Park Service Seeks to Reach Changing Population
| More news stories on the War on White Heritage |
|---|
Vicki Smith, AP, July 7, 2008
She’d spent a lifetime less than an hour’s drive away, but it had never crossed Joquetta Johnson’s mind to visit Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. What, she wondered when a friend suggested it, could a park in rural, lily-white West Virginia hold for a black teacher from Baltimore?
More than she could have imagined.
She found herself enthralled by the place where white abolitionist John Brown tried to start a slave uprising, the place where the Niagara Movement, forerunner of the NAACP, first met on U.S. soil. It is the home of Storer College, which began educating newly freed slaves in 1865, the 40-year-old library media specialist at Milford Mill Academy learned.
Yet Johnson, like many people of color, hadn’t gotten the message that the National Park Service admits it’s struggling to deliver.
“We do not reflect the changing face of America,” said David Barna, a park service spokesman in Washington. “The national parks are still a middle-class Caucasian visit, primarily.”
The agency has been working for years to change that, an effort that is taking on a sense of urgency with the browning of America.
From Florida to California, the Park Service has brought minority children from cities to places they’ve never seen, hoping they will return with their parents. To make its staff more reflective, it has begun recruiting high school students for summer jobs that can be the springboard to a career.
And it looks for ways to make historical exhibits like those at Gettysburg National Military Park more relevant, refocusing on the role of slavery in the Civil War rather than battle strategy.
{snip}
Surveys have found Hispanics and blacks are far less likely to visit the parks and far more likely to describe them as uncomfortable places. It’s a problem of relevancy that, if left uncorrected, may lead to a day when taxpayers will decide they no longer value and are unwilling to fund preservation of the nation’s historical and natural treasures, Barna says.
{snip}
While there are sites that reflect the stories of black and Native Americans, the Park Service has done what Barna calls “an appalling job” of celebrating Hispanic Americans. Nor does it offer much to Asian Americans.
There is Manzanar, a Japanese internment camp in California. There is Utah’s Golden Spike, a symbol of Chinese laborers, many of whom died building the nation’s railroads. Neither is much to celebrate.
Last fall, the Park Service dedicated New York’s African Burial Ground, a site in lower Manhattan where free blacks and slaves were buried more than two centuries ago. The project cost more than $50 million.
The Park Service is prohibited from buying advertising, forcing it to rely on word of mouth, media coverage, outreach through schools and advertising done by concessionaires within or near the parks.
Even with such marketing roadblocks, breaking down cultural and psychological barriers is a tougher challenge, said James Gramman, chief social scientist for the Park Service and part-time professor at Texas A&M.
{snip}
[Brian] Loadholtz, chief of resource education, worked with leaders of a subsidized housing community to arrange permission and transportation for last year’s pilot project. Afterward, he offered vouchers so the kids could return with their families for free.
“Disappointingly,” he said, “none of them were claimed.”
At Santa Monica Mountain National Recreation Area in California, where some 200 languages are spoken within 50 miles, educational programs reach 12,000 children a year, some so popular they have a two-year waiting list, spokesman Charles Taylor says.
Santa Monica also targets teens, particularly Hispanics, for summer jobs that show there are environmental science careers beyond farming.
{snip}
(Posted on July 7, 2008)
Comments
Speaking of Federal land and diversity, there was a story from a few weeks ago where the Federal National Forest Ranger service in Wyoming turned away the Boy Scouts for some neo-hippie group called the “Rainbow Family.” Yesterday, we found out that the ultra-tolerant “Rainbow Family” ganged up in a group of 400 to beat up 10 of the park rangers.
Posted by Question Diversity at 6:20 PM on July 7
“While there are sites that reflect the stories of black and Native Americans, the Park Service has done what Barna calls “an appalling job” of celebrating Hispanic Americans. Nor does it offer much to Asian Americans.”
Well, I guess we just have to change our nation’s entire history, then. But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised — this sort of ideological dogmatism is what drives the “study” of history in colleges and universities these days, so why wouldn’t it eventually filter down to our national park system?
Posted by Dissenter at 6:28 PM on July 7
I only wish this were true in the D.C. area. Latinos now overrun places like Pennyfield Lock, on the C & O Canal. Until recently they stayed away from national parks — maybe they were afraid of immigration officials lurking around. But now that Latinos outnumber whites in Montgomery County, they don’t even try to be discreet.
Posted by Realist at 6:28 PM on July 7
$50 million for the African burial ground? It’s over, there is no way to stop this insane Federal Government. We are going the way of the Soviet Union.
Posted by William Hendershot at 6:56 PM on July 7
I believe on the West Coast, and maybe all over the country, the black and brown people visit state and national parks to plant their marijuana crops.
Posted by Kellie at 7:03 PM on July 7
They’re the last place in America a person can be more or less alone and not worry about being harmed by strangers they happen upon. Why would we want to change that?
Posted by Cliff Yablonski at 7:27 PM on July 7
I was on a tour of a large U.S. city known for its historical riches the other day, along with a sizeable group of minority junior high students. Most of the boys didn’t hear anything the tour guide said because they were following so far behind the rest of the tour group. When they had a chance to sit down, a couple of the boys used the moment to vandalize park benches with pieces of flint they carried in their pockets.
When the tour moved into a classroom of one of the country’s leading educational establishments, the only thing some of the boys thought to do was write their names on the chalkboard, with the fervor of someone who had never seen a chalkboard before.
The parks aren’t missing much by the absence of these kind of boys.
Posted by at 7:46 PM on July 7
There goes the wilderness. I thought the loud obnoxious asians at Yellowstone were bad. Now we have to deal with a whole new problem. Say goodbye to last peaceful places on earth. Thanks park service!
Posted by the celt at 8:09 PM on July 7
If the Yankees at Gettysburg had known what the National Government would do to defile their memory, they’d have quit fighting right there and gone home.
Posted by Schoolteacher at 8:20 PM on July 7
Blacks hate nature. Have you ever seen how blacks respond to rain? You’d think the sky was precipitating acid.
My response to rain is ‘I’m waterproof’ and my cloths will dry.
And the peace and solitude of nature? When blacks started showing up at ski resorts, they brought dj’s with them. They don’t seem to understand the purpose going to a natural setting is to get away from the cacophony of the modern world.
“We do not reflect the changing face of America”
And if you succeed, you’ll regret it.
Posted by sbuffalonative at 8:50 PM on July 7
“‘The national parks are still a middle-class Caucasion visit, primarily.’ The agency has been working for years to change that…”
And if the National Park Service continues to alienate us with its re-interpretation of our national heritage, maybe it will “lead to a day when taxpayers will decide they no longer value and are willing to fund [it].”
In a rare show of patriotic fervor, I wrote my Senators and Congressman when I learned that Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill., and son of the notorious “civil rights” agitator) was successfully pressuring the NPS to change its focus at Civil War battle sites.
These historical and natural treasures are worthy of preservation; until, at our own expense, they’re used as political tools against us.
Posted by KonfederateKarl at 10:33 PM on July 7
This is sad to think that as the white race is dying off, there is no other people who will pick up the mantle and carry on for us. Our institutions, our civilization will not be furthered by the advancing hoards. All the beautiful things our kind has created will die with us, our parks, museums, libraries, etc. They will go unappreciated and fade to dust.
Posted by at 10:49 PM on July 7
The modern world is getting too strange for me to handle and I am not even in my thirties yet. The parks department has full time “social scientists” on staff??? Blacks are now being paid (well being given “vouchers” anyway) to visit parks?? I had no idea walking around in the woods was such a controversial political issue.
Also I can personally attest that the 50 million(!!) dollar African National Burial ground is a mighty strange place. I work two blocks from there, and saw them build the thing. It was originally just an empty lot, but they put in about a half dozen mounds of dirt to make it look like a row of old-timey graves. Then they put some abstract marble sculpture in the middle with some typical engraving about the greatness of the African spirit or something like that.
The whole thing is maybe an acre in size if that, and I have no clue how they could have blown 50 million dollars on it. I suppose some mob run construction company may have gouged them on the piles of dirt, and I am sure some diversity consultants pocketed a few million in fees but even so, it seems like a pretty steep price for a slab of marble and some piles of dirt.
Posted by AJ at 11:02 PM on July 7
That reminds me of a program about two years ago that featured a group of students who were on a survival training adventure in Africa. The lone Black (American) in the group was the one who did the most whining and complaining about the rigorous conditions which with the group had to deal. Their guide, a White male, even showed them how to find things to eat in the strangest places including finding an edible nut in elephant dung.
All the Black guy did the whole time was act out about everything they encountered from harsh bush conditions to the flora and fauna encountered along the way.
Interesting given that so may African natives seem totally incapable of surviving in their own environment.
Posted by at 11:31 PM on July 7
I’m a bigtime backpacker so I’ve been around many of the National Parks. It’s always the same, 95% white, 5% Asian or thereabouts.
I also visit a lot of museums. Same demographics. Here in L.A., almost never do I see hispanics in museums yet this city is more than 50% hispanic. All the brochures are printed in English and Spanish. What a waste of money.
Hispanics might show up if you offered free tacos or if they had an exhibit on how evil whites oppressed the poor latinos.
Posted by Mark Davidson at 12:08 AM on July 8
“Last fall, the Park Service dedicated New York’s African Burial Ground, a site in lower Manhattan where free blacks and slaves were buried more than two centuries ago. The project cost more than $50 million.”
Well there’s a national park that I plan on visiting right away — what could be more beautiful than an African burial ground in the heart of lower Manhattan? And this only cost 50 million dollars of our tax dollars? I feel so privileged to have contributed to such a worthwhile cause, a project sure to compete with Yellowstone and Grand Teton for tourists. The real beauty of this development is that New Yorkers will be able to exhibit “African Burial Grounds” in the other four boroughs as well with modern-day artifacts as “African Americans” murder each other on a daily basis.
Posted by Don't Spite the White at 1:50 AM on July 8
Blacks have no reverence for nature or culture. In Seattle the big gardening club, the NW Perennial Alliance, has 1, maybe 2 Blacks as members and they are naturally gay, which often negates many of the effects of being just Black. I have never seen a Black person in the mountains or in a national park. Blacks don’t do nature, they just deface it. Pretty much the same for Hispanics ( excepting the Caucasian ones, who are different).
Posted by at 1:55 AM on July 8
I wonder if a new camp in the wilderness by the Somali or Ethiopian refugees would be tolerated now. In a park area in Santa Cruz, calif. some years ago, a deputy Sheriff looking for a missing person aling with other people tripped a claymore mine booby trap and was killed. Turned our there were a large number of the mines set to protect a marijuana field, just another possibility for a tourist attraction. I also know of a pot farm in Yellowstone of several thousand acres being cultivated by the folks who had the trash dumpster and clean up of the park contract. When it was found out, amnesty and no prosecution was promised in return for not making the incident public. I know this to be a fact, a know the people personally though I do not know the politicians involved. “And if you look out the right windows you will see the ancient pot fields of Yellowstone” another tourist great of our NPS.
Posted by Skip at 3:09 AM on July 8
Poor bears. They need to experience the joys of diversity, too!
Posted by at 3:30 AM on July 8
Roughly 15% of the Park Service`s budget is spent on the ranger program. Horrible crimes are committed daily in the system, oddly enough by white hoodlems preying on the visitors.
Blacks are as rare as a clean toilet, so they are limited in joining in the hunt because their urban camoflauge, baggy pants and dread locks make them stand out. If we can just bus about 10,000 black teen age boys a week into our parks, the spectre of racism that prevents them from getting a taste like their white hoodlem pals would be shattered. All those RVs with old white dudes with money; young white chicks prancing around half dressed; camp stores bulging with uncollected cash; perhaps Obama will make equal parks predations part of his political program.
Charles B. Tiffany
Kissimmee, Florida
Posted by Charles B. Tiffany at 5:29 AM on July 8
>>>Blacks and Hispanics still aren’t going to the national parks.
The UPSIDE being these parks and monuments are far less likely to be trashed and turned into dumping grounds. We have, HAD, really a fairly decent public park near our home.
Some years back, Houston’s Mexican population ‘discovered’ it. Now the restrooms are vandalized to non-useability (besides, what do the Mexicans care, lots of trees around). Trash, beer cans and bottles, garbage strewn everywhere by Monday morning. You go on a Saturday or Sunday hoping for a pleasant nature walk… forget it. Trashy Mexican music blasted from car speakers so loud you hear it from one end of the park to the other. Kids busy tossing candy wrappers and garbage everywhere. Adults boozing it up, getting into drunken arguments.
And our National Park Service thinks it should attract Blacks and Hispanics to the parks? Have the officials totally lost their senses?
Posted by Fed Up at 7:29 AM on July 8
Ah well, then, I guess we will just have to rewrite our nation’s history to accomadate minorities then, won’t we? Or just why not abolish the United States, kill all white people and establish a new country? I suppose that nation’s history and culture would have “relevance” to the minorities. Nobody is allowed to ask if maybe whites will stop coming if the national parks are made to include less of there history.
Posted by at 7:30 AM on July 8
As is usual today, our government allows nothing to be white. If something (be it a place, institution, organization, etc.) is recognizably a white stronghold, then this must be remedied somehow. It’s almost like there trying to kill us off.
Posted by at 7:36 AM on July 8
So if the same type of blacks and hispanics that the parks service are looking for are the same type that visit the beaches in Florida, then I know as a taxpayer I’ll be paying more so the parks service can expand security and trash clean up costs.
Posted by daytripper at 8:17 AM on July 8
Hey, you don’t see too many minorities like Blacks heading to museums, libraries or other cultural institutions either. A classical music concert? You gotta be kidding? Any self-respecting Black wouldn’t be caught dead, “acting White.”
But historically Blacks have been immersed into classical music. Oboola Loongunda wrote his immortal “Moonlight Sonata” for a three-piece chamber orchestra with musical istruments consisting of a hollow log drum, gourd rattle and cow’s horn. The great Mr. Loongunda unfortunately could not write the score for this magnificent piece, and having died roughly 3,501 B.C., this incredible composition has been lost to humanity ever since.
Posted by Fed Up at 8:50 AM on July 8
I was on a tour of a large U.S. city known for its historical riches the other day, along with a sizeable group of minority junior high students. Most of the boys didn’t hear anything the tour guide said because they were following so far behind the rest of the tour group. When they had a chance to sit down, a couple of the boys used the moment to vandalize park benches with pieces of flint they carried in their pockets.
When the tour moved into a classroom of one of the country’s leading educational establishments, the only thing some of the boys thought to do was write their names on the chalkboard, with the fervor of someone who had never seen a chalkboard before.
The parks aren’t missing much by the absence of these kind of boys.
Posted by at 7:46 PM on July 7
Let me guess. Was it Philly?
Posted by at 9:30 AM on July 8
I don’t buy this at all. Where I live is a state park that used to be favorite for local people to visit all summer long.
But nobody goes there anymore. Why? Because every summer now…all summer long, blacks and hispanics from all over the state, drive for hours and fill it beyond capacity. Even that would not be a problem if people who live locally would just have to arrive early to compete for a coveted spot. The problem is, most of those coming from outside the area are hardened criminals.
Posted by at 9:47 AM on July 8
So now in the eyes of our government it is offensive that something is primarily used by middle class whites. Of course, then, from that one can only conclude that being middle class and white is in and of itself somehow offensive. So if I understand correctly, our government has found it necessary to become racist in order to become non-racist. I’m confused.
Posted by An educated white man at 10:22 AM on July 8
“What, she wondered when a friend suggested it, could a park in rural, lily-white West Virginia hold for a black teacher from Baltimore?”
God forbid a black teacher from Baltimore be interested in one of the most important historical sites in our nation. Perhaps that is one reason why the Baltimore schools rank near the bottom for student graduation and achievement.
Posted by at 10:29 AM on July 8
Headline five years from now:
Graffiti and Gang Violence cause Problems in National Parks
Posted by SG at 10:44 AM on July 8
“We do not reflect the changing face of America,” said David Barna, a park service spokesman in Washington. “The national parks are still a middle-class Caucasian visit, primarily.”
Then keep the face of America as it is or, better yet, revert it to what it was 50 years ago. Third world peoples do not value or respect nature. They live in it in their own countries because they are unable to build a civilization but when they can live off of white taxpayer dollars in white majority countries the first thing they do is trash their immediate surroundings.
Here is a link to a video on the NPS site. Listen to the ghetto numbskulls trying to articulate what they think the interviewer wants them to say along with the clips of the hopelessly naive white college girls who think they are getting through to these numbskulls.
http://www.nps.gov/ncrc/programs/rtca/investing_in_future_leaders.html
Posted by at 10:44 AM on July 8
Judging by the amounts of garbage that non-Whites leave behind everywhere they go, it seems to me that those same individuals not visiting national parks is actually a good thing. Here, in Montreal, the city parks are real dumps. Twenty years ago a city dweller could spend a day in one of our large parks and enjoy nature, but not anymore. We, (the taxpayers), throw multitudes of cash to clean up the parks every year, and we cannot even enjoy them after the Blacks, Hispanics and other “minorities” and their large families decide to “picnic.”
Posted by Louis from Montreal at 10:58 AM on July 8
“If the Yankees at Gettysburg had known what the National Government would do to defile their memory, they’d have quit fighting right there and gone home.”
That’s exactly why they keep us in the dark. Notice the efforts along those lines are pretty widespread in our current times as well
Posted by at 11:06 AM on July 8
If they want blacks to visit the national parks they need to hand out free cheese.
If the want Hispancics to visit national parks just build a fence around them.
Why do they always try to over complicate simple problems?
Posted by Daniel at 11:49 AM on July 8
When whites are a minority here in the US, you will see the funding for National Parks go to zero. They will need the money for Health Care, Food Stamps, etc.
The same will happen to the Museums. It will be almost funny. The traitor elites, who just love Museums, won’t be able to get their funding from the people of color. But, these elite are too stupid to even know that.
Will the last white person please turn off the lights (if they haven’t already gone out……)
Posted by LOGIC at 12:57 PM on July 8
While there are sites that reflect the stories of black and Native Americans, the Park Service has done what Barna calls “an appalling job” of celebrating Hispanic Americans. Nor does it offer much to Asian Americans.
Given that there were hardly any Hispanics and Asians in the United States before 1965, I don’t see why this is a relevant point.
Posted by Brendan at 2:12 PM on July 8
‘Interesting given that so may African natives seem totally incapable of surviving in their own environment.’
Nothing has changed much here. They died in their millions from disease and hunger until the white man brought medicine and proper farming methods in the nineteenth century, and even today it is aid from the West that keeps Africa from chaos and starvation.
Posted by Robert Sharpe at 2:57 PM on July 8
Mother of God! Is there no refuge from this garbage? I go to the woods for the peace and quiet!! I sure as hell don’t want to hear hip-hop or rap music! And you know that blacks who are artificially injected into a sylvan environment will only come there in a large group as being alone in a forest scares hell out of them. And that’s the way it should be… like whites who stray into the “hood”.
Posted by Queequeg at 3:22 PM on July 8
“Speaking of Federal land and diversity, there was a story from a few weeks ago where the Federal National Forest Ranger service in Wyoming turned away the Boy Scouts for some neo-hippie group called the “Rainbow Family.” Yesterday, we found out that the ultra-tolerant “Rainbow Family” ganged up in a group of 400 to beat up 10 of the park rangers.”
I just hope the Federal prison system has enough room for 400 new lifers.
Organized assault on federal law enforcement officials would also incurr charges of terrorism, treason etc. If you really wanted to make a case out of it, none of them would ever see the light of day again and a good number of them - the designated leaders - would be on death row.
Or is there an exemption for radical leftist groups? Okay then lets just call it a fifty dollar ticket for each of them, but only if they can afford it, or not whatever is good for you fellows, or ladies or erm both eeerrrr no offense sorry sir, ma’am, thing, please don’t beat me again, it’s just a job, I just like nature is all.
Seriously though what kind of law enforcement agency allows themselves to be assaulted by a crazed gang of freaks? 10 rangers carrying 45 hydrashock rounds a piece equals 450 dead freaks. Or proper training would dictate that it would.
Posted by at 3:27 PM on July 8
I’d say all state and national parks and wilderness areas in our southern border strip are way over-visited by Hispanics. We need more white folks there.
Posted by underdog at 3:32 PM on July 8
>>>All the beautiful things our kind has created will die with us, our parks, museums, libraries, etc. They will go unappreciated and fade to dust.
Kinda figures, right? Given Blacks never amounted to a hill of beans on their own. That Whites lifted the Oriental races up to modernity. That the Amerindians went way down after the Spanish Conquistadores landed in the New World. Losing all that the Indios had managed to amass knowledgewise or build.
You can only laugh at the futility of those revisionists trying to REWRITE Black history in hopes of stealing some credit for Africans. Maybe their misguided effort should be redirected… trying to instill knowledge and sophistication in the Blacks. But that’s probably a hopeless dream at best. After all, what respectable Black wants to be thought of as “acting like Whitey?”
Posted by Fed Up at 3:49 PM on July 8
Where blacks go trouble and crime are never far behind. I pity a decent black family in America today, they move into a decent area with intentions of fitting in and doing the right thing and their very presense makes it easier for the blacks they were trying to get away from to infest what they were trying to build.
Side Note: Why when the term Decent Area is used is ther NEVER any confusion as to what that means?
Posted by xxXxx at 5:43 PM on July 8
Why does there have to be so much social engineering? The parks are there. If they want to go to them fine. If not, then not.
Posted by at 9:12 PM on July 8
Lions, tigers, and bears…Oh, my. For the most part, blacks don’t want to be hiking around outdoors for fun. It’s common knowledge to blacks and whites.
I guess a free transport service should be started to go pick up the blacks and latinos who don’t want to visit the parks, with free admission upon arrival. Just as long as the diversity quota at national parks is fulfilled.
Posted by at 9:31 PM on July 8
Most blacks are deathly afraid of bugs, much less to go out in nature. It’s a good thing not too many of the chimps do go to them, they’d turn them into a ghetto in no time, just like they do to everything else!
Posted by walt235 at 11:01 PM on July 8
Time to go camping
Posted by at 12:42 AM on July 9
“We do not reflect the changing face of America,” said David Barna, a park service spokesman in Washington. “The national parks are still a middle-class Caucasian visit, primarily.”
Could that possibly be because the parks reflect the history of the middle-class caucasians who have been protecting the natural beauty or historical significance(AMERICAN HISTORY)of these places?
When I lived in CA, I used to go to a little, out of the way place called Jenk’s Lake. A true jewel in the San Bernardino Mtns, that is, until the hispanics found out about it. The last time I was there,it was like a huge hispanic picnic, trash everywhere, dunpster overflowing; I saw a disposable diaper floating on the lake.
That was the last time I was there.
Azusa Cyn, san gabriel mtns,city parks, wherever they go, they trash the place.
I’d just as soon see them stay in their barrios and ghettos, rather than see them do to the wild places what they do to their homes, neighborhoods, and parks.
Posted by Superman at 11:10 AM on July 9
>>>Or just why not abolish the United States, kill all white people and establish a new country?
An intriguing idea… but HOW LONG could Blacks possibly survive on their own without Whitey’s help. Conversely is there ONE African nation not dependent at least in part, on financial and other hand-outs from White nations? Would Black Africans be risking life and limb to force their way into European nations… if Black African countries were the model of progress and modernity they hoped to become… after getting their independence?
Posted by Fed Up at 2:04 PM on July 9
Given the amount of trash and litter blacks leave everywhere they congregate, their absence is probably a good thing for the national parks.
Posted by at 8:03 PM on July 9