Opinion: People of color missing from backcountry
By Nina Revoyr, Los Angeles Times
Last month, two friends and I backpacked for a week in the Sierra Nevada. We hiked through meadows dotted with wildflowers, slept beneath snow-draped peaks and met plenty of other hikers: the dad and son whose Green Bay Packers caps sparked a conversation about our mutual ties to Wisconsin; scientists from UC Santa Cruz studying flowers and rock formations; five recent college grads from Kentucky who were hiking the John Muir Trail before they scattered to begin their adult lives.
But as the days passed, I grew increasingly troubled by the people we didn’t meet.
There were a few Asian hikers, including a couple of hapas like me (I’m half Japanese and half Polish) and one of my friends was half-Iranian, but not a single backpacker who was Latino or African American.
After seeing the movie “Deliverance” with Burt Reynolds no one would ever want to river raft in Georgia.
Just be happy there aren’t more people out in the backcountry. If you are going out to meet people, stay home. People usually go out to get away from people and everyday life. And leave your cell phone with it’s music apps at home. Enjoy the sounds of nature, and talk quietly, no reason to be yelling.
It was just a movie from almost 50 years ago.
1972 to be exact AND with that attitude Carl you of all people should stay out of the deep South.
Especially Georgia!
Dear Nina Revoyr,
Your heritage may be half and half thank you. You are also a racist half-wit. Grow up and get on with life instead of looking under every rock and behind every tree for racial or ethnic grievances where none exist.