Peter Fimrite, San Francisco Chronicle, August 9, 2009
{snip}
Johnson [Shelton Johnson], one of a scarce few African American park rangers in the United States, said a black American celebrity publicly frolicking in the woods would do more to help people of color embrace their heritage than all the money in Hollywood.
Johnson, a musician, storyteller and interpretive specialist at Yosemite National Park, is determined to inspire young inner-city African Americans to experience what he says transformed his life. Less than 1 percent of the visitors to Yosemite are African American, a number he’s eager to improve.
“It’s bigger than just African Americans not visiting national parks. It’s a disassociation from the natural world,” said Johnson, who has worked in Yosemite for the past 15 of his 22 years in the Park Service. “I think it is, in part, a memory of the horrible things that were done to us in rural America.”
The rejection of the natural world by the black community, he said, is a scar left over from slavery.
{snip}
Early years
{snip}
It was there [Yosemite National Park], in 2001, that ranger Johnson made the discovery that changed his understanding of the black experience. Deep in the archives he found a faded 1899 photograph of five U.S. Army cavalry troopers on horseback patrolling a pine forest deep in the Yosemite backcountry. The soldiers were African American.
He learned that, for three years, Army troops from the Presidio known as buffalo soldiers had patrolled Yosemite and Sequoia national parks. He became engrossed in their story, reading the soldiers’ archived letters.
Johnson has since taken on the persona of one of the soldiers and tells the story of the buffalo soldier and his own Native American heritage to youth groups and tourists through that character. The musical presentations bring to life the forgotten history of the black American soldiers who essentially became America’s first national park rangers.
Spot in documentary
{snip}
“Race is the core of this history, the heart of this history,” he said. “It shows that the national parks are as much a cultural resource as a natural resource.”
But Johnson cannot seem to break through to the African American community, and, he said, the “African American intelligentsia” does not seem willing to step up.
“We are now part of our own problem,” he said. “It bothers me immensely because one of the great losses to African culture from slavery was the loss of kinship with the earth.”
As it is, he said, so few black Americans visit the parks that he and his colleagues refer to encounters with them as “sightings.”
‘Finally, black people’
He said he sees more Africans at the parks. Once, he said, he ran across a group of Kalahari bushmen who were trapped by flooding at Canyon de Chelly National Monument in Arizona.
“I’m thinking, ‘finally, black people,’ ” Johnson said.
{snip}
“For me, the buffalo soldier history is a way of reconnecting African Americans to the land that shaped our consciousness,” Johnson said. “You don’t have to go back to Africa to reconnect with nature, to understand its value and to know that it is an essential part of our shared history. It is right here.”
Original article
Email
Peter Fimrite
at pfimrite@sfchronicle.com .
(Posted on August 10, 2009)
Comments
I do a lot of hiking and have also noticed that it’s very unusual to see blacks while engaging in this activity.
Unlike “African-American” park ranger Shelton Johnson, however, I’ve never seen that as a problem.
Are national parks the last non-ghettoized area of the US? Bus ‘em in!
I appreciate your good intentions, Mr. Johnson but we really don’t want to encourage more blacks to visit national parks. If they come on their own accord, then fine. Most likely they are nature-lovers and will be respectful. But if they come because it’s part of some “disadvantages youth” project or social program, then we don’t need those kinds of blacks in wilderness areas. They will add to the “naturalness” of the place to be sure - in the sense that they will prey upon innocent white women visitors like wolves prey upon sheep.
And if blacks don’t come? Then I suppose that national parks are secretly racist. The Federal judiciary will order that Yosemite be paved over to build affordable housing and liquor stores. Then blacks will show up.
“The rejection of the natural world by the black community, he said, is a scar left over from slavery.”
Well I thought whites treated blacks badly everywhere in America! Why then would they not reject the entire country and board a ship back to Africa, where they can get in touch with the earth once again.
Blacks don’t visit national parks because of slavery? That may be the most absurd thing I have ever heard in my life. Is there ANYTHING blacks do or don’t do because of “the legacy of slavery”? Actually blacks seem to have little or no interest in nature or the environment. I have been involved in numerous environmental causes over the years. Funny… I never really thought of it before now, but I can’t recall EVER seeing a black face at any meeting, rally, conference or organization I attended.
Blacks don’t like the national parks system because they can’t get anything out of it. In other words, there is no monetary benefit for them, no gub’ment cheese pouring into their hands from Uncle Sam.
National parks are a social program that White people pay dearly for through their taxes. White people also love to visit these parks to camp, explore and reconnect with their primal side. In other words, national parks tend to benefit white people.
Blacks don’t care for nature. They fear it. Blacks hate camping because it requires some semblance of skill and effort. Blacks are fearful of snakes, lizards and other wildlife. Blacks don’t need to go back to nature to get in touch with their primal side because they live out their primal side every day in the “urban jungle” and terrorize everyone.
I know the whole purpose of this article was to make Whites feel guilty that blacks don’t visit national parks (unlike marijuana-growing armed Mexicans), but I hope it serves another purpose: It tells Whites where they should plan their diversity-free vacations.
Ahh but the Buffalo soldiers waged war on the innocent Native American Tribes! A tad hypocritical ain’t it, to complain about oppression of Blacks and then celebrate the oppression of Native peoples?
I guess this just another case of the hierarchy of favored groups in action, you know all minorities are special (compared to whites!) but some minorities are even more special (Africans, Muslims) then others (Asians, Hispanics, gays) and when conflicts between the two arise make sure the more special group is the hero/victim and the less special minority is the villain/oppressor!
“I think it is, in part, a memory of the horrible things that were done to us in rural America.”
“The rejection of the natural world by the black community, he said, is a scar left over from slavery.”
Actually, what has really cemented blacks to the cities is the services that they have become so dependent on—the welfare and food stamp offices, the public housing high rises, and public transportation are all missing in rural areas.
Less than 1 percent of the visitors to Yosemite are African American, a number he’s eager to improve.
Not much room for improvement there, I’d say!
“Blacks avoid national parks—it’s a legacy of slavery.”
Or is it a legacy of 5000 years of primitive times they would rather not deal with, since they’re now in a society where the toilets are on the inside and they can be flushed, and it isn’t necessary getting cut and bruised stumbling through the brush trying to find something to eat?
I would venture to say that the “outdoors” reminds them too much of the old country.
Would someone go and knock the broken record that keeps saying “racism racism racism” off the turntable. It is reprehensible that after 150 years of emancipation that blacks still blame Whites for every thing that is wrong in the black community or every thing that blacks do not do or patronize.
http://stuffblackpeopledontlike.blogspot.com/2009/08/83-real-american-heroes.html
Black people don’t like fighting in the military.
The ones I have seen in the parks or in the outdoors really should stay away. They bring alcohol, loud music, rowdy behavior and foul language to those of us trying to get away from that type of thing.
Just fill those parks with amusement rides and you’ll have more Blacks than you can handle..(literally!)
I can’t even imagine how horrible our parks would be if visits by African-Americans became frequent. Ghetto blacks haven’t a clue how to behave in a quiet, natural setting. I can hear the screaming, the thumping woofers, the gunshots in my mind as I type, and it ain’t pretty. Here in Eugene Oregon, two U of O athletes (black, of course) were recently caught shooting ducks in the park with a BB gun. I was amazed at how quickly the diversity fanatics turned on these ghetto hoodlums. Even in liberal Eugene, “Whitey” don’t take kindly to animal abuse. God help us if these types invade our National Parks. And since when are blacks in Africa veritable John Muir type naturalists? The only ones who appreciate nature on the dark continent are people like Jane Goodall.
Urban blacks are terrified of water, trees and lightly populated areas. They need noise and overcrowding. Their kids are utterly connected to junk hip hop by ipods. They chat on cell phones all day. They have no idea where anything came from.
Frankly, the beauty and silence of nature would be violently disrupted if the govt decided to truck in a bunch of black schoolkids to connect them with nature. They’d burn down a forest before they were done to relieve their being “bored”. Good riddance. We don’t want them in our parks.
And I doubt many “Africans” show up in our parks either, If they did, they’d be killing endangered species as they do in Africa.
I recently spent a weekend at the YMCA Trout Lodge in southern Missouri. Trout Lodge is wilderness lodge on the edge of a small lake, with horseback riding, hiking trails, an alpine tower,etc. There was a large black family reunion using the lodge and conference center facilities. Not once during the whole weekend did I notice any black guests bring children to the pony rides, or attempt any horseback riding, or attempt the alpine tower or zip line, or use the hiking trails through the woods. Some did use the swimming area, but they did not enter the deep water. No black child attempted the swim test that allowed them to swim in the deep end and use the rope swing. A couple tried archery, but didn’t stay long. Nobody used a kayak, or a pedal boat or a canoe or a sailboat. Why not? I suppose it must be the fault of white people somehow. But none of the black people seemed to be interested in any of these activities. It wasn’t like they wanted to do these things but were held back by the racism of the white guests, or the legacy of slavery. But what do I know?
Here we go again….”a scar from slavery”….will it never end?
If blacks behave like they do in the cities and our neighborhoods then I would hope they never take themselves to Yosemite or any other national treasure.
” Less than 1 percent of the visitors to Yosemite are African American, a number he’s eager to improve.”
By halving it?
“The rejection of the natural world by the black community, he said, is a scar left over from slavery.”
I like especially how he then explains this preposterous purportment. What utter nonsense.
Blacks are free to go to any national park they want to, maybe they’re just not interested in visiting them.
Understandably, Ranger Johnson would likely disagree with me, but I find the lack of racial diversity to be one of the most appealing things about a day in the woods. Imagine strolling a shady path and coming across a half dozen saggy pants boys, yipping and snarling. I’d rather meet a bear.
This reminds me of the effort by black groups to get blacks to ski. To do this, they have to bring in urban djs to blast urban music.
When dealing with blacks, it’s all so pointless.
“You don’t have to go back to Africa to reconnect with nature, to understand its value and to know that it is an essential part of our shared history. It is right here.”
If this gent would truly like to go back to Nature at its rawest, there’s always East St. Louis, Gary, Camden, Newark, Highland Park, and north St. Louis.
Blacks are terrified of bears. They don’t like to camp. They are terrified of snakes. What appeal does Yosemite have for them?
Also, is it really a problem is blacks don’t like nature or visiting national parks? Is it a problem if hispanics don’t go to hockey games? What about asians to the beach? I thought at least part of the hard-to-pin-down magic of diversity was celebrating our differences, not lamenting the fact that everyone isn’t using Yosemite identically.
I love Yosemite, and go a few times a year. It’s within a few hours drive of millions of Californians of every stripe. It’s cheap to get in, and you can bring your own food, drinks, etc., so the man doesn’t gouge you like at an And1 exhibition or rap concert. If blacks aren’t there, it’s because they don’t want to be there, and there’s no harm in that. There were no Japanese or German bufallo soldiers, but they apparently feel connected to Yosemite in such a way that you hear their tongues all over the park.
Lastly, it’s probably the only place in he world where if something black breaks into your car, it’s a bear and not a bantu. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
I think this guy is full of bull. It wasn’t slavery that seperated blacks from nature it was welfare. When I was young many blacks from the city would come to the country to go hunting and fishing. They were not welcome in those days but you still couldn’t keep them off your land. All you had to do was put up a no tresspassing sign and you would have 20 blacks out in your cow pasture shooting at anything that moved. They would be drinking and cursing and having a good old time.
Then there was the Great Society of LBJ. The blacks stopped hunting and fishing and started doing drugs and wearing gold chains. You can’t go hunting with 10 pounds of gold around your neck it gets caught on tree limbs. If you go fishing and fall in the water you are sure to drown.
The real reason blacks don’t go to parks is because they are afraid of not looking cool. Country living is associated with being white. It’s a darn good thing because we need some place that’s safe.
““It’s bigger than just African Americans not visiting national parks. It’s a disassociation from the natural world,” said Johnson, who has worked in Yosemite for the past 15 of his 22 years in the Park Service. “I think it is, in part, a memory of the horrible things that were done to us in rural America.””
— This is preposterous on its face. I’ve been to many historic sites and rarely, if ever, have I seen Blacks. To give you one example; I visited West Point on one occasion. I say Orthodox Jews, a few Hispanics (handful) and even Chinese. I did not see one Black. Another example would be Hyde Park, NY the home and burial place of FDR. Again, similar scenario - NO BLACKS. I don’t believe they’re interested in such things. They might be more interested in activities like standing on the street corner wheelin’ an’ dealin’.
So…going to a national park, in a part of the country where slavery never existed, to see elk, buffalo and bear, animal which most blacks(slave or free)have never laid eyes upon, to commune with nature in all its grandeur, etc…is too traumatic an experience for Blacks…because of slavery?!?
Yes ladies and gentlemen, you have officially heard it ALL!!
Here in Michigan the Mackinaw bridge is opened to pedestrian traffic on Labor day morning, only. Seems blacks don’t have much affinity for that white pursuit either. Almost makes one wonder if they don’t have different/lack of, values.http://tinyurl.com/lv5wqa
“We are now part of our own problem,” he said. “It bothers me immensely because one of the great losses to African culture from slavery was the loss of kinship with the earth.”/i>
It sure is funny how everything concerning blacks is a legacy of slavery. So plowing fields, picking cotton, and logging timberlands not only causes a person to lose his kinship with the earth, but the deficit is heritable.
I think our national parks are much nicer places due to not having many blacks in them. In state parks that have become popular with blacks I’ve noticed that they can’t have a simple picnic without bringing along their ghetto blasters and making an intolerable noise.
Why would a black go to a national park? There’s no 24-hour liquor store selling 40s, no KFC, no Popeyes, no easy access to Kool Menthols, no welfare checks, no check cashing place to take those checks, no disease-ridden hos, no one respecting your pimped out Escalade rims. What the hell’s the point for a self-respecting African prince?
Look around, BLACKS do not support anything: Disney, Sea World, zoos, museams, aquariums, state parks, etc. The only time you see BLACKS is on school trips and they care more for the vending machines than the learning experience. It a good thing, these places are BLACK free which means clean, no crime, safe, and no fear of you little girl getting raped. BLACKS, stay home.
The purported reason that blacks do not visit the national parks because of slavery is utterly ludicrous. I would venture to say that virtually no one, black or white, has even heard of this theory, and even if they did would it if affect their personal perceptions in …. 2009????
My personal experience with blacks is that most of them do not appreciate nature, and are intimidated by its magnitude and unpredicability. Simply put, they do not get it, and they do not like it.
Just being being born and raised in an urban setting does not explain their orientation. For example, I was raised in a totally urban setting in apartments and we never went on vacations. Yet, I looked at pictures of mountains and deserts and longed of the day when I could hike among them. And when I grew up, I did so with a vengence.
This is just another futile attempt to bring blacks to the white “norm”. However, what is normal for whites may not be normal for blacks.
I found “African American Intelligentsia” to be a humorous oxymoron. The theory that slavery has scarred blacks to the point of shunning the outdoors is ludicrous at best and shows how far blacks will go to include “racism” as their go-to excuse and default program because even the least intelligent of their group knows if they yell racism, cultural “scarring” etc., ad nauseum, then they will get their handout from the guilt tripping melting pot magpies and diversity dingbats.
Rangers don’t want black people in national parks. Let’s face it. They don’t want to deal with drunk and disorderly conduct, gang violence, loud rap music disturbing the animals, rapes, and poor impulse control in a search rescue situation. I know it’s been said on this board many times before, but don’t whites deserve a place to get away from that?
This is encouraging me to visit the national parks more often. I know I will be safe.
It is not about slavery. The buffalo soldiers were freemen. It seems that if blacks are seen doing any work, it is considered slavery.
How in the world is being in the outdoors linked to slavery???
All I can say to that park ranger is this: Be careful what you ask for, you may get it.
http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/
I have no doubt the Mr. Burns will likewise prove that National Parks were conceived, built, and maintained by blacks who were later driven out by racist white folk.
“The musical presentations bring to life the forgotten history of the black American soldiers who essentially became America’s first national park rangers.”
Watch for this convoluted and contorted factoid to make it’s way into black history consciousness.
In a few years, white people will only be a footnote in American history books noted only for bringing vibrant, innovative, creative Africans to America as slaves.
A national park is one of the few places in America that a white woman can feel safe sleeping in a tent, wandering down a trail alone or sitting with her back to a tree watching wildlife (of the 4-legged, furry type). Try that in E. St. Louis! I don’t know what the “legacy of slavery” has to do with keeping blacks out of National Parks, but I’m grateful for it.
Ben wrote
“Rangers don’t want black people in national parks. Let’s face it. They don’t want to deal with drunk and disorderly conduct, gang violence, loud rap music disturbing the animals, rapes, and poor impulse control in a search rescue situation.”
Let’s not forget that everything would get spray painted with grafitti.
I have been to South Africa, and Blacks there do not go to the national parks in South Africa, only Whites.
Please don’t subject our animals in the wild to the callous and uncaring behavior of blacks! Get rid of that black park ranger if he has no clue of what his people will bring to our parks. Race always trumps common sense when it concerns blacks.
Reminds me of being at Monticello awhile back. I encountered some blacks in the slave quarters downstairs. A decent sized room with a fireplace I think. That’s what I saw anyway. They were busy looking for where the chains were attached to the wall. If it’s white, it’s automatically bad.
Can you imagine being on a narrow trail behind a troop of loud, slow moving yet swaggering ‘hood denizens? It’d be like a localized, slow motion tornado tearing up everything in reach.
“We are now part of our own problem”
Yes, let’s invite more blacks to enjoy the national parks. If only that’s the only thing they would do. However, as horrible as it may sound, we all know that when one moves in, you can expect a horde and when you have a horde of blacks, there goes the neighborhood and so would go our national parks.
We’ve had this topic before at AR.
The bottom line is what someone else wrote:
The only way to attract blacks to ‘nature’ is to make nature ‘urban’.
It’s strange that black people started out as a rural people in the deep South. One could frequently find them fishing or hunting in the woods. Somehow they’ve become primarily an urban people outside of their home areas in the South. I’m not sure why this happened and the change, for blacks at least, has not been for the better. I generally like the friendly rural blacks better than their urban cousins. I also find fewer blacks in the State Parks today than thirty five years ago.
Poster # 49….we don’t need or want the blacks of today “fishing or hunting in our woods or parks”….we all know what they would be hunting and fishing FOR.
“Blacks are fearful of snakes, lizards and other wildlife”
I once was sitting on a bench waiting for my son who was playing basketball. A black woman whose 5 year old left the toddlers playground yelled at him to “get away from those bushes there might be a snake there.” Yeah right.
You see blacks on the basketball court and in the sand boxes and little kids playgrounds. But you seldom see them anywhere else in the park. Even in large parks with preserved wilderness areas like Griffith Park or Baldwin Hills Park in Los Angeles, you never see a black away from the playground, picnic area or basketball court.
Baldwin Hills Park in Los Angeles is actually a huge state park in its natural state. It is located in South Los Angeles which once was a totally black area. Every once in a while there is an article in the papers like this one, bemoaning the fact that the blacks who live right next to the park don’t go there.
Some black children are taken to Baldwin Hills Park on school field trips. All they do is complain that they have to walk, they are thirsty, it is hot or cold, their shoes will get dirty, bears and wolves will attack them etc.
“Ahh but the Buffalo soldiers waged war on the innocent Native American Tribes! A tad hypocritical ain’t it, to complain about oppression of Blacks and then celebrate the oppression of Native peoples?”
The Wounded Knee “massacre” we never stop hearing about was actually carried out by buffalo soldiers. You will never find that out from Wikepedia, the History Channel or our communist anti white racist school textbooks. There were a lot of Buffalo soldiers out there west of the mississippi after the civil war.
They did their duty, some of which was fighting and killing Indians.
It’s not just the national parks, either.
I spent last weekend camping with family and friends in a North Carolina state park. The only black person we saw all weekend was the park employee who came around to empty the trash cans and clean the bathrooms.
Back in the 60s, when my family was poor, our parents and their siblings used to rent cabins at a nearby state park. We were in a heavily black part of the South, but back then, the parks were segregated (I suppose). It was wonderful. Alligators, snakes, lizards, turtles….all the things white kids find irresistible were there in abundance. Too, there were paddle-wheel boats you could pedal through the swamps, basketball courts…endless things for a fun outing.
Today, we still rent cabins there when we gather in “the old country” (the local motels are too scary, with all-black staff, and mostly-black clientele, in black-run towns). It’s still peaceful. But the paddle-wheel boats, the basketball courts, the tennis courts….are all GONE. Why? Because when the park became integrated, black day-trippers destroyed all those things. It was judged futile and unwise to try to replace damaged equipmen, when it became clear that the new demographic would destroy the replacements almost immediately.
Fine with us. We’re there for the snakes and gators, anyway. What few blacks now come (once all the game opportunities were destroyed, they had nothing to do) just use the barbecue facilities, and do not venture beyond the areas of mown grass. They mostly just eat and listen to black radio. Needless to say, most are built like Manatees, with all that endless eating, and swilling big bottles of pink and orange soda.
These are rural and small-town Southern blacks. Mostly harmless, there with family groups, and they leave at dusk. But bringing in hardened inner-city youths, without their parents, to stay for a week or so? That’s nothing but a recipe for gang-rape. There have already been mass-robberies/beatdowns of whites, by blacks, in parks.
I can only assume it was a really slow news day in the city room…
There was something similar in the UK recently. Various people were making noises about ethnic minorities being “under-represented” as visitors to the countryside, so something must be done about it to make them more aware and eager to visit. I’ve no idea what the end result was, but I bet a large wad of taxpayers cash was spent on “focus groups” “consultations” and “fact-finding”.
It’s good that blacks don’t visit and stay in national parks. This way, whenever I’m in a national park myself, I don’t have to deal with any of them, listen to their loud voices, tolerate waiting for them in my car to cross the street in their slow manner, and put up with any of their attitude.
Whenever I visited a national park, and didn’t see a single black face, it never crossed my mind that there wasn’t any blacks there. It was like it was the most natural thing in the world. Nice scenery, fresh air, peace and quite, so how in the world could there be any problem with this even if there wasn’t any blacks around?
The rejection of the natural world by the black community, he said, is a scar left over from slavery.
Is there any self-inflicted wound the blacks have that is not because of the legacy of slavery?? And this also makes the parks pretty safe.
It’s not only Blacks who shun the parks. I live in San Francisco and the residential areas in the western half of the city have been largely taken over by the Chinese. Golden Gate Park divides two heavily (2/3) Asian neighborhoods. The people enjoying the park are probably 95% white. Ditto with the people walking along Ocean Beach.
My Chinese neighbor was very happy when I cut down some trees in my yard to let in some sunlight (I still have lots of trees). She told me how much better it looked and said, “We Chinese, we don’t like too many trees”. No surprise, she has chopped down all the trees in her yard and covered her “lawn” with cement bricks.
Lots of Chinese in my neighborhood pave their front and back yards. I really believe their are racial differences in the ability to appreciate nature.
I enjoy cycling along Minnesota’s trails. 99% of riders are white. Occasionally, an Asian or two is seen. In all the years I have been biking on this one trail near the Twin Cities I have seen one black man. He was a muscular guy who was biking bare chested. I remember how odd it seemed. He was with a buxom white woman, kind of chunky, with a skimpy top on; for all the world they looked like a stripper out for an afternoon with her “man”. They were staying near the trail in an RV.
So, we don’t have enough minorities at the local classical music venues and now the national parks. When will it end?
I’ve found one that will have to be integrated at all costs because I’m sure there is massive discrimination against minorities at this event.
http://www.ndparks.com/recreation/activities/candisc.htm
“CANDISC offers wome of the greatest unspoiled frontier in North America as you breath the cleanest air in the USA. Cycle the safest and friendliest state in the nation.”
I guess the Crips, Bloods and Latin Kings all need to sponsor teams so that North Dakota can experience “diversity”. Somehow, I doubt that the manatee shaped individuals would show up here, especially if they have to ride a bicycle 400+ miles in a week.
“Blacks don’t go to parks, connect with the natural world because of the scar of slavery”,,,
Hmm,,,I am into astronomy. I have never once seen a black at any planetarium. Undoubtedly blacks aren’t interested in outer space because of the “scar of slavery”. I enjoy going to the opera. No blacks there either. Undoubtedly another “scar of slavery”. I never see blacks at museums, science centers or expos. Clearly more “slavery scars”. It couldn’t be of course that blacks just don’t have the capacity to appreciate these sorts of things now could it?
“I think it is, in part, a memory of the horrible things that were done to us in rural America.”
I bet a large wad of taxpayers cash was spent on “focus groups” “consultations” and “fact-finding”.
No doubt. And on hired consultants and experts, and on Executive Director’s salaries. And on Assistant Directors, etc., etc., etc.
Cui bono?
— Anonymous wrote:
“I once was sitting on a bench waiting for my son who was playing basketball. A black woman whose 5 year old left the toddlers playground yelled at him to “get away from those bushes there might be a snake there.”
“You see blacks on the basketball court and in the sand boxes and playgrounds. But ….you will never see a black away from the playground, picnic area or basketball court.”
That is a very interesting observation. There may be something deeply genetic that is involved. I remember reading in some French book or article, years ago, a similar observation, regarding the difference in attitudes toward Nature between Africans and Europeans. I think this was particularly in regard to the bleakness of the immigrant housing projects that surround French cities, a bleakness caused and preferred by the immigrants themselves. These apartments were designed by a benevolent government to be garden communities. But Africans, unlike Europeans, have no fondness for flowers and trees and shrubs. They don’t want them! They don’t like them!
The writer made the perceptive comment that in Europe, where the climate is cool and the growing season short, Mother Nature has to be coaxed and cultivated to be gotten to bloom. In Africa, with its hot climate and 12-month growing season, Nature is riotous and has to be constantly chopped back and gotten under control.
A hut in an African village is surrounded by bare earth or sand which has been stamped down and every blade of grass extinguished around it. That’s how they want it. The reason, it was explained, is that to an African, grass and bushes represent snakes, scorpions, insects … therefore they don’t want any greenery near their houses. A European cottage, on the other hand, is surrounded by flowers and gardens that have been lovingly tended and encouraged to grow. This presents a cozy scene to a European. It is a threatening one to an African.
It is a completely different mind set! Africans do not comprehend the European love of Nature. To them it is irrational. To Africans, Nature is the perpetual enemy that needs to be beaten down and controlled, not encouraged.
This explanation makes good sense to me. Needless to say, any silly attempt to describe this as another “legacy of slavery” is uttermost nonsense.
Oh, one other case. I recall, too, a story told me by a black woman I knew. Her mother had moved into an apartment on the Grand Concourse, in the Bronx, in what was once considered a luxury building on the former “Jewish Champs-Élysées”. After Jews moved out, blacks moved in, and the once-flourishing flower beds and grass became all torn up by the kids, turned to bare dirt, were garbage-strewn, and eventually were paved over by the landlord with concrete. She blamed this on the indifference of the landlord who no longer took care of the property once blacks lived there. I held my tongue, but wondered if it was the landlord who had strewn the garbage, trampled the flower beds and reduced them to dirt. Somehow, I doubted it. I suspect he just gave up.
I’ve noticed that a lot of the blacks with whom I work often go to Caribbean countries on vacation, even in the summer.
They seem to enjoy being in black countries run by blacks.
1. Appreciating nature requires the capacity for abstract thought, which most blacks do not have in abundance.
Europhile writes:
“…Golden Gate Park divides two heavily (2/3) Asian neighborhoods. The people enjoying the park are probably 95% white. Ditto with the people walking along Ocean Beach….”
It seems the Asians were enjoying Golden Gate Park in ways most Whites couldn’t imagine….:
“…In 1980 there was a case in California that led to an outcry not only in that state but across the nation. It developed with the discovery that refugees from IndoChina were trapping and eating animals, including stray cats and dogs, in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco…”
http://tinyurl.com/kv2pd2
The local Catholic charity that was in charge of aiding the refugees claimed that eating dog was a cultural norm for Southeast Asians.
Bon
If blacks have the money for a vacation, they like to go somewhere warm AND luxurious where they will be waited on by others. That is their idea of a good time, and also their idea of a high-status vacation.
Lots of whites would choose camping, fishing, hunting, sailing, etc., as their first choice of how to spend vacation time, EVEN IF they could afford to go anywhere and do anything. Blacks see camping and hiking as something you MIGHT do if you can’t afford anything else. And even a successful camping trip requires that you save up some money for a tent, sleeping bags, cooking equipment, etc.
In addition to their inability to swim, and fearfulness of nature, there is probably also an aspect of “too poor to paint, too proud to whitewash.” If they have any kind of job that would enable them to purchase camping equipment, they will NOT want to admit to co-workers that they spent their vacation in a tent in the woods, when everybody else has gone on a cruise, or gone to Jamaica.
“The local Catholic charity that was in charge of aiding the refugees claimed that eating dog was a cultural norm for Southeast Asians.”
And so it is.
But now, we have animal sacrifices, santeria, bush meat, genital mutilations, child rapes, honor killings, and all sorts of cultural enrichment and thrilling vibrancy which we never formerly could have imagined. Indeed, in this new multiculty mélange, it’s hard to say what the cultural standards are anymore. (If there are any.)
Well, that what they multicultists, cosmopolitans, and one-worlders wanted … and they got it. That cultural chaos should reign supreme in this multi-hued Tower of Babel. That no group should be the majority and impose hegemony on all the rest.
12 — Anonymous wrote at 6:40 PM on August 10:
Not much room for improvement there, I’d say!
Sure there is…0.01% would be a nice improvement.
The world’s on fire and someone wants to dirty up our national parks.
Blacks always blame the “legacy of slavery” for everything. Wouldn’t the sight of White people be the ultimate legacy of slavery that they would want to stay as far away from us as possible!
Blacks produce and distribute garbage around them wherever they go. They have absolutely no respect for nature and if they started going to parks the parks would be trashed almost immediately. As a hiker, I hope that Blacks stay out of our parks so they can remain pristine as our forefathers intended when they set these lands aside so many years ago.
I was in Golden Gate Park yesterday, Europhile, and went to the de Young art museum there too. I was paying attention because of your post, and there were lots of Asians. Maybe they were tourists instead of locals, but there they were.
