anyone who hasn't made a mistake, said something hurtful, done something hurtful, either consciously or unconsciously. So how do we bring people back in? So I'm always saying, yeah, you know what you're right, you might say it in the wrong way and the other person will let you know. Then how do you show up? That's how trust gets built. Yeah, there's a little bit of a power dynamic. They're like who gets to decide, who gets to decide who says what in the wrong way? Who gets to decide you know, when this outrages is appropriate, when it's not, Like I think your question around, how do we have this conversation in a way that makes the outdoors hunting whatever outdoor activity doesn't really matter just in this case and my my experience hunting is my favorite part of it. But doesn't that how we know the facts? Right? We know that less people do it. We know there's this uh sort of history around this stuff that we don't like to talk about. But in the more modern I want to maybe walk back this a little bit in a while. But I like, in the more modern sense, if you you know, would have to address this and say, like, there's less and two percent of American hunters are African American. And even your book, you know, the in the title Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans and the Outdoors. If we were to reimagine African Americans relationship with hunting, or let's just just make it broad hunting, fishing, hiking, climbing. How do you how do you think about that? How do you begin to think about that? Well? And so partly you know and you will know this, But I the reason I was drawn to write the book. It was not because you know, I was in academia and that I had to write a book. That wasn't it at all. It was just it was incredibly personal for me. It was personal when I realized, Um, you know, I grew up half an hour outside of New York City on land that didn't belong to us. It was owned by a very wealthy Jewish family that I had twelve beakers of land and then at full time caretakers on that property. And so my parents were the caretakers for that property for nearly fifty years. And it has woods and wildlife and a lake and a swimming pool, studied piece of property. We lived in the gardener's cottage in a very wealthy white neighborhood. We were the only family of color in that neighborhood. And towards the end of the nineties, when um both the owners one had already died. The other got very sick, and the question was what's going to happen with my family because they now they've been on this land for so long, and she, the original owner, wanted to try to keep them on the property. I have to say, but there was no way. The property was worth over three million dollars, the property taxes were honored five dollars a year. There was no way my parents could stay on. So she had a house built for them in Leesburg, Virginia, and she passed away. A new owner came on. My parents stayed on for another five seventy years until they found a new family to move in, and then nearly two thousand's they moved to Virginia. Now, when they moved to Virginia, beautiful house, not much landed like on a half an acre of property. I watched my father in particular, get incredibly depressed and he talked a lot about missing the land back in New York. Um. Soon after they moved, they got a copy of a letter from one of their neighbors there in New York who said that a group called the Westchester Conservation Land Trust had put a conservation easement on that piece of land that I grew up on and in the letter it had all the images that talked about all the wild life on the property and all the environmental values of the property and why it needed to be protected, because when you put a conservation easement on a piece of land, that means in perpetuity, nothing can be changed on that piece of land. At the end of the letter, which I have a copy of, it thanked the new owner for his conservation mindedness. The new owner had been on there maybe three years. There was nothing in the letter acknowledging my parents who had cared for that land for fifty years, and just that fact they got erased. And that's you know. I had gone back to school. I was working on my doctor and I was looking at issues around environment. I was focused on women a little bit more than more than anything. At that particular time, I was doing work in Nepal and I started realizing and you know, asking the question whose ownership counts, Like how fast my parents got a race? And then I started thinking about the history of the country and all the people we don't see, you know, all particularly folks of color that are always been there on the land, caring for engaging with it. Hunting, fishing, doing all those things, but they're not part of the bigger story. We're not talking it. It's like we just don't see them. And then it kind of rolls into this myth such as black people don't know, they don't do these sort of things. They don't hike, they don't camp, they don't hunt, whatever it is. And actually none of that is true, right. It actually comes back to what we we haven't This is not what we're taught in school. These aren't the stories we see on television. This aren't the stories we read in the books. And so that's why I wanted to reimagine it. I wasn't saying that so much for African Americans necessarily, here's all the things you can do, though that's in there a little bit. I was actually saying to everyone else, actually, we've always been here doing it. So how do we consider of that, you know? And that's why I wanted to talk to black people around the country and say, tell me your story. What's your environmental story, like what what's the experience of your grandparents, Like, what do you where did you grow up, what were you doing in the outdoors? And some of the folks would say to me, you know, I don't have an environmental story, and I'm like, of course you do. Everyone does. If you're breathing, you've got one. It doesn't matter if you lived in the city, if you lived in a rural area. And then they would spill out sometimes with incredible stories. You know. I found myself sitting in the trailer of one of the Tuskegee airmen and Ford who had worked in agriculture before. I mean, I was meeting the people. Of course they have these amazing stories, and that's what I wanted to reimagine was actually, there is this full, rich relationship there, but it butts up against the history. Um and when that history that hasn't invited it in, right, So now we're here. That's why you've got all these organizations formed, these cultures. You know, culture will practices around, whether it's hunting, whether it's hiking or mountain climbing, whatever it is, that have privileged particular experience and perspective. And there's nothing wrong with that experience or perspective, but it's been privileged as though nothing else actually exists. Yeah, and that's hugely like when I was reading your stuff and thinking about this and I thought about this a lot. I was probably sitting by myself on the couch at home, like sweating, thinking about just being honest. Um, But like, the relationship to place is something that struck me because when I think about my relationship to the place and the people around me, I have this like it's not pure relationship to place, but it certainly is. It's what I feel like a more comfortable relationship to a place because I can look at Oh, Teddy Roosevelt, John Muir, Um and Gifford pin Show and all the all these folks. I can look at them, and I can realize them, and I can kind of trace the lineage there, and I can look at all these things in a fairly pragmatic way. We talk about our model of conservation on this show quite a lot, um, and and and the folks that that form that model of conservation, and even the folks that then articulated many decades later. Um, we're all white and all came from a place of power and privilege. Um. And that all comes back to, like you talk about relationship to place and how our ethnicity influences the way we see places. And that's the thing that struck me the most is like thinking about how is my ethnicity and my upbringing, what I've done effect the way I see places the outdoors specifically in this conversation. Can you just go through that a little bit for people and try to make them understand in the way that I was able to? Um, I can't, I will say, I can't make them understand I can. That is that is the only point of this is just let's invite folks to consider some things. Maybe they yes, yes, um, So I want to start, you know, when you start talking about President Roosevelt and John Mushor and often when i'm you know, one of the things I do is I put up a slide that has a collage that I put together a collage of images, so everything something from Japanese and German and American Indians and immigrants at the border and slavery. And then right in the middle, I put there's a famous picture of President Roosevelt with John Muir on on overhanging rock in Yosemite. It's nineteen three, and I put that right in the middle. And then I put another picture of give give pin show um off to the side, and I talk about I say, you know, those two men, Roosevelt and Mure. I imagine they're having an amazing conversation. There was thinking really seriously about ideas of wilderness. How are we as Americans going to engage and protect this wilderness? And that's really great. If you also read the writings of John Muir, which I have as well as Roosevelt, it makes them complicated because John Muir did not have nice things to say about black people in his own words, um, not a lot of nice things to say about American Indians either. And Roosevelt was also he talked about he taught in his words, he said, um, basically that you know, the white Americans, white race were the higher rates and that had responsibility. I mean, that's the complexity. So if we are going to embrace that, we want to love and uphold John your Roosevelt. We can't pick and choose what parts of their personality are they're thinking we want to use for that. I think that's disingenuous. We actually have to just guess what they were. Smart, um, powerful man who had some really good ideas and in conservation be coop. I mean, there were some good ideas up in there. All those ideas were some good ideas and guess what they had some if I'm gonna be gentle about it, prejudices, But you know, they were also had some racist ideas that in part came from their own privilege that they could actually hold those perspectives at the same time that they could talk about nature and wilderness in the way that they did with such love and respect. They had such love and respect for nature, but they did not have that for all their fellow human beings. That that's just what it is. And so what you know, and if you're one of those human beings, you're looking at that going oh, okay, well where am I in that equation? What does that mean for me? And I always say, you know, there's things that I'm working on a one woman show that I imagine myself in conversation with John Muir, And a lot of this is that because I want to think about and show people to understand I don't have to diminish John Muir to make myself, you know, count more. I actually don't want to do that. You know. The point I want to make is he becomes relevant on my terms. He doesn't become irrelevant. He's not irrelevant. I'm part of this country's history. Um, he's had such a would impact on the way we think about wilderness. Uh, of course he's relevant. But he becomes relevant on my terms because I have to do that because I wasn't relevant on his terms. Yeah, this, all this is all connects, Like the relatancy of all this and the complications all this, it connects. Last show we were talking about as funny as it won't really relate to this intangible terms, But in intangible terms, we were talking about how we eat meat and regenerative agriculture and different things like that. So we're getting into consumption and within consumption like, well, it's much easier for folks to just eat the meat and not really worry about where it came from or just kind of have the ornamental understanding of like, oh, it's it's organic. Somebody told me it's that's fun like not to have to worry about the complicated nature and the complicated history behind how we eat our food and how we got to where we are, and this there's parallels here. It's easier for me to go outside and enjoy these things and celebrate tell you Roosevelt, and celebrate John Muir and these figures who are important. It's easier for me to to do that without having the stomach all the other realities that are there, um, because it's it's much easier for me to do and it's more simple. It makes it makes all these ideas um easier to digest. And it strikes me that that parallels it's yes, it's crazy. Yes, And I want to say that this is that at that point, that point that you just um described of, uh, you know that point of it's easier when I heard you say it's easier to actually just embrace them, you know, embrace that part of them that we know, not that other stuff which is ugly and hard. That's actually the point where one can begin if one is actually seriously wanting to engage hunters, in this case, uh, black hunters in a different and meaningful way, because that's actually the point. You can't have one without the other, because the black hunter knows he or she can't have one without the other. Like you know, I can't come in there, and I can, I can try, I'd have to work really hard at shutting out that reality. Um. But what an interesting place to start. That's why it's uncomfortable, right to say, to go oh my god. So there's things about Mirror that are really funky. There's things about Roosevelt that we're really funky around this. Let's talk about that. Let's understand how is that manifested in the way that we act with each other today. How does that show up? What does that mean? What can I How can I embrace that differently? Can I embrace that differently? Do I want to? I mean, the conversation and opens wide and and a kind of trust gets developed just when people are willing to say, holy crap, you know that is really you know, that's overwhelming. But I'm I'm willing to stand with it. Let's stand with it. Let's sit with it for a while and see what happens. And you call it like you like the aim of your work, you says, develop a greater cultural competency. And I found that work. I found to be like, yeah, hell yeah, let's all do that. Let's make sure that we're doing that. And if if that's the way somebody who's you've kind of lived your life in this way and really been able to see kind of the outdoors even from the way that our government treats the outdoors from sitting on the National Park Suvisory Board. I mean, you were at UC Berkeley for a time, You've traveled the world. There's all these things that you've done. If if you're telling me that the way to speak about this and have a positive impact for the people that are really feeling it is to develop a greater cultural compecy, like let's go I'm in Yes, I'll do that anytime. And I'm and I would say to your listeners that you don't have to go to school for this. It's not like you suddenly have to read a ton of books. One of the things I would always say to folks, um is like what is your environmental story? The first the first piece of work we all have to do is our own internal assessment. And this is when you gotta get real with where you stand, your own biases, on your own experience. You don't have to apologize for your life. That's not what I'm saying here. People often interpret it that way. That's a huge point, huge point like let's not get into this like I'm not sorry for who I am or whatever. No, right, you're we're where we are, here we are and there's a certain amount of um understanding your environment a story if you kind of define what that is, because only you can do that for yourself, and and really start to understand how some of those things in some ways became possible because of the space of who you are and how that privilege operated. It doesn't mean you worked any less hard than anybody else, right, But this whole idea of pull yourself up by your bootstraps, that's why so many of us rail against that because that assumes that everybody started from the same place in the starting line. And they didn't. I mean, you know, they just simply didn't. And I don't have to. You just gotta look at the history, right, It's hard to start from the same place in the starting line. If you were your ancestors were enslaved, and then you were Jim Crow, you were told there are places you couldn't be and go and you're still getting everything from redlining to shot in your own home. Is hard to really buy that argument, you know, And understanding again, black people are diverse. You have wealthy black people people with all types of privilege within that. So I don't want to deny that um. And we are still having this conversation in the United States of America in twenty nineteen. That's no accident. You were a generation away. My dad was was there when he was telling me a story. I remember when black people just started going up at our high school. I'm like, we're generating away from this stuff. We're not so far removed that we can write it off as some sort of historical thing that we've overcome. There's no way that like, that's a silly that's a silly state. Well, you can look at all of our institutions, all of them, so whether they're political academic, you look at all of our institutions and start to understand and where's the money, where's the capital. There was an article um that came out I saw online that looked at how much of land is privately owned in this country and all the families that own that land, and that you can you look it up and say who where the large the largest families are in terms of own most of the land in this country. I mean, you just there. There's a hundred places you can go and you're gonna come up with the same answer and understanding how privilege operates around this conversation because historically there are people who benefited and there are people who have not benefited through no fault on either side in terms of how they were born into the world. Nobody can help that. Nobody can help the color of their skin. And there's a way with with legislation, with cultural practices, with education, all of it. Um has geared itself towards a certain what a certain color of the skin, and not the other. Like I'm being really simplistic, but just to make the point, and so um, and what do we do about that? How is that reconciled? How do we build up trust between each other? You know, to build up trust in any kind of if I'm making a new friend or if I'm working with somebody a new colleague, Trust in part comes from how much I'm able to show one that I'm open to you know who you are and how you show up. But I also have to believe that you can stand with me and have my back, Which doesn't mean you always have to agree with me. There's not the same thing, but it means that means you're able to see who I am. So I was telling from students yesterday, I said, you know, um, I said, what was Especially when I was younger, it would be so interesting when some of my white friends would look at me and say, but I don't see the color of your skin. I knew that the heart of what that, what they were trying to say to me was you're human. I love you anyway. But it also made me angry because I was like, if you don't see the color of my skin, then you actually don't really understand some of the challenges I might be having in the world in comparison to you. Yeah, well that's that's a deflection, right too. You're just like, I don't see the color you're skin, because if I see it, then I got to talk about some ship I don't want to talk about exactly. I would rather someone say, oh, you know, I I do see that, and I don't know how to talk about what to say about that, because that's real. Then it's like, well I could work with that. Well you wrote, you wrote something in the book. I just really like trying to think of ways to get through this. She said, fashion new narratives that are inclusive and reflective of our past and offer new possibilities by expressing acknowledging the complexit of our stories and the meanings we attached to them. And I was like, well, if we're gonna kind of sum up this part of the conversation, I think it's that right if we're able to say, folks like I'm willing to do that, let's do that. Let's acknowledge this and then move on, like know that there's meaning attached to who you are and where you come from, more from those that are pressed and those that haven't necessarily been, and we can move on from that. We don't have to flame up. And we said, okay, now we understand each other, what do we do next? You know, what's the next move here? And I think that can be powerful, yes, and and I just want to underscore that before we can move on. That's a lot of work we have. I don't want to be really because we got it, we did it, and we're not getting the kumbay on any real way until we've spent some time doing all that work, you know, to fashion those new narratives. Yes, so what like if if you were to if we go back to ka public lands, national parks, those type of spaces being this great equalizer you know, we often talk about them being when when people ask like, why are you an advocate for public lands? I go, I have a son, and I want my son to understand this type of freedom, to understand this is an American ideal. It's something that we've built that many many nations around the world just do not have. So it's it's unique to this country. Then you flip that on your head and be like, Okay, that's available to UH African Americans of all shapes and sizes. Um, they can go there, they can experience it in just the way that I might go there. Um, why aren't they you know, it's I think it was a seven percent of folks at Vision National Parks are African American. Yeah, and so we should just be explicit and say, like, why in the modern sense aren't they there? I guess I could make I could make assumptions like it's economics, but what you know, can you kind of calculate that for people? And I want to be clear, of course, I'm not speaking for all African Americans, and you know I've done I'm just a white guy with the podcast too, So right, so I want to say that, Um, you know, so system So about maybe three or four weeks ago. Um, I get emails sometimes from people I've never met, which is great and It was a man who identified himself. He that he was white, that he worked in public lands as a manager for public lands, and he had come across my book and so he was reading it and the email was incredibly respectful. He was having some trouble. He was challenged by some of the ideas and he's trying to grapple with it. And one of the things he said was basically what you just said, which was so funny because he said, I you know, in his mind he didn't understand. He got, isn't it just choice if you want to come to the public lands? He goes, it's for me, every anybody can come that once too. It's not anything. And I said, boy, so what he really doesn't get is how systemic racism works. And systemic racism is racism. And I'm saying racism. I said that was too many times, but yeah, that's right. It's embedded. Those prejudices are embedded in the way things are set up. I you know, and I have stories and so there's a story that I can tell so many stories and if people can kind of see what I look like like, uh, you know, you if you look up and see my picture and I'm fairly sort of light and medium skinned, light skinned. Um, I have my whole life been stopped by complete strangers on the sidewalks who would just swear that I must be mixed and asking me where I'm from, especially with my hair. I mean, I dealt with it my whole life, getting challenged about, you know, what I look like from white people. Let me be really clear about that. Black people never do that to me. And you know, friendly or not, it's kind of invasive to be challenged about who are you whe where are you from? UM. I lived in the late nineties. I lived in Seattle. Love Seattle, right and you know, talk about beautiful outdoors with Mount Rainier and Baker and I was it was like a middle of the week. I was walking home. I had a tempt shop there for a month, and with a whole lot of people, other people at five o'clock walking along the street and I was taking the bus back to where I lived there in Seattle, and I didn't see where I was going, and there was a pothole on the street and I stepped in it. Now, I had never fractured a bone or anything before until that moment, but you know, when you step It's like you hear something and then the next thing, you know, your whole body you just like you're gonna black out, the nausea, all of it. Well, this was pre cell phone days, right, and I wanted to call my boyfriend at the time to come get me. But there's I have to find a pay phone, and I can barely walk, and I just think I'm gonna pass out. So I'm really nervous. I'm gonna pass out in the middle of the street with my bag. And I make it over to the curb and I look up and there what There's what looks like a young white family. There's a man and a woman, two small kids. And I look up, now, remember undressed like I've been in an office all day, coming from work. I look up at them and I'm starting to cry because I I'm so scared I'm going to pass out. And I said, can you help me please? I just you know, step I was trying to explain what happened, and they moved away from me. Not a single person who passed me on the street would help me. Not a single person. I may did to the pay phone. Boyfriend came and got me. I just sat on the curb there. You know, not a single person. Now you know, we can make a hundred excuses why they didn't. But when you say I looked for me, I looked like everybody else. I was dressed respectfully, I was clean, all the things right, I didn't, you know, And not a single person in a city that considers itself incredibly progressive and woke would help me, right. And I wish I could tell you that's the only story I have, but it's not. But and it makes the point of saying, you know, in my mind, um systemic, something's embedded in there and in a cultural consciousness where nobody and you know, I've told that story in Seattle when I've been invited, you know, I go back and people they're devastated because they're devastated about their own you know, like what we didn't have, Like you're so nice and no, and I'm like, mm hmmm, I said, but it's really interesting. It doesn't matter. Actually, that's why when you hear stories like um Harvard Um, the Harvard professor, the black Harvard professor, Henry Lewis Gates. When you heard that story a few years ago where he was trying to get into his own house and got arrested because the neighbor called the police. Yeah, you know, but there's the Dave Chapelle, the Dave Chappelle's kit or he's like calls the police and they come to his house like, oh, he broke in here and hung up pictures of his family. Yeah right, that's right right at his hysterical and it's also incredibly sad, true, right, That's what makes it so poignant because it's like, oh my god, you know, I mean there's choices I've made in places and I'm not I'm not. I'm an older woman, Like it's crazy, but I had to think twice about it because I just don't want to for there to be any you know, this interpretation, well, there's like Jonathan Hall, I'll probably butscher this. I pull it up and read it just from he says he was talking about like white people taking justice seriously, which even in itself is like gives me the like, I don't know if I'm comfortable with with that phrase. But beyond that, he says, if until the day comes, until we're able to wrestle with all that we've talked about here, he said, I'm gonna avoid public lands where double blaze orange or where more orange and drive below the speed limit when my firearm is in the car. Yes, I'm like, here's a real smart, articulate fella that is feeling this way, man, and that sucks, and I gotta like, I gotta figure that out. As much as I want to be like, hey, man, don't don't put this justice thing on me, I gotta figure out why he's feeling that way if I want to fix it or help, And then I would say that the justice thing is on all of us. That that's I'm sorry. Justice. There's a quote that I always used from Cornell West is that justice is love made public that you know, we don't talk about. But what what what we're really saying for me is do I love you enough as a fellow human being to do what I need to do so that you can show up as your whole self and be who you want to be. That's really what it is. People get hung up a lot of time with the idea of justice is always about fight and revolution and all of that, and sometimes that's what has to happen. Historically we know that, but at its most fundamental sense, it's the ability if I was walking down the streets of Seattle and I step into a pothole and hurt myself. There should have been at least five or ten people who are walking past me coming to help me. That's what justice is. Yeah, in my own head, I'm like that I would serve you that justice because anybody that I saw on the street, I would run over there and I would help them. And I don't understand why someone wouldn't, but it's important that I tried to understand why someone wouldn't. And this is one of the aspects of That's the thing I'm saying, just like I understand what that is. The other the other there's a sense of um. You know, when I was spending all those years backpacking, you know, I looked in my mind like most other backpackers in terms of how I dressed, Right, I had my lonely planet guys. I had you know, the khaki pants and the long skirt and the T shirt, and you know, I was you know, my hair was different than it is now. But you know, it was just I looked like a young woman backpacking around the world, except that I was African American and I almost never saw anybody who looked like me, which meant that when other people saw me backpacking, they also never saw anybody who looked like me. And it didn't matter that I had all the all the I was giving off all the right cues in terms of how I was dressed with my only planet, with my auspity backpack. You know, I had all the stuff, you know, all the paraphernalia. And I have to tell you, the people who were always most surprised by my presence abroad were other Americans and other Americans who would come up to me and say, you know, where are you from? Are you from Israel? I got Israel, Brazil, New Zealand, And I'm talking. I think I'm incredibly American, incredibly in New York, you know so, I think, and I feel like at the doing and going dude from New York, like, how can you not? You're talking to me for a few minutes, and it would be so surprising to them to find me there, you know, um, and it wouldn't be. It's not that it was a offensive. It's not always about it being offensive or rude. Uh though I will I do have a story of like an older white man who was very well addressed in his outdoor sports gear and catman do and we were in a we were in a travel agency and he started talking to me, you know, like what was I doing there, you know, and I'm telling him everything I was doing. Finally he looked at me and said, can I take a picture of you? Because I want to show my wife that you are actually here. And I you know, I'm a very friendly person. But because I realized he was, it was I'd just be been exota sized, like in his eyes, I was just unusual like he was. And I looked at him and I said five rupees and he thought I was joking. I said no, if yes, if you pay me five rupees, you can take my photo. And he didn't and he walked away. But I was so because I was like, oh my god, that's so you know, I'm just another human being that happens to be African American doing what you're doing here traveling through the country. You know, Um, don't put that on me, like your surprise and all that. It's not my job to explain myself in that way, as I wouldn't expect you to do it, not not in that way. So that's a lot of the again, the question of justice, you know, beyond whether who you where you vote, or how you show up on protests or not that you know people. That's one way right to show just but some of it is just the simple, the straightforward every day of when I say, who do we stand with and how do we stand with that person? What does it mean we're willing to risk? Because it may be at your job and maybe when you're out hunting with your your buds, whatever it is, and something like this comes up, who's willing to say something and who isn't? And I can't tell you some of the best people are unwilling to say anything because it makes them uncomfortable, and it means now they'll they will be potentially risking that friendship there, will be potentially risking their job, They'll be potentially risking how others perceive of them because they actually said something to about it. And that is a very human reaction. And that's really at the bare minimum is asking people to say, wow, how different it would be when you know, we watched the movies that we see people doing in the movies and we all love it. We're like, yes, they helped that. We love that, you know, but something that does it's hard to do in real life when when you're faced with it. Yeah, and I think it it I have, so I've experienced some things around, you know, just talking about black hunters. And we had a show. I got a friend by the name of Charles Rodney, and he lives in Maryland and he's a big time rabbit hunter. He's African American. Yeah, and he happened to and I don't. I mean, I love this man. I love what he stands for. I love his family. His wife is awesome, his kids are awesome. And when he comes on the show, he's incredibly energetic and and I find myself like trying to not generalized his motivations, trying to not tokenize the guy, because I respect him and I love it. I think he's awesome, and I'm trying not to. I don't want to have him on because he's black, and I don't want other people to be interested in talking to him because of that certainly part of who he is. And he grew up in in the segregation at South in Louisiana, the child of a sharecropper, and um, he's able to talk about like the difference in hunting as a pursuit. If you were rich and you were a landowner, you did a certain type of hunting. And if you were poor and you were a sharecropper, you did a certain type of hunting. And that's kind of why he loves to hunt rabbits to this day. So he has taught me all these things. But I think one of my greatest challenges of knowing him and having this platform where I can have him on, we can talk in public, because I just don't want to do that to the guy. Um well it, well man, I would say that in part, you know that's in part it's up to him, right, And I think there's something about the transparency. I mean, I hear you're saying, you don't want to do that to my get it. You don't want to tokenize him. You don't want to tokenize anybody. And part of his what makes his story so um vibrant, is the fact that he's African American and have these experiences. So don't deny him that either. There's a way that don't be afraid to say, hey, I don't want to tokenize you, and I want you on in part because you are black and you can talk about things I can't talk about in a way you know that I can't talk about, and I want people to hear that, along with all the ways you just show up as a whole person in the world. I think that's okay. If I was doing the thing on I used to have this class where a piece of the class was on Japanese internment, and I, you know, I mean, it's you know, and I spend time in Japan and just having that conversation around Japanese internment it's just for me. Really. I'm not Japanese, you know, but I you know, just the things I feel as an American about what that means terms of what was done to Japanese people. And I would have this Japanese man who had spent time in a camp come in and tell the story, and I was having a minute. He knew. I said, he's a wonderful human being, and I said, I want you here because you're a Japanese and you spend time in the camps, and only you can tell that story in that way. I can't do it. I can speak of it, you know, and around it, but I can't do it in the way. And he was like, oh, yeah, I'm there I'm down, you know, to do that. And you know what, and if a person, if you say that to a person and they don't want to do it for that reason, they can tell you that. They can say I'm sorry, I don't want to do that. Yeah. Yeah. If you don't want that to be the main way people see you, then don't do it. Right now, that's a great point, and it's just you know, when you're having a show and telling a story, you know, we could have this could have been. I mean, I understand why you have me on. There are so many other aspects of my personality. I was an actor for a loving years, right, I'm from the arts. We could there's other pieces of my personality we could talk about, but that's not what we're here to talk about. I know that this isn't all of who I am, you know. I know that, And I understand you're invited me because I wrote the book and as an African American, I think about these things personally, and that's cool. I do not feel tokenized on any level because I understand it, because if I did, I wouldn't I would say so yeah, yeah, And I think that's that's and that's the fear in that is only that you just want the thing that you that you want is somebody feel comfortable, feel like they're in it for that, I'm in it for the right reasons, in there for them, and that that everybody has a similar motivation. And so I think that's all open and good. Yeah, And sometimes it's hard. That's that's and that's okay. That's the something I want to really emphasize for people is that it's hard to do this stuff, you know, to kind of be with people who are not us, to have these kinds of conversations. And it doesn't mean it can't be open and good and and exciting. And sometimes it's hard, that's it. Yeah. I definitely want to come and see your your performance piece about John You're it's called it's called the N word Nature revisited. Itunds fantastic. Man. That sounds like I'm just gonna come with the Core's light and let's get it. Let's go, let's go, let's see what's good. Yes, yeah, yeah, Can you tell me just about that, because I think that's it illustrates, of course, what we already talked about, which is there's these figures that we idolize, but they're complicated. So in and I'm still working on this, but in sen was the centennial for the National Parks and so that year, and some of your listeners may remember, there's sort of lots of celebrations and activities, and um, my doctorate is in geography, and so there's always a huge geography conference over the year. Thousands of people come and they had a special panel. They asked about seven or eight of us geographers but from different parts of the discipline, to sit on it. And it's the question that we're gonna ask each of you. Is is John Muir still relevant today? Right? And they said you have ten twelve minutes to answer each to answer that question. So I had worked on this idea that I didn't want to just come up with some answer, and I started thinking about, um, is John murestill relevant? Like how do I feel about that? Right? Um? And so one of the things I did I thought about so your readers and you probably remember the movie and the story Gone with the Wind right written by Margaret Mitchell. And in the early two thousands, there was a black writer out of Harvard named Alice Randall who thought, I wonder if Gone with the Wind had been written by a black woman, it had been the central character was a black woman instead of Scarlet O'Hara, how would the story be different? So she wrote it. She wrote a book called the Wind Done Gone then exactly right? Yes, And the central character was a what she she described it as a mulatto, you know, the half sister of Scarlett O'Hara. And she wasn't trying to be funny in the story, but the title is pretty funny. Um and the market and so I'm telling the audience this, and I'm saying, you know that Margaret Mitchell Estate lost their minds, right, they were really they didn't want this book to be published. So when you try to buy it on the front, it'll say a parody because that she was forced to put that on the cover, even though it's not what she was trying to do. So I'm telling the audience this, and I'm saying, you know, So I was thinking about one of John Muer's books. One of the ones he wrote was A Thousand Mile Walked through the Gulf in eighteen sixty seven, and in eighteen sixty seven he spent I think more than a year walking through some southern states like Kentucky. He made it all the way down to Cuba actually because he wanted to look at the impact of war on the landscape. Right. And so then what I did is I took passages from yours book. It was published, I believe in nineteen sixteen, in his words, and and some beautiful things he was saying about the nature he was seeing. But I also read some passages about some of the things he was saying about the black people he was seeing. He in his words. So I'm just reading his words to the audience, and I'm saying each year, you know, you know, I'll i'd say the date, and I'd say this thing about that he said. And then I said, I looked at the audience, I said, so when I wondered, what if a black woman had written this instead? Right, So instead of calling it a thousand mile Walks of the Gulf in eighteen sixty seven, I called it a thousand mile walk was rough. And I made up a character called through journal Washington Douglass. And then what I did I put quotes and what but I pulled real historical facts, like you know that she was born in Louisiana and the hangings that were going on in cold Facts there. I talked about how she was ducking and weaving across the hostile landscape. I talked about how she wasn't light enough to pass, so she had to, you know, use the woods in order to make her escape. And then I got to eighteen ninety and I'd go, eighteen ninety, Jim Crow was the man. Jim Crow was the man, not Jim Crow was the man. And I kept doing that right, and then then when I got to nineteen, I said, this is Winster Juror Washington. Douglas passed away and Jim Crow was still the man. Then the second part of my answer was there's a book called Wrap on Race, and it's an amazing book. It's a transcribed conversation between James Baldwin, the black poet, and Margaret Meade, the white anthropologist who's probably one of the most famous anthropologists, and they who don't agree on a lot of things. Is I won't have this conversation about race, and so it's incredibly powerful. So I'm telling the audience about that. And I then I said, you know, I sit on the National Parks Advisory Board, or at least I was and I said, what would it be like of John Mure and I had a conversation. So then I kind of did a little scene, like I made it kind of funny about inviting him over to my place and how he was looking really surprised to see me there, and said, did he imagine I'd be cleaning his house? But he's having this conversation with me and I sort of him green tea, and I'm trying to kind of enlighten him some stuff, and I make it sort of funny because I bring up, like Oprah in Tupacket, things he doesn't know anything, and I was like, that's gonna be difficult for him, but let's talk about this. And I just end the end say to him, you know, why don't we meet again? But I know you need some time to think about everything I just said to you, because I tell him about Shelton Johnson, the Black Park ranger in Yosemite, and I'm just telling them things, you know, And then he goes away, and at the end I look at the audience and say, you know, it's not a question whether or not he's relevant or not. It's that he becomes relevant on my terms. And there's some things. So I wanted to expand the whole thing into a one woman show that has imagery that kind of looks at our understandings of nature and conservation and wilderness and again how it's been constructed over time in this country and where the issue of race and perspective comes in, right, and to understand the complexity of that where you could have a man like John Muir who clearly loved the idea of nature and wilderness and committed his life to that, but could also hold racist perspectives about human beings that didn't look like him. Yeah, And I think it's it's strikes me like you're able to both be a pragmatist about this when you talk about it, and you're also emotionally connected, like astoundingly emotionally connected to it for great reason, right, So like there is you can do both things at the same time. And I think that's important. Yes, I think that we and that we all can and that it just as you know, what I always tell an audience that I'm talking to, I said, I refuse to give up my humanity in this work. I'm not interested in, you know, any anger that I have, I feel is what it is. It's anger, and sometimes that's what comes up an emotion, you know, and sadness and all these things come up. And actually I'm a real optimist about I believe in it our capacity to be so much better than we are, you know. And I'm not interested in becoming the suddenly the oppressor. So I don't want to start. I can say that, you know what, John Muir had some racist thoughts and ideas embedded in his work. That's real, which doesn't make him a necessarily a horrible person. But I can certainly be upset with him about his racism, and I can certainly appreciate his commitment to the wilderness and nature. I can do both. Yeah, that's and that's huge. But I think we would probably I'd probably be remiss if I didn't ask you, um, the simple question like what do you think you're You're in New York born like East Coast, you lived in Vermont, now you live, You've been around, you were in Berkeley for a while. What do you think about been around? Been around? You've been You've been in Africa, you've been to Asia. Um, what do you think about hunting? Like? What where's your sensibility lie there? So this is one of my you know, like I said, I had a dad, I have a dad still, father who was really into guns. Um uh, not so much. When he was a kid. He did hunting. But you know, we lived in New York. But my father, well that's not entirely true. There's a funny story. So on the property we grew up on, there was a proliferation of geese and like there's a lot of you know, just so many geese. And because my father's job, you know, it was to keep the lawns and the grounds nice. You know, geese poop everywhere, right, and it made my father crazy. So he'd go out sometimes at midnight. He'd be shooting up the geese on the approperty, which stood on the roof of the one of the house. I mean, he was. It became such a thing. He was in the local paper about how much he hated the geese. He used to he said he would wake up at night from a nightmare. My mother said he would sit up screaming because he said he'd be sitting in his little rowboat on the lake and the geese was suddenly started attacking them, uh, started attacking him, right. So it was a long running thing with him and the geese. But that's the only time that I saw him hunt. And it wasn't for sport, and it wasn't for food. It was for you know, I don't know he wanted to get rid of the geese. He said, he just had a populized control. Rank that's right. Um, I you know the thing that I understood. I feel like I can understand his hunting for food. I can understand that. I for a couple of years, I was friends with friends. I was I had a relationship, a romantic relationship with a German forster, and he hunted. And this is when I lived in Nepal and I went to Germany and I remember, um, your your audience is not gonna like me after I say this, But I I you know, this was this was This was about twenty years ago. So caught me a little flak. But I was in Germany and I remember going out with him and another friend of his. They were gonna hunt, and I just it's just hard for me. I couldn't if we weren't, I didn't, we didn't need to hunt. So I just didn't understand it. So I remember I couldn't go with him I said, I'll wait, and I was like primned if they don't get anything, and they didn't. I was really happy about um, and I enjoyed a huge way to meat. Let me just right. I mean they served all this delicious meat that his wife cooked up, and I mean, you know, his friend's wife cooked up and it was amazing. UM, and I ate it. Right. So it's complicated, right, And when I look at it now, and I know people have become friends with people like Jonathan Paul who are hunters. And I also met Um. Oh my god, he's a wonderful He's a young white guy who goes around. He used to be an outdoor adventurer, but he's like hard course hunter. Now his name will come back to me because I know you know who he is. Yeah, And I'm just I'm just facing out on his name because he's got an unusual name. UM and I and we were both speaking at something this past year and I met him and I really listened to his story, which was amazing, and I thought, you know, hey, you know people you know. For me, it's there's something about consciousness. How conscious are we in responsible for what it is that we do? So I can't the thing that where here's where I can't go. You know, when the sport hunter who goes to South Africa to hunt elephants for sports so he can put the head on the wall is really hard for me. I just I can't I don't get it. I love elephants, and I just don't get why you would put one to put a while down of his animals head on the wall simply for sport, not because you were trying to survive or eat or you know whatever. Is like, I just don't understand that. But I certainly have respect for people who are consciously trying to engage, Like they're gonna eat meat, you know what, They're gonna hunt for that meat, They're going to skin that meat, They're going to think about that population that they live in a relationship with, you know, where they live. That's really for me that there's something really deep about that. Um, you know, to take that kind of responsibility and be that involved so that you're walking your talk in a very particular way, and so that I have a lot of respect for. I have a hard time with guns. I have shot guns. You know, I have to say that I was really good at it. Um, and this was when I was with the germ guy said, you know, I'm competitive, So I there's an aspect of that in terms of the sport of just shooting the gun, not shooting it at anything beyond the target. But I've never had to shoot anything that was living. And I don't know, you know, but if I had to survive, like if that the situation and it was a survival, like if I want to eat, the only way I can eat is hunt for it, I'm gonna learn how I love it. Like that's fairly common, right, Like that's like the way you just articulated all that is pretty Like what I find is most people are kind of in that spot and they're like they're open to it, but the only other certain circumstances and they're fighting the preconceptions that are out there in their own mind. Um, and that's that's just where we are. Yes, And I've love you know because I you know, I've had significant others who I mean, I you know, I have like to think that I have diverse people. I've had diverse people in my lives and when I've loved people, you know that have had aspects of their character personality are very different than my own. I've had to work hard to you know, walk my own talk about standing in the difference of respecting that or trying to at least at the bare minimum, trying to understand it, you know, even though I don't have to do exactly what they do in the way that they do it anymore than they have to do that for me, right and what that means, So I can kind of come to it from that way, And I'm always open and learning about, um uh, what it means to be what it means to walk our talk around issues of conservation and being in better relationship with non human nature and kind of showing up there, you know, how real about how are we real about that? How are we? Yeah, I've had people labeled me in certain ways just for speaking about that. I'm like that, I don't, I'm not. I don't. I don't want to self profess anything, but I do think that as a hunter nowadays, there's there's just certain things that are more palable to to most folks. And when you start talking about the food and the connection to nature and worrying about healthy ecosystems and thinking about these animals and in a way of value and that sits in a certain value system. I think people people generally accept that and they're willing to move towards it. So I mean, it's good too. It's good to hear that. Obviously, like you said, it wasn't the reasonable I had you on, but I just wanted to know, just from your experience, what thought. Yeah, And I'm looking as funny as we're talking, because I really want to find the name of that hunter, which I just feel like, I know you know a lot of your listeners probably even though who he is, because he was so I heard his story this year and he was so amazing. Uh, But I don't know that I can find it while I'm we're talking and be focused. We'll have to, We'll have to dig it up. I'm I'm I can think of I can think of a lot of names. I could rattle off a bunch of them, but I don't want to. I don't want to get it wrong. Um. But yeah, I mean, I think kind of just to start to try to wrap this up, I mean, I wonder and I'm gonna sit and think about kind of what you've said here and in some of the ways to move forward, and in kind of the perspective, that's that's within your work. And then this this conversation even and of itself, because I think it requires some introspection on all our parts, on my part and everyone listening. Um, do you feel that we're one we're headed in the right direction with this stuff? And are there examples of things that folks can do, um, whether it's tangible or intangible to to to kind of show that they're in the right mindset here. Um, So I will say this, I you know we are we we are moving forward right Ah, sorry, my team, oh, my team to tell us Yeah, yeah, his brother, his brother is sitting across the room for me right now. Yeah. It was my teens story because we met and we were both talking at a thing together and his story was so amazing and just the way he told it was amazing and it was helpful for me. We love my teeen. His brother, Janice is a big part of our company and on our show, been on this show many times. That's awesome. I can move on and talk. Shout out to my team. He's yeah, he's a great, great representative for all of us. Men. Yes, yes, um, yes, Um, we're whether or not we're moving in the right direction. I think that we are. The fact that we're moving forward is the right thing to do. I mean. And what the thing that's true I will say to you and your listeners is that in ten fifteen years ago, ten years ago, my phone would have been ringing around. We I only go places where I'm invited, right, And I only around to have these conversations because I can't force anybody to do anything, and I don't want to. And if people, you know, this is how I make a living. And also people have to have to be invited in, and I have in the last five years since the book has come out, I haven't had to look for work work. I'm over extended. I'm so over extended already in the next year. So what I'm saying about that is that that field is exciting because most of those invitations are from predominantly white groups who are are to think about, how do we do this all? A lot of the things you said today, how do we understand this? What do we what is required of us? You know, and so forth, And so that's just beyond exciting for me because that's where growth happens for all of us. You know, what does it mean for us to be willing and ready to sort of show up, not just for the conversation, but to sort of, um, you know, put our hands together, on our heads together, in our hearts together, and move forward. Right. So I'm really excited by that. What was the second thing, Ben you said? It's like a part of that question, you know, what are there tangible or intangible things that people can do? I think probably more tangible here because a lot of what we're talking about is just conceptual, you know, how we think about Like is there other than that? I think would probably be obvious, like find someone in your community that doesn't look like you and talk to him about these ideas. Is there other things like larger since you kind of have seen how our government works and how legislation works, sort of larger things that can be done. Yes. And there's a very easy um an article that people have access to online. They can get to. So I was last December. I was part of a group r E. I sponsored a group of us to come together in New York City for the Atlantic magazine to have a conversation, a taped conversation about this. And so the article is called five Ways to make the Outdoors more inclusive, and you know, there were Atlanta writers there and they put it all together and came up with a bunch of steps and sort of you know, sort of one on one fundamental ways, different ways people could be thinking about how they might move forward. Um. And they had the range of us in the room where it was just a range. It was might maybe about eight of us in the room, including um, his voice was in the room. Um, that Ken Salazar who had been one of the secretary of the Interior. But then they had just people from different parts of the country who do this work and some of what they were saying and kind of got the article open here what we were saying, I'm sorry, and has the pictures of who everybody is so people can get a sense of that. Um. You know, it's everything from in terms of the what are the back stories of the outdoor spaces that you live in? You know, and we were saying here higher historians. What I would say the most fundamental level is kind of are doing your own discovery? What stories are you not hearing? You know, it's so interesting about a piece of land, a piece of wilderness, a piece of forest. We just sort of accept, you know what we've been told, but what else is there? And then when we know that, how does that change the way we think about that space, you know? And who shows up in that space and who doesn't? Um? What does it mean to lobby local, state, and federal governments to create storytelling driven memorials. So one of the things for me is that the great thing about land and public land in particular and forests, when we think about all the tensions around our differences and how it seems like today we're just not getting along with each other and everybody's talking about us, then this divide and I would say, well, you know that stuff has always been there is a surfaced and it's actually an opportunity. What better place to set up sometimes these conversations our way to tell these stories differently than our public lands. There's the obvious, right because landing and of itself, and I don't mean to sound wool with this is healing. We all need it. We're all here on it. Um, how do we use those spaces in our communities? So you know, if you take a group of people on a walk through the woods, you know, how can we what can we open up in terms of what stories are there? In terms of everybody bringing their story into the woods with them. Let's have that conversation, you know, and you could have them in the woods, right. Um. I think that's something everybody can do. I mean, of course there's um I'm looking at we had so many things written down here, I'd be flexible with rules to make visitors feel comfortable. They were talking very particularly about public lands, and I would say in terms of hunting groups and the way people go out, you know and go hunting, I know, some rules need to be there for people's safety. And there's also sometimes it's just interesting in terms of how things are done. You know, people will fall back on, well, this is how we've always done it, so that's why we're going to continue doing it this way. But we're saying we want more diverse people to come join us. So I'm gonna say, you know, if you always do things in the same way, how can you expect something different? You know? That's it's it's kind of basic. So to really sort of reexamine some of the cultural practices around how you organize when you go on hunting trips and where you choose to go and what is it you know about that place before you go there, and what you don't know? Um, and what does it mean to actually if you're really saying we would love to have different people involved in no different people? You know, what does an invitation look like? And what does an invitation look like that isn't simply tokenizing that person? And what would it look like not to invite just one person who is different, Like if you're going to invite let's say an African American, I would just invite one to come along with me in the group that's did in that place, it's really a lot of pressure. You may want to get a cohort, like what does it need to before that had some conversations with you know, people in the community about that and sort of and organized that trip together. So it's not one person making a decision for everyone else. So even in how hunting trips and and gatherings are organized, Um, what would it look like to And I'm not saying, you know, I'm not already doing this or your listeners aren't already doing this. But once you've hunted, you've you've caught some animals, you know, to have you know, maybe you know the skinning part and preparing the meat maybe a little hard for people who haven't done that before. But what does it look like to have a meal where you're people are invited to come to share with what you have that we want to invite you in for this and and have that open up as an opportunity And ultimately what does it mean, you know, in terms of all of us having our freedom and agency to choose the things we want to do. At the end of the day, some of those people may not want to still join you on the hunting trip, but they may want to be in relationship with you and support you so you can do what it is you want to do. Right, So to understand that, I would say that the the intention doesn't have to be to get more people hunting. The intention can be bigger than that, to be how do we are in support of each other and be part of this community. So it may mean that you'll get you will get some new hunters with you, and you might not get some other people. What doesn't mean that they won't be happy to come and help you cook up the food or just be be part of your community in a fuller way and make and so when you come to them and there's something on the that has to be voted on that's gonna support those public lands so that you all could continue to hunt. You know, we know it's the numbers my friends, right, who's gonna be voting that, and someone like myself who's not thinking one way or the other amount about it, who might overlook that vote just because I'm not thinking about that it's not part of my life. The difference is if I'm in relationship with you and I know who you are and saying, well, you know what, that doesn't really matter to me, but it matters to my friend Ben, So I'm actually gonna learn more about it and I'm going to vote in favor to support it for him. Yeah, And that's that's like the a great way to put it. And also for me just thinking from from reading your book and reading Jonathan Hall's article, and Hall is a little bit more direct about it than anybody, but like just saying like, hey, man, if you're thinking about this and you're looking for that cultural competency and you're and you're thinking about these topics, you're already winning that battle a little bit. Because when you run into a guy that doesn't look like you're a young lady doesn't look like you and she's interested, You'll already be like, oh, yeah, you know what I could do to help this person out if if there is some barriers that I'm not seeing, is a little bit understanding of like where we're going, what this place is, what it used to be, what they might be thinking. And that's worthwhile in any endeavor alone hunting, you know, it's like it's just city, really, yes, and that we always are a re examine of one's own assumption, you know, the assumptions that we have about someone else, what we think they don't know, what they think they won't like, what we think they're experiencing, and how we can be really wrong about that. Be pleasantly surprised actually to find out that oh they had that, you know, they have a family member who hunted, and actually they grew up with you know, like you know, just the things that come out that we don't know about someone, um until we take time to get to know them right and make space for that. Well, I'm definitely gonna do that. And thanks thanks really for not only your work but just being open to come on and talk about this. Like I said, we're not going to just sit here and pat myself on the back for being willing to have this conversation the whole time. But like there's there's a level of um, you know, just courage. It takes a step out and talk about this stuff and hit it head on, um and you know, and attack it because it does because we can agree. The one thing everyone listening here can't agree on is choper scent of hunting. Hunters being African American is not enough. Um. Hopefully we can all agree on that. I certainly think we can. So if we start from there, any of this conversation is good. Yes. And that again, even if you don't get more as many people as you would like hunting to get people to support those of you who do, right, that's you know, that can that has value? Right? Um? And yeah, and Ben, thank you, Look, thank you for having me on the show. Thank you for your willingness to make space for this conversation. For me, that's a huge part of it. It's just you know, I almost never say no to anyone, because that's really why I'm so overextended, because I'm always excited. I was like, oh, this is so cool, collect I'm gonna be I love it because it challenges me to think more broadly. It challenges me to sort of re examine my own assumptions, and there's so much potential there for where we might go. So thank you for making the space and the time for me. This was fun. Well, you can go you can check out black Faces, White Spaces, or you can go to your website. And I did all that and just read as much as I could. And UM, just just get out there and be curious about this stuff everybody, and it's it's never gonna hurt anything. Um, open her mind a little bit to it and see where it goes. Yeah, thank you so much, Carolyn. Okay, thanks Ben, I guess that's it. That's all. Another episode in the books. Thank you too, Miles Nalte. Thank you to Carolyn Finney. Thank you to all of you for sticking with us through this ride and and through this topic. Um. I don't want to overstate how fraud it is and keep saying that, but UM, it's just something I haven't heard discussed and I wanted to make sure that we did so. I think it was done wonderfully by Carolyn, And thanks her so much for for spending the time with us. And we can to have her on and and folks like Jonathan hall On later in the podcast. So before we go uh here, as we I'll say, I'm gonna just rip a freestyle here Phil. It's Thanksgiving, man, like that's coming up in a couple of days, and there's a lot to be thankful for. But I will be super corny and saying that. Um, I'm I'm thankful for my family, my wife, my son, Uh, the support of a company like Mediator to let us put this on and let us get silly, get serious, go all over the place, um, come up with names for mustaches and drink sparkly beverages and make jokes that all. Um. While it might seem it might seem a name, it's important to me that we can do this, um, and it's important to me that you all listen. So thank you for doing that, and thank you to everybody that supports this show and helps us put it on. Right, Phil, you want to give some thank yous out there? Yeah, same thing as you, Uh family, I'm thankful for we Well, we made a joke in the opening about how I I felt unwelcome here because I'm a non hunter. That's right, but that could be that couldn't be further from the truth. Um, I've had many people being like, hey, let's bring it on your first hunt, and even though I had no I don't know what I'm talking about, it's been very really really inclusive, and UM, I'm thankful to be uh be a part of it, and for you for just randomly. I think my one of my first days here, you started talking to me and I wasn't expecting it. On your podcast it was with Myles actually you were talking about beached whales or something like that, and I made a fool out of myself. But then you kept talking to me and now and now my mustache as a name and everyone knows who Mango is. Yeah, it's never you never know where well it's my pleasure, my pleasure. You never know where things are going to go, but I do. We do. Just want everybody to know that, UM, we work hard at this, we want to get better. We take all the praise and all of um the criticism in the same manner and we're gonna keep on going here at the Hunting Collective and next episode, episode ninety. That's a lot um. So we're very thankful. Enjoy the holidays with your family, have fun, be merry, eat turkey, take naps. He too long because I can't go a week without doing run oh without run breaking out and run absolutely wrong. Drinking in heaven, don't. Sitting at the possible would stop the row root. I'm feeling like aging. Hold on out, bar rosh shoes all down my