Arts, Race & Climate Change
This essay introduced Spectrum Dance Theater’s Race & Climate Change Festival No stranger to human-concocted environmental calamity, the South Park neighborhood in Seattle has been assaulted by pollution from land, air and sea. It sits astride a superfund site, and life expectancy there is 13...
Four Ways to Meaningfully Invest in DEI
Here are four examples of how outdoor companies have effectively put their money where their mouths are where DEI is concerned. The first two, done in isolation, can be performative if not part of something like the third and fourth, which drive more significant change....
Will Outdoor Industry Ever Get DEI Right?
Last summer—when the streets across America started burning, Black Lives Matter became a mainstay in the national discourse and her employees began pushing loudly for a company reckoning on race—Donna Carpenter knew she was in the midst of another one. Another “oh, shit” moment. Carpenter...
An American Journey
For as long as I can remember, I have struggled with fitting my identity into the complex puzzle of race and ethnicity in this country. My mother is from Japan, and I was also born there, though my family moved to the U.S. when I...
Toppling Muir Not Enough
The last time I visited Yosemite National Park, I stood atop Glacier Point and gaped at the views of Half Dome, Yosemite Falls and the other geological baubles of Yosemite Valley. Lost in the almost hallucinatory beauty, I imagined myself in conversation with John Muir...
Joys, Risks of Black Birding
During the wee hours of a recent Sunday morning, a Black man and his mixed-race, Black and Latinx friend meet in front of Be’er Sheva Park in Seattle’s Rainier Beach neighborhood, among the most diverse in the city. They are wearing caps and face masks...