The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 230: A Difficult Conversation

Episode Date: July 20, 2020

Steven Rinella talks with Rue Mapp and Janis Putelis.Topics discussed: A solid two-syllable, navigational name; when your cowboy dad hangs pigs in your garage and you don't want kids on the school bus to see; how parades mean different things to different people; Outdoor Afro re-connecting black Americans to the outdoors; upping your nature swagger; unpacking statistics; how black children drown at five times the rate of white children in the US; Harriet Tubman as a wilderness leader; losing sight of the sociological factors that have lead people to be where they are; the great migration; how the outdoors and nature has not always been regarded as a safe place for black people; Emmet Till; how being on the other side of too much intrigue just isn't welcome; in cases of racism, rarely do you ever get the proof and rarely do you need it; gauging the age of an airplane by whether or not its bathroom has an ashtray; how looking at communities as needing to be saved isn’t the right way to go; picnicing vs. birding and tailgating as day camp; and more. Connect with Steve and MeatEaterSteve on Instagram and TwitterMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop MeatEater Merch Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. Welcome to the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We hunt the Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. Presented by OnX Hunt, creators of the most comprehensive digital mapping system for hunters.

Download the Hunt app from the iTunes or Google Play Store. Know where you stand with OnX. Okay, RooMap, you're finally here. I know. At long last. Exciting. We're going to get to you big time. But we like to often talk about just some juvenile stuff

before we get rolling. Get to it. Yeah, but just throw in any comments you got. Alright. I need to catch up with Yanni because there's some things I haven't talked with Yanni about. Like for real we haven't talked about. Out filming Das Boat, season two Dos Boat. That's right. I wanted to call it Dos Boat.

I didn't come up with that. Did someone shut you down? Well, I think Josh Pristine came up with that because he's super good at naming stuff. He's good at making long sentences, but he's very good at very short things. So I thought it was great that season two, like Dose Boat would become Dose Boat,

but I've been educated on the fact that you can't just name a show something new because people don't find it. Right. So I'm thinking Dose Boat, but I've been educated on the fact that you can't just name a show something new because people don't find it. Right. So I'm thinking Das Boat, season two, Dose Boat. But you were out filming. You could say season dose, maybe. No. To keep it a little shorter.

No. No, you don't like that? How did it go? I mean, were you excited about it? I was very excited. Yeah. uh what how did it go and i mean were you excited about it i was very excited uh yeah i mean i maintained my excitement too um but we we had some tough fishing we had fun building i knew adding the stuff to the boat we did not have tough fish yeah and as i left i told the crew

you will now have tough fishing not because of you because what you're going to do yeah i don't know i don't know why you cast that you know cloud of pessimism because what you're going to do. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know why you cast that, you know, cloud of pessimism. Because we used to go up now and then and think we were going to do that. Oh, and catch that hatch?

In the dark. Yeah. What we would do is, uh, get swarmed by unbelievable amounts of biting insects. Yeah. And then you'd hear fish now and then,

and you'd spend a lot of time trying in the dark to get your back cast untangled from the alders. Yeah, see, I've got more skills than that, so I didn't have that problem. Rue, what I was there trying to do is there's a bug called the hexagenia, and it's a giant mayfly. It stands-

Huge sons of bitches. Almost two inches on top of the water. I mean, it literally looks like a little sailboat going down the water. And they're very attracted to your garage door. The light. Yeah, if you have like a light on your garage, you'll wake up one summer day and all of a sudden they're all over your yard light and somehow stuck to your garage door. I remember that from being a youngster. When the hash on certain years when it can be very, very thick

and it'll congregate under the lights. And I was told actually that they'll end up on the sidewalk underneath the lights because they think that's the surface

of the water. Oh, okay. There's a bit of reflection there. Oh. But they were saying in some of those northern Michigan towns.

Can you say that over again? Yeah. So the light is reflecting on the sidewalk, right? That's where it's hitting. And so even though the light might sort of attract them, it's the fact that they're seeing that sort of shiny surface

that's under the light in the darkness all around. That's why they like my garage door. Even though they must have thought the water was vertical. Go on. They have teeny tiny little brains. Stupid brains. Go on. They have teeny tiny little brains. Stupid brains. We continue. They can be so thick

that they'll bring out the snow plows to scoot off the bugs off these sidewalks. Oh my God. Yeah. Does it stink too? I'm guessing

there's got to be some sort of... It wasn't that thick when I was there so I didn't get to experience that. I was happy enough. There are stories of cars crashing from the slickness. Well, that

and they get on your windshield and you can't clean the windshield off. I grew up there. I was there 20 years. I never saw any of this shit. I never saw any of these things happen, though I grew up telling people that they happened. You were doing other things after 10 p.m. See, that's the thing. It only comes off

like 30 minutes after dark. And in northern Michigan, at the end of June, I mean, literally, you're out there at 10.30 and you're like, God, I can still see, you know, twilight in the sky. And once it got completely dark, and this, it's like 11. And then

finally, you shine the light on the water and there you go. You can see. Oh, really? They're starting to float down the river. That's wild. And in the right conditions, it brings up a lot of the fish and a lot of the big fish. And some of these rivers, these fish can intake like, I forget what it is, like 40, 50% of their annual dietary intake, annual calories in like a week or two when they get to feed on these giant bugs. Right. So very important food source. And unfortunately for me, we got

hammered with like 36 hours of rain and the temperature went from like high of 90 to a high of like 55. And it just made the trout sulk. They just went to the bottom and went, put a pouty face on and didn't want to do anything. So we were trying everything. I mean, we were throwing spinners and Rapalas, and the only thing I didn't throw was as a night crawler. I probably should have. But the last day, we changed gears and went out to a lake where there was known to be some good smallmouth fishing,

and we caught some smallmouth. Did you catch those on your fly pole? No. No. No, I was going full Matt Elliott. You were just trying to catch fish. Yeah. The boat for Dose Boat is a boat that I knew all through growing up. Yeah. that i knew all through growing up yeah my one of my fishing mentors down the lake from me a guy

named john gary had he all he bought this boat the year before i was born he bought it 1973 and it still has all the registration stickers on it wow going back to 70 no because like you buy them in blocks of years but anyways anyways, the first one accounts for 73, and then paces all down the side of the boat, and then it's in four-year increments, or however they do the registration stickers, they're still all on there. When he died, we got his boat,

and it sat outside my mom's pole barn for 20 years, and then we refurbished the boat, and that's our new fishing boat it's a very seaworthy vessel i mean with that transom redone and the new engine on it it was i was glad we had to take the engine off because we were floating it down a river which is like you know part of the fun of this show is that you know you're going to take a boat it's not meant to go float down the river take the engine off of it and then and then because of the way the boat's shaped and the way you row a boat down a river, you go down backwards.

You're still looking forwards, but the boat itself is oriented backwards. Picture that the current, you want to have the ability to not go the speed of the current. Right. So the current's slipping under the curvature of the bow, right? It was tricky to row. It's such a narrow beam on that boat

that it made the oars seem very heavy because you had much more shaft of the oar outside of the oar lock versus inside. We got it done. We figured it out. It was fun. I was just hoping, the whole time I was thinking like,

is John Gary looking down from the heavens thinking like, this is cool that you guys try to do this with my boat okay he was an eccentric dude john gary uh he didn't understand why shirts had collars and he would cut the collars off his collared shirts instead of wear a t-shirt he just had all the shirts he removed the collar because i don't know why it's there i'm like i don't either so he would just cut it off and one time i was at his house protection he um he was old and i was at his house

and he told me he needed he wanted to just have a little bit easier time with money and he said i will sell you this house and everything in it he said right down to my shoes for $75,000. The catch being I live here till I die. And that would have been a very, very smart financial move for me to have made. But I just dismissed it and then later realized what a miss that was. Yeah. I would have made a lot of money. Yeah. You probably can't buy a garage on that lake for $75,000.

Not anymore. It became residential. So what happened to the place? lot of money yeah you probably can't buy a garage on that lake for 75 000 not anymore it became residential so what happened to the place oh a doctor bought it um and fixed it all up and changed it tore down his fish tore down his fish shed let his boat launch go to shit what's funny is this guy my brother's a doctor but uh and one day me and him are walking down the beach, and my brother has nothing on but a pair of cutoff denim shorts and just looks like something the cat dragged in. And so we get to this guy's place. Your brother's also an eccentric dude. Yeah, he's an eccentric guy. He doesn't play by the rules.

Whatever the rules are, he doesn't even know what they are. But we get there, and we meet this guy. It's like, oh, this is the guy that bought John Gary's house. And so we're talking about John and us growing up in and around the house. And the guy introduced himself as whatever, like Dr. Young, you know. And my brother goes, well, I'm Dr. Rinella. And the guy thought he was messing with him. He's like, yeah, right.

It was funny. All right, Rue. And the guy thought he was messing with him. He's like, yeah, right. It was funny. All right, Rue. We'll talk more about Dole's Bowl later. I don't want to waste all your time. No, no. I'm here. First off, how did you have the name R-U-E?

Well, it's actually short for roulette. Like Russian roulette? Yeah. Yeah, like literally. One of your mom and dad named you roulette? Yeah, totally. And there's no story. I wish there was a story. roulette. Like Russian roulette? Yeah, like literally. When your mom and dad named you roulette? Yeah, totally. And there's no story. I wish there was a story. Roulette. Yes, roulette, like the wheel of the game.

Oh, I was thinking roulette like in Russian roulette. But there's also the game roulette, which is a financial version of Russian roulette. Both games of chance. But no, I wish there was a story, but there wasn't a story. I always ask my mom, like, so why did you, because, you know, when you're a kid, no one, you know, people say, oh, that's such a pretty name.

But as I got older, people were like, so did your parents gamble a lot? Did they? And like, I'd be in these business meetings and like my name became the punchline. Well, why don't you switch it back to roulette? Well, because I don't always want to be a punchline. Yeah, but like it's a crazy name. Yeah, I can see that you get sick of – even I understand. I didn't know about the roulette.

If I had a great story, I would go for it. But because there's no story, I just feel like womp, womp. Like people are kind of let down. You know, they anticipate that I'm going to talk about some wild Vegasgas conception night and they didn't like win you in a game of roulette no you need to do you need to do 23 and me to find out i don't know it might be like oh they're not my parents yeah well there there's definitely some narrative there but um but yeah i just you know rue you know came together for me around like my mid-20s. And I just feel really solid like being like a two-syllable name, Rue Map. Oh, that's a great name.

Have you ever met another roulette? Roulette Map? That's even weirder with a map on it. I know, because Rue is like French for street and then last name Map with two Ps. So I have grown into this navigational name. So it works. That's good branding. Yeah, it is. A lot of symbolism there this navigational name. So it works. That's good. That's good branding.

Yeah. A lot of symbolism there too. Definitely. I like it. I want to ask you one more question before I ask you my main question.

Sure. Before I set the table here. Okay. Your dad was a cowboy? Yeah. He considered himself a cowboy for sure. I am definitely

the first generation Californian. My dad came from Texas. His dad was a cattle rancher. And, you know, it's something I totally took for granted and didn't really come to understand that there were so many people like my dad who came from the South. But the thing that was really unique about my dad is that he brought along in a really active way his love for the outdoors. And so even though, you know, my parents came to Oakland and as many African Americans did between, you know, the World War II through the early 70s, he, you know, he had the place in Oakland, but he wanted to have a place where he could pursue, you know, his outdoor passions. So we had this ranch with about 15 acres when I was little and we had cows and we had pigs and that was, you know, his, that was his place where he got his life together. But I read somewhere that you being embarrassed when people would see that he had dead pigs

hanging up. Yeah, because, you know, we'd bring that stuff back to Oakland, you know, and like the garage would be open, you know, and there'd be, you know, in an urban setting, but also, you know, to be able to be in a wild place and in a family that truly valued hunting and fishing and harvesting, all kinds of things. And it's been a big, wonderful journey through my work to help bring those things back to more people and to recreate those opportunities for more people, you know, so that we can, you know, just help people get their lives together and help people get more connected to what's really real about nature. You know what winds up making this earlier I said like to set the scene. There's a part about this conversation that makes me uncomfortable

because we're going to talk about like we're going to talk about race. Okay. And we're talking about Afro outdoors. Outdoor Afro. I'm sorry. Outdoor Afro. People do that all the time too yeah yeah i apologize it's all right people call us man eater all the time uh when i growing up okay i grew up in in a very like like strictly white setting for the most part

um and the thing that you were taught to strive for was like total color blindness. That was sort of the North star. And it would be that you would never sit. It would be like, it would just be the thing you would never ever do that. You would sit with someone and say, you're black.

How does, how do you feel about this? That would be like, shit. You would never do that. How does, how do you feel about this? That would be like, shit, you would never do that. Even though, to be honest with you, the only thing in your head

is like super aware. Yeah. You're thinking it. Oh yeah. You're like, dude, I'm talking to, I'm talking to a black woman.

I don't want to mess up. Right. Like what? I don't know. She might have a totally different worldview, but don't ask. Don't ask.

Cause we're all colorblind. Right. And I'm still a little bit stuck in that. Yeah. Well, you're going to have to get over it in this conversation because I want you to see me. You know, it's not complicated. Like, it's okay to have difference.

It's okay. But do you sit here being like, I'm talking to a white dude? No, I'm talking to somebody who loves the outdoors and I want to connect on that. So how do we get there? How do we get there to talk about? How do we get there where it's, oh, how do we get there where it's, Oh, let me cut to another thing. Sure.

I was talking to Whit Fosberg the other day, who I believe you've been on the phone with. He's the president and CEO of TRCP. Yeah. Yeah. And I was telling him, I'm like, I was giving him like what I recognize as a problem because we were trying to have you on a long time ago, but we got derailed by COVID.

Yep. And I was like, man, I hope, I mean, you knew that you were scheduledailed by covid yep and i was like man i hope i mean you knew that you were scheduled to come out but i'm like i hope i feel now that it's become like a thing where it's like a forced conversation when it would have before been like a more natural but now everybody's hackles are up i know and now you're like like by talking about something you sort of get crucified you You get crucified to not talk. Some people are going to be pissed that you're not talking about race. People are going to be pissed that you are talking about race.

Oh, now you're interested in race. And Whit was like, just be glad she's coming on. Yeah, but really, I mean, I think it's important that people know our origin story here. You know, like I actually reached out to your team last fall and i reached out because i'd seen your show and actually i had heard about your podcast well before that i was with some colleagues who i work with on the board for the wilderness society and you know we're just sitting at you know um this conference and we're talking about you know podcasts that we all listen to inevitably we get

to that conversation like what are you listening to because it's a way of getting to know people yeah and someone told me that i should listen to meat eater and it was with this disclaimer not man eater right but it was like with this disclaimer it's like yeah but but it's really cool like it's not like just about you know know, you know, just the stereotype of people who, you know, hunt and fish. And I'm like, well, look, you know, I'm already with it, you know, so I'm definitely just interested just because I'm interested in that topic and with my background. So I listened to your show and then I saw that you had a show on Netflix, of course, and I watched that. And I realized like we had so much common language and so much common language that was really about helping people understand their possibilities of being in the world and understanding wildlife more and living in harmony with it, but also as a way to connect with other people across

difference. And that resonated so deeply with me that I thought about writing you for a couple of weeks until I actually did. And I just, you know, I sent one of those, you know, emails, you know, via your contact us link on your, I mean, you know, it's one of those. Which is dicey. Yeah, yeah. You just send it off into the night. You know, you have no idea who's going to read it, if someone will read it. It lands in there amidst a lot of emails, photos of mangled fingers. Yeah, all kinds of things.

Because I'm the recipient of those kinds of emails. People write us for all kinds of reasons, to partner with us, to pour their souls out to us, to talk about race, all kinds of things. No one writes you to attack you? You know, we've been very fortunate. That may change after this call or this interview. Oh, I'm sure. But I think that for some reason, and I have some suspicions about what that reason is, is because Al Durafro is so forward in its love story, in its love story about community,

in its love story about nature. And that's what I really got from your work. And that connected deeply with, I felt, the values that we have with Outdoor Afro and that which I grew up with. So I reached out and a real human responded and said, hey, I'd love to talk to you on the phone and hear more about what you're thinking. And I didn't have a goal. I just wanted to connect and I wanted you to see like, hey, I see you and we'll see where the ripples go. And that began last fall.

And then we had our plans to do a turkey hunt together. That's right. I forgot about that. You and I were going to go turkey hunting. We should still make that happen. We should. And so we already had that planned for April and then the whole shelter in place happened. And then I got, you know, everybody, you know, couldn't do anything during that time. And so this was really our first opportunity. And we made... I hate to interrupt, but I'm going to, but it's actually going to work out in your favor because where I was planning to take you, I didn't quite know the zone very well. And it took me quite a while to figure it out. Now we did end up killing a turkey in the general area later. If you come

back next year, I've got it dialed. Okay. I'll be ready. So I think it's important that people know that this was, one, initiated by me. Two, this had, you know, a timeframe that began in advance of all of the kind of shit show we're living through right now. Yet, I'm grateful. And that's how I felt as soon as the pandemic hit, as soon as the whole sweep of Black Lives Matter really kind of landed upon us as a country. I just felt so grateful to be doing work that feels in a lot of ways more urgent than ever before.

When the shelter-in-place happened and I saw people getting outside and getting into parks, I mean, I saw kids on bicycles and on rollerblades and I saw families out in nature. I saw our parks be overwhelmed because I think that people had this primal awareness that they needed to connect with nature for their healing in that moment. While you wouldn't be able to go to a restaurant or a movie theater, people knew, they knew they had nature. And so we began just making sure that folks knew that we were there for them, we were there for families,

and we were also there to help people recognize that nature is not necessarily in a place where you go and drive to, but it's all around you. It's your windowsill. Like I was just like, you know, in the beginning of you go and drive to, but it's all around you. It's your windowsill. Like I was just like, you know, in the beginning of the shelter in place, I looked outside and I saw my lazy pit bull laying on the grass like she always does. I saw, you know, the blue scrub jay coming through like it always does. And I just, again, you know, grounded myself to take my cue for how to be at this time. And that's like nature. And that's, that's where I keep going back to in this time. And I think right now, I think about outdoor Afro and just my whole, you know, reason for being with Outdoor Afro is really about how I can help through this work

more people find common ground. And I think people are looking for that right now. Explain the mission of Outdoor Afro, but then also tell me what you're going to tell me about when I said that the North the the north star of like total color blindness like convince me that that's not the north star anymore well outdoor afro is two very different questions yeah yeah and i got you i got you okay i'm tracking uh so outdoor afro celebrates and inspires black people to reconnect to the outdoors.

And reconnect is a really intentional word that I use because as I kind of moved through the journey of developing Outdoor Afro, you know, that was born in social media. I just had a personal blog and I started talking about growing up wild and all the things that I used to do in the outdoors. And what happened was that there were folks who responded back to me. And this is back in the first wave of social media. So the algorithms were all nice and flat. You didn't have to pay to play. And you could literally, and I did, from my kitchen table, have this very intimate conversation about all the things that I loved about being in the outdoors and about my family traditions in the outdoors. And people responded back, and they were like, you're telling my story.

This is my life, too. And that's when I realized that we had a visual representation problem, that we didn't see people who looked like me or like my dad. Like, my dad loved nature. He loved wildlife. But he never would have called himself a conservationist or an environmentalist ever because that was just not where he took his cues from. He took his cues from his dad who got it from his dad and so on and so forth. And so it's really been for Outdoor Afro our effort to really help restore that sense of outdoor leadership and knowledge back to the home. I really want people to have their nature swagger. Like you go out and

you know how to be, how to live, what to harvest, what to set aside, what to leave behind for poison, you know, like what, like how to really understand nature and not think about nature as someplace that you have to drive to and access through a parking lot. And just be comfortable out there. And be comfortable and respectful, you know, at the end of the day. So I've had a lot of experiences through Outdoor Afro and connecting with people from all over, all walks of life, from children to elders. And eventually people wanted to find communities of folks to get outside with. So we started what we called the Outdoor Afro Leadership Team. And for me, this was really disruptive because I didn't go for the wildlife biologist or, you know, the Eagle Scout,

the people who we traditionally think of as the experts in the outdoors. I went instead for the real estate broker or the preschool teacher or the accountant, the attorney. And then we even had military vets who said, hey, I love nature and I want to share what I love about nature, where I live with others in my community. And so I brought those folks together and we trained and really learned from one another about risk management, of course, and trip planning and logistics, but also things like, you know, how to tell our story in a different way, how to use, you know, and harness social media and other mediums where we weren't present right now, but where we could, you know, move the needle on

lifting up this other vision of how people who look like me could be out in nature, strong, beautiful, and free. And it's really been phenomenal how that's grown. Right now, we have, you know, that started off as a group of about 11 people who said yes to being an outdoor afro leader. And every year, you know, we've grown incrementally, just taking the time to really learn about what we're doing and why we're doing it and not getting bigger just to be bigger. You know, like vanity metrics mean nothing to me, you know, because I see a lot of people being big and being wrong, you know, or being, you know, unwieldy. And so we just grew incrementally our team. And this class that we have this year is about 90 men and women from 30 states. And we have a participation network of about 40,000 people. And they get out with us and they hike and they bike and they camp and they bird and they do all kinds of things. And one of the things I want to continue to move the needle on is as people get more comfortable being in the outdoors, you know, how can we talk more about sustainably hunting and fishing and helping people really round out their experiences in the outdoors?

And I'm actually relearning a lot of those skills right alongside them. As my parents have passed away, you know, several years now, you know, you really need a community of people around you to pursue some of these activities that, you know, as you described, take a long time and take a lot of hands and a lot of equipment. And so the on-ramping can be pretty steep when you start talking about some sportsman's activities. So I'm looking forward to building more community, deliberate community around that as well. Yeah. Mentors are hard to come by. They are. You can build like a, you know. And that's what I'm hoping that we'll do. That's right. As I'm hoping we'll do is like really

create, you know, I've been calling it the B-side of outdoor Afro. Outdoor Afro after dark or maybe before sunup. Where we're, you know, deliberately building community and I've had some great conversations with California Fish and Wildlife to come up with ways that we can actually start folks, you know, at the phase of getting their, you know, hunter certifications and then moving them through the fall, early winter to get a duck hunt, you know, and a big feast at the end and really bring people through the continuum of good education, good conservation ethic, harvesting seasonably, but also like getting their grub on at the end. what is the what are participation rates um like i know that we have 90 like for for fishing it's a lot better hunting is 90 10 male female yeah um i've heard three percent african-american you know it depends you

know do you know the rates like nationally yeah yeah and also i mean you know you kind of get to this question that i get asked a lot like it's the why don't, you know, black people do blah, blah, blah. And I think it really has to do with who you're hanging around with, what your, you know, where your geographic area is, because you definitely see, for instance, in the South, you know, proportions. And so I really look at not like these like finite amounts in this big pie of how many people are doing an activity. I always measure like in proportion to people's population and their opportunity, right? then you're going to probably have higher rates of participation in all kinds of things, all kinds of outdoor activities, especially if those access points are near where people live. And so I like to unpack those statistics a little bit because people will shoot me with the, well, there's 0.1% of black people who go to Yosemite. I'm like, well, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. Like, is that like all of nature? Or is that like one park that is about four hours from where people live? And I think about,

you know, just the lives of busy working families, you know, on the weekends, you may or may not have time off to go and drive some place where you've never been to do things you've never done before with people you've never met. I mean, there's so many big asks in that. And so that's why whenever people choose to come out with us, I always start by thanking them. You know, thank you for saying yes to, first of all, getting up from your warm bed on, you know, a Sunday morning, maybe before the sun comes up.

Thanks for saying yes to that. Thanks for getting in your car and finding this place because we know navigation is a huge challenge for people, especially when you get out into remote areas. And then, you know, for trying something you've never done before and around people who you don't know because, you know, I've been there. I've been in the embarrassed one where everyone's got the skill and I don't or, you know, the physical abilities and I don't, you know. And so we spend a lot of time helping people to get prepared and to feel confident. And then once they're there, they're supported, you know, and they don't have to feel like they're the only one in the group, you know, who has to, you know, know things. And we don't, you know, have a competitive atmosphere, you know, where you gotta, you know, have the biggest, go the fastest, you

know, bag the tallest in order to feel successful. And so when it comes to being seen, though, I think it's really important that we really see each other. And I think that when we really take the time to see each other, I think it opens the door for greater understanding and empathy. And I think that when we really take the time to see each other, I think it opens the door for greater understanding and empathy. And it reveals the core of the love story of what Outdoor Afro is really about. I want you to see that I stand on the shoulders of, you know, Black people who, you know, made a way out of no way, quite frankly, who, you know, learned how to live off the land, sometimes under duress, but sometimes of their own choosing. And they did it in a really powerful and beautiful way. And that there's so much that's when I think about America and I think about, you know, the ways that there's just these intertwined histories.

I think it's important to recognize that we have all been in this thing together for a long time. And even if we didn't live in a neighborhood where you were necessarily integrated, I think the effect on the overall culture, the foods we eat, the music we listen to, it's undeniably, you know, intersectional in the way that we've been in relationship in a deliberate way for forever. And so I think it's something to be celebrated versus avoided. And I think that we can look at difference and not look at difference from a hierarchical point of view. And I think that that's where, you know, we end up in these slippery slopes, that if you notice it, then somehow you're positioning a higher and a lower. And some people do, let's be real. But I think that it's-

You mean some people do what? I think some people- They do see a hierarchy. Yeah, I think that some people do. And I think that that, you know, is something that we all manage. But again, I go back to this work as an opportunity to really free ourselves of those isms and those judgments that can somehow cloud our way of getting to know one another. and you know when i go out into nature you know the trees don't know that i am black you know the birds are gonna sing no matter how much money is in my bank account and the flowers are gonna bloom no matter what my gender is or my political party yeah and so i feel like nature really gives us this broad platform to be, but also to understand one another. Like when I was in the Arctic Refuge with some friends and we had just landed just beyond the Brooks Range on the Chilliwack River.

We were going to paddle down to the ocean. And just when we landed, we had seen this whole biblical herd of porcupine caribou. We were just mesmerized. I'd never seen that many caribou, any caribou, but that many. That many hearts beating all together. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you can't be the same after seeing that. So after that had happened, we're just kind of standing there stunned and really mesmerized by just being in that landscape and having that experience.

A bear pops up in camp. And I honestly, it was terrifying. It was shocking. And there were some people who, you know, do what humans like to do sometimes with charismatic megafauna, and that's reason. Go away, bear. You don't want to hear bear. Clap, clap, clap. You know, and the bear spray got deployed and all that.

And I'm like standing behind a raft, you know, as if that was going to make a difference. And my knees were all shaken and, you know, and just literally no more than a minute or so, because the bear just looked at us curiously. It was not aggressive at all. And it just, you know, took a whiff of that, you know, that Arctic air and just disappeared in the landscape. And that was a moment where I had a hard reset of my humanity. I realized that I was in that bear's wild. And I think that there's this perception as humans that we are at cause in the wild. And it just reordered things for me in the right way that I was not at the top of the food chain, first off. And had that bear decided to enjoy any of us for takeout, that that wild would continue to lumber on without any regard for its human passengers. And that, you know, that was just another of many lessons that I've learned in this work, that while I'm leading people and helping people to get outside, you know, I'm also sharing my revelations and my experiences to really help deepen more people's understanding about what it means to be in relationship with the wild and how, you know, that bear, you know, we may not be, you know, at cause in that moment,

but we have a responsibility to help protect, you know, where that bear lives and to be with that bear in a way that's responsible for it to be able to stick around. Hey, folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness, do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law that makes it that they can't join, our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know,

sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land hunting zones aerial imagery 24k topo maps waypoints and tracking that's right you were always talking about uh we're always talking about on x here on the meat eater podcast now you

um you guys in the great white north can can be part of it be part of the excitement you can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service that's a sweet function as part of it. Be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet.

onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. Can you talk about uh drowning because i think this is it was i was reading an interview with you um and you brought up you were kind of talking about like different relationships with different activities and how can different activities like how can there be a sort of racial bias toward different activities? Yeah, that's a great question. Have you ever read, did you ever read The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Kundra, Milan Kundra? Yeah, a long time ago.

It has a lot to do with, it's kind of this condemnation of communism. But in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, there's a guy and his girlfriend. And the writer gets into when a parade goes by like she grew up in um communist czechoslovakia i think i can't remember i think she grew up in communist czechoslovakia when she sees a parade it means something very different very different than when the other person sees a parade that's right one's a celebration and another one is a holy shit yeah one's imagining just sort of Very different. Very different. Very different than when the other person sees a parade. That's right. One's a celebration and another one is a holy shit. Yeah.

One's imagining this sort of American Fourth of July-esque. Yeah. And one of them's imagining like, oh, shit. Yep. Here's the commies showing off their military. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

And like the word parade takes on something different. And I read this thing in this, I think it was you saying, or I can't remember if it was you and someone else talking, but someone brought up swimming yep and pools like that historically to be pools that would just like flat out say like no black people can swim in this pool absolutely absolutely so and now we have and then you kind of link this to yeah drowning rates today there's. I think it's an interesting way for people to begin to see a little bit of what we're talking about. Yeah. I mean, it's no like – it's no fantasy that there was a time in a not too distant past when there were pools and beaches and public areas. Like public property, public property, public beaches. I think there was a bloody summer in Chicago where there were, you know, people getting beaten for for trying to access the shoreline. There have been beaches everywhere where there has been restricted or excluded, you know, parts where Black people could not be. There have been public pools, you know, where Black people were not allowed. And so the consequence of that is that today we have a drowning rate of black children who are drowning five times the rate of their white peers ages 5 through 19. grandmother or your mother wasn't able to learn how to swim and develop a relationship with water

is still felt today. And so in response to that, one of the things that Outdoor Afro set out to do last year was to award swimmerships. And so we set out to get as many babies in the water as we could. And I wanted to get about 70 swimmerships out. I call them swimmerships. Basically, they're swim scholarships for lessons. And we were able to, with the support of a lot of folks, get nearly 200 of those swimmerships together. And the reason why is because if a child doesn't know how to swim, they're not going to ease into a tippy kayak. They're not going to put a pole in a lazy lake. And they're not going to give a damn about plastic in the ocean. So it's not just about people's lives being saved. It's about that being such a

cornerstone skill that until we can get people comfortable with water, they're just not going to be able to pursue a wide variety of outdoor recreation activities, much less fishing. And I just remember, it was about 10 years ago before outdoor afro really was a thing. And I had gone out with a bunch of friends and we had rented a catamaran in the Caribbean Ocean. And I thought, I mean, I was really comfortable. I'd swim all my life and our host had swam as well. But most of the people who were on that catamaran, I was really comfortable. I'd swim all my life and our host had swam as well. But most of the people who were on that catamaran, I don't think they really understood what they were getting into. And when the water became really choppy, even though people had their PFDs on, people were terrified in that moment. And they couldn't enjoy it.

You know, some people got sick. I mean, it was a disaster. But had those people had comfort and a feeling of even, you know, just steadiness around water, it would have been a totally different experience. And so that's one of the reasons why Outdoor Afro exists is because we are responding to some of the historical barriers that were real, while also celebrating the fact that people did persist in learning how to swim, learning how to be in nature. Folks like my dad, for instance. And so we're, you know, trying to remedy some of the past,

while also lifting up some of the figures in our history who were every bit the wilderness leaders. I think oftentimes about Harriet Tubman. You know, we don't think about her as a wilderness leader, but how did she get people moving across state lines in the cover of night and not know nature, not know the sound of the birds that may share warning or where to stop and eat or what can you harvest from the landscape. How could she have done that without nature knowledge? And so for me, she, you know, embodies a way that we can look at people in our history in a different way, you know, rebrand, if you will, but really, you know, look at history of African and black Americans in an empowered way, you know, versus ones that tied to nature. Without even like an option to not be tied to nature, but it's like working in agriculture, living in situations with no running water, even like sharecropping and things where you're working the soil and you're sort of like what you eat is directly dependent on what you

do with your own hands. Yeah. And then in the reconstruction era, like after the end of the Civil War, that these people who were like really connected to the seasons and natural systems for a need to find work and to escape persecution went to northern cities to get manufacturing jobs. That's right. And it's funny how – I shouldn't say funny, just interesting how in a couple generations, like even our associations would be – they like cities, right? So that was like a natural order of things. And we lose sight of sort of like the factors that led the demographics and sociological factors that led people to be where they are in a way that in a very short period of time, we look and there's an assumption

like that's how you'd like it. Right. And it's wrong. And that's, and it's a disruption. Absolutely. Because, you know, I read Isabel Wilkerson's book, The Warmth of Other Suns, and it talks about in painful detail how people, you know, had to basically, black people were refugees in this country and jumped on trains and didn't get off until the train ran out in places like Chicago and New York

and Oakland and Los Angeles and created. And my folks were a part of that wave of that great migration. And it was really, I mean, when I think a lot about their beginnings, like they did what's called hotbedding, you know, where they work in the shipyards, you know, as a family, you know, uncles and, you know, kin all. Oh, shift, doing shift work. Yeah, doing shift work and also sleeping in shifts in the same beds. Like, so, you know, the bed always stayed hot. And I just think about, like, the grit and the tenacity of people to, you know, leave what they loved, you know, to create something new. And even those new places not being, you know, a welcome place for them to be necessarily. But you're right in that, you know, we are not, generationally speaking, we are not more than a couple generations away from that knowledge, that connection, that knowingness with nature. And I feel like that's a huge job that Outdoor Afro, you know, is responsible for. And that is, it's not talking about the absence of, but the presence

of and how it's always been there. How if you look at, you know, like all of the ways that Black people have been in this country, we have been everywhere doing everything. And if even if you don't see it in a magazine, or if it's if you don't see the representation in a particular club or organization, it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. And so that's a huge part of the work, is to tell a new narrative and to tell a narrative that, again, is empowered and really helps us to find a way to, we may not ever get back to those places where we are completely, and there's some parts of it, as you pointed out, we don't want. That's what I wanted to ask you next because as I said that, after I said it, I realized sort of like a miss in my logic would be that, I don't know, let's say you're a slave and you're supposed to build the egyptian pharaoh's tomb right and so

you're forced to learn to be a stonemason and you build these works of uh human engineering that will be celebrated right for thousands of years does that person who was enslaved to build king tut's tomb look and be like, now that was the life. I learned stone masonry by God. I was good at it. Right. Or is it just like, please don't invite me to be nostalgic about my agrarian background. Exactly.

Because I happen to be there like under force of a whip. That's right. So don't, I'm not going to get like all, get like all sentimental about living close to the land. Exactly. It's got to be tricky. Well, for me. Because a lot of people like, you know, you go back and you want to, you know, people go back and you maybe over embellish or want to like accentuate your hardships because it creates this personal narrative. But that's a whole other level.

Yeah, it is. It is. And again, that's why I stay grounded in new narrative creation. So going back in your family history and recognizing how you've been empowered doesn't negate the bad stuff, right? How do we take the things that actually could be in service of a better life right now and create something new for ourselves is what I think our ask is, you know, because I'm, I, you know, as much as I appreciate the ways that folks have had historical context, doesn't mean I need to go back to those places in every way. But I think that sometimes in our effort to distance ourselves from those bad things, we throw away the good stuff too. Yeah.

And so how do we, because for instance, you know, for some people living, you know, in the country or, you know, learning about, you know, or being engaged with our food ways may feel backwards, right? It may feel like a lack of progress. And so what I hope to do through this work is to really help lift up those skills, those abilities, and your quality of life, you know, is actually progressive in a way that you can live longer, you know, be healthier and find more joy and connection. So is there any sentimentality for nature or is it all like, is there any language of returning to or is it all framed as there's this thing out there that we haven't engaged in and it's beautiful and let's go find out about it? that the outdoors and nature, wild, remote nature,

has not always been regarded as a safe place for Black bodies. I remember I was about 10 years old, and I was watching a special about civil rights movements and the whole timeline of various events happening, which, you know, honestly don't feel a lot different than the life than what we're living through right now. And there was the. There was a story of Emmett Till, you know, and for those who don't know, Emmett Till was, you know, a Chicago boy. And what people did when they moved to northern cities and they still had family living in the South, they would send their children to the South for the summertime so that parents

could work and for various reasons to maintain those familial connections. And so he like, you know. I didn't realize that about Emmett Till. So he'd gone. He was born in the north. Yeah. He was, he was, he was, you know, visiting his Southern relatives and, you know, got, you know, was misunderstood and ended up brutally. He made a, he didn't have the, he addressed a white woman without the appropriate deference. Yeah.

Which was, you know, fatal for, for, for young. And he was a boy. Yeah. Beat him to death and tied him to a piece of mill equipment and threw him off a bridge. So what happened, hearing that story and seeing how, you know, his mom wanted to have an open casket so that the world could see, you know, what had happened to her boy, the brutality of it. I was, you know, I was shocked. And I remember going right to my dad after seeing that. And I had asked him, you know, because he lived in Texas all of his life. And I'd asked him, I was like, you know, do you know of anyone who's been lynched?

And he just leveled with me and he said, all the time. And that helped me to get present at a really young age that there's been a disruption of a feeling of things happening and who, you know, still hold those fears of something happening to you. We, you know, we sent, Outdoor Afro sent, you know, folks on all kinds of different adventures, whether it be Mount Whitney or Kilimanjaro. And I can't tell you that when those expeditioners go out, you know, just the real fear and concern that those families have for the safety of those folks. And I think that that's something that, you know, some groups can take for granted, that you can go out and you can, you know, feel okay. And you might worry about wildlife to some extent if you're not experienced with it. But for black people, it's about being worried about other humans. I was talking to a writer one time who wrote a piece about being black and being afraid to be on public lands.

And I called him to ask him what he meant, right? I wanted him to back it up. What he meant when he said that. I could see that someone would say, let's say someone said, I have concerns of being out in the woods on public land and getting shot by a hunter. And we could go and look in the news. And see incidents. And we could find like, oh, here's a case where a guy,

that happened a year or two ago, someone like mistook a woman walking her dog for a deer and shot her. So we could go find instances that would substantiate or not. Or someone says, I'm afraid of grizzlies. And be like, okay, let's dig into this. Is being afraid of grizzlies warranted or not now they might still be like yeah i'm still but i get it statistically it won't happen but i'm still afraid of them yeah but i wanted to understand like the fear of public lands

yeah i don't know if it's public lands i think it's just a fear of just being out you know in places where you know there's not anybody places where you don't feel defensible. And when it comes, let's be clear here. When it comes to incidents of racism, rarely do you ever get the proof. And really, rarely do you need it for it to be validated. But in a case of violent, physical safety and violent crime, would we not know these? So here's how we address it in our organization, because it comes up pretty frequently for us. And we're not, you know, out here.

The fear. Yeah, we're not, you know, out here, you know, publicizing our stats and things like that. And we don't need to, you know, for it to be valid, right? If someone, you know, tells me that they are confronted by a group of people who want to know why you're there. You know, what are you doing? How long are you going to be here? You know, that's not really friendly and inviting. No, not at all.

Right. And so those are the kinds of things that, you know, are really tough to help people understand that just the unwelcoming piece can be enough of a barrier for people who are already coming in with a lot of, again, a lot of historical narrative, a lot of things that we've grown up knowing about. And so when you go out to a place and people are confronting your very reason for being in a place, that alone is problematic. And those are the kinds of barriers that we have to push through in our work. I've personally experienced it, and I've got tremendous nature swagger. I go out and I don't feel ever that I don't belong in public lands. But I've absolutely encountered people who ask me a few too many questions to prove that, you know, and that even humans as a whole, you know, don't belong in true wilderness.

And I think there's just a bigger conversation we have to have, you know, around just this idea of humans belonging in nature and how we can exist with nature, generally speaking. But I think that when it comes to communities that have not, one, felt historically and have known historically that they're not welcomed and that bad things have happened in the wood, and there are statistics about that. I mean, from, I believe, 1877 through 1950, there were 4,400 instances of people being lynched, men, women, children shot, maimed. And these are all, and this is just what we know, you know? So not everything gets reported. Not everything, you know, makes the front pages, but it doesn't make it less true. And so again, this is why the work I do feels so relevant because I want people to be able to come out in groups. Oftentimes people

don't want to traipse out into the outdoors by themselves. They want to go out in groups of people to help them not only learn, but importantly, to feel safe. And if people can continue to go out again and again, which they do, you know, I very much see like the work we do is like, you know, almost training wheels, if you will, you know, for people to get out and go, wow, okay, I know where to go. I know how to get there. I know where to park. I know I'll be okay there. And so there's a lot of I'll be okay there. And so there's a lot of work to do around welcoming. And then there's this other thing

that happens, though, and it's over-welcoming. Like, hey, how are you doing? Oh, my God! Can I be your tour guide? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Walk me through what it feels like to be over-welcomed.

Just, I mean, just what I just said, you know, like where people are encroaching on your space, you know, and they want to like, you know, maybe – I don't know. Like there's a great – a really great video that you should watch and your viewers could probably pull it up on um funny or die it's blair underwood and he has a spoof called black hiker and uh basically he's experiencing like the whole range of what happens as a black man in the outdoors, right? Everything from, you know, the white woman jogger who suddenly turns around and runs away because she is afraid of pursuit to the park ranger, you know, who's basically been following you the whole time and then gets you at the trailhead and says, you need to sign the guest book. And he's like, why do I have to sign the guest book? he's like why do i have to sign the guest book

is there a rule that i have to sign the guest book and then at the end you know they break down they said well you know we've just never seen a black hiker it's my first time i just we just need to know that you were here you know and so that's what i mean by over welcoming it's like i wanted to like i i almost want to defend the over welcomcomer because at some point, is there room for intention? I think that, you know. If you're aware, I've heard that because of the things that have gone on in this country, I've heard that black people often feel uncomfortable and unwelcome in certain places. And I don't want to contribute to that shit.

Yep. So I don't want to also not acknowledge another person's presence. You can. Lest it be misconstrued as hostility. So in their head is like, I want to be a good person. I want to remedy a wrong. But then they're a shitty actor. Yeah.

You know what? I think people put too much on it. Just be with other people. Okay. But I'm trying to be an apologist for the person who's like in their mind. They're like, I will not let this stand. I will not add to this. Yeah.

But when you encounter like the 10th of those people, it's a lot. You know, you're like, okay, all right. We're welcomed. Okay. Like, let me enjoy my campfire here. I want to explain like a thing, like a way that that would happen to somebody. Okay. As animals.

Okay. We human animals, we sort of like become trained in what we see, right? We just like subliminally see things and we become trained in what we know is around us. A thing I always bring up and point when I travel to other countries, like in America, I can see a person walking down the street and I have a sense what, like, when someone walks by my house, I'm like, that person is exercising. Right. That person looks like they're racing home for some reason. That person looks like they're biking to the office. I don't deliberately deconstruct it, but whatever.

It's like, there's a guy with a bike helmet and a suit on and a shoulder bag. I don't know. I never even get into it. Uh-huh. There's a guy with a bike helmet and a suit on and a shoulder bag. I don't know. I never even get into it. I just know, like, but when I go to other countries and we're driving down the road and it's some faraway land, another continent, it bothers me that everyone walking down the street, my cues, and I'm like, I don't know, like, I don't know what they're doing. And we even laugh about our inability to tell, like, what is up with people, you know, know because all your the shit you operate on come on if you see me out here with hiking boots okay no no let me finish my story okay okay so if you if i spent my entire life or let's just say someone spent their entire life in an area where all they've ever seen walking down a trail in the woods would be like, that dude's hunting.

That woman's walking her dog. The woman with the Subaru Outback and the nylon hat and wraparound shades and jogging is like an exercise fanatic. And you just build these things in your head without thinking about it. And then you see a person, like you see a person of another, you see a black person, a person of another race you've never seen there. You would, there's a trigger where you're like, it doesn't fit into what I'm accustomed to. And I could see how it would, how it would bring about in someone like a need to make sense of it. And see, that's exactly why we really have to lift up different representation.

This is again, this is a representation problem. in the glossy pages of the magazine or, you know, you know, out in, in an empowered way, then yeah, you are going to be startled and perhaps disrupted in, in terms of your perception. I don't want to say startled, but disrupted where you're then, cause you,

you can't, you don't passively make sense of it. So then you're, you put in this position of trying to actively make sense of it yeah i'm laying it all out for you here yeah yeah i don't want to be making you uncomfortable but i'm just trying to like lay it out you know yeah like lay out like how are like how our heads work yeah and i just i just you know again i go back to you know sometimes we overthink shit. Oh, dude. That's all I ever do. I get paid to overthink shit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, what I mean by that is, you know, can people just be, you know, and just say, hey, you know, whatever, whatever the norm of communication is for a given place. And just leave it at that, you know, because the idea that somehow, you know, you or, you know, the idea that somehow you know you or you know the the example that you gave you know has to be responsible for creating my experience is in its in and of itself disempowering no no no you know i get that i get what you know what i mean like it's not i do know what you mean but that's not it's not the job of that person. And I just feel like. I don't take it as my job. Okay. I don't take it as my job.

I'm not doing good at jobs, but it's like I take it as a moment where all the things that enter your head that you don't calculate. Yeah. Okay. On the subject of just encountering an unexpected face. Yeah. An unexpected body. Yeah. All the things you don encountering an unexpected face. Yeah. An unexpected body. Yeah.

All the things you don't take account of for, and maybe it's like a, maybe it's an inherited racism that you can't get rid of. Whatever is stuck in your head. When you see a person you don't know, you're forced to then be like, well, how would it be? How would it be that they're here not antagonistic but it sticks like it just sticks you in kind of like wondering like what are the circumstances of the individual yeah do they live here that's interesting yeah yeah and i'm telling you that kind of interest and intrigue to be on the other side of that is not fun it's not fun and it's not welcomed. I hate it too. Not that I'm anywhere near that, but I know I have been in situations in my life where you are aware of your presence and it sucks.

And so to live like that all the time on public lands. Yeah. That is why the work is so important because we have to lift up and really work through this perception that has been fed to us that's simply not true of who belongs in the outdoors. Because I want – the thing is people ask me all the time. They're like, okay, what are you really working toward here, right? What do you say when they ask you that? And I'm working toward – I get it because you told me. But like how do you say when you ask me that? And I'm working toward – I get it because you told me, but, like, how do you say that in an elevator? Not in an elevator, but in, like, a brief interaction.

Well, it's been consistent, and that is, you know, I mean, we've learned a lot of things over the years. But I think your question really gets to, you know, what the goal is here, you know, because when the work is done, there's not going to be some big you're done and there's the parade and, you know, down Main Street and, you know. You dissolve your organization because our work here is complete. The good kind of parade, mind you. You know, it's not, you know, that big, big moment. It is really that quiet moment. Right. It is really that quiet moment, right? And that moment when we look up, when that guy that you just described or that woman or whoever looks up, and they're seeing people who look like me out, recreating, enjoying the outdoors in proportion to their population and their opportunity.

Yeah. And it's no big deal. And you don't go, the fuck? Right. I mean, we're like, I'll give you a concrete example since I know you like concrete examples. Oh, come on now. Is that a dig? No.

I'm comfortable in the theoretical. That's all right. I like to double back around. No, no, no. Let's dance. So I think a lot about, and you're old enough to remember this, to know this, live through this trajectory too. I think we're roughly the same age, right? Yeah.

So like when we were little, I rarely get to say that to people. So I'm going to say when we were little. No, we're right on. Yeah. We were little kids at the same time. Right. But usually it's like say when we were little. No, we're right on. Yeah. We were little kids at the same time. Right. But usually it's like

when I was a little kid, you know. I like to say when I was a boy. Right, right, right. But when I was little, you were little, I'm sure you remember

like you could smoke cigarettes everywhere. You could smoke them in the bank. You could smoke them on the train. You could smoke them in the restaurant.

Smoking or non-smoking. You could smoke, you could smoke, you know. Airplanes maybe. Airplanes in the back of the airplane. Yeah, when you get on a plane nowadays and they still have ashtrays on some of the airplanes, it's fresh. Right. So, like, you could smoke everywhere. It was not even a thing. It was something that no one questioned. You know, there were people who probably were individually bothered by it, but generally in the culture, it was just something that was accommodated. And then over time, it began to be not okay in certain places. And then it got to the point where you really couldn't smoke anywhere. And now-

No, that's when I started to take pity on smokers. Yeah. Like out in the rain, you know, like you can't even smoke, you can't even smoke cigarettes in front, like within 20 feet of a building now, No, that were always there. But it took a lot of pulleys and levers and organizations and PR and, you know, a lot of different ways that folks work together to create that shift. And so that's one of the reasons why I want to be on this show. That's one of the reasons why, you know, one big reason why I do Outdoor Afro is because we have to be a part of those pulleys and levers that tells a different narrative and gets us to that ordinary moment where Black people, again, can be outside enjoying the outdoors, being strong,

beautiful, and free, not people who have to be rescued from the hood in order to have some kind of conversion experience in the outdoors. Because that's been the predominant narrative, right? Like people, I'll tell them. Wilderness therapy and taking inner city kids out to the farm kind of thing. So here's the narrative, right? And even when I tell people what I do, sometimes their response is like the opposite of what I do.

It's like, oh, Rue, it's so great what you're doing for the poor black children. Oh, the assumption is that you're rescuing children by a weekend out hiking. Yeah, exactly. And then they're going to become conservationists after that. Or they're going to go home and tell their families and then the whole family're going to become conservationists after that. Or they're going to go home and, you know, tell their families. And then, you know, the whole family's going to. And I'm like, okay, let's sit with that for a second and think about what really happens. What happens is that you have provided everything for this young person, you know, worthy no matter what.

But you provide everything, the gear, the equipment, the, you know, the where to go, the how to do, you have isolated them from their family in delivering this experience. They're just, they're out with peers, but they're not with their family. And then they go and they have some kind of experience that will absolutely be memorable. And there's a lot of narrative also of people having like these breakdowns and breakthroughs or some kind of, you know, evangelical experience in the outdoors. And then these kids, you know, are believed to be changed. And then they'll have this long, lifelong value of protecting and loving the outdoors. And what I see actually gets played out is that these kids go home and their families may or may not be interested in what that experience was. And the kid has no way of

getting back to that experience without you, your organization. And so there's no chance for that repeated experience. And you and I both know that it's not the one-time experience. It's the lifelong experience that usually starts in your home and happens again and again and again, where you get to learn lessons and you get to fail and you get to be successful and you get the whole range of experience. And that is what creates this passion, this love, this sense of the need to advocate and protect and be a part of that equation. But it's not the one-time backpacking trip. And I think that we missed a really big opportunity. You know, I think as long as we're looking at communities as needing to be saved

or needing to be rescued, then we are tapping, we're not tapping into the full breadth of a community's empowered selves. And that, you know, there are people like me, you know, who are professionals and all the people who are our leaders of our organization. They're all, you know, busy working professionals of all kinds of backgrounds. And they, you know, bring a ordinariness to the potential for who can be an expert in these experiences. And then we're in our communities doing these experiences. And so we can do them over and over and over and over again. And they not be episodic, you know, and a photo for the newsletter. Yeah, I'm with you.

So that's, so again, we're, you know, just to kind of get back to your question, I'm so glad you asked about like the, you know, the what do you do? We're really getting to the point where I want that person not feel like they can do, they have to do anything and that they can just be and they can respectfully enjoy the outdoors with whoever they happen to encounter in those experiences. Hey, folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness, do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join,

our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right. We're always talking about OnX here on the MeatEater podcast.

Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it, be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a

free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all.

Before you got here, Yannis and I were talking about a thing, another thing he had read that you were talking about, the birding slash picnicking conundrum. You had mentioned how to get people involved. Oh, yeah. You have two very different responses if you set up sort of a day of birding out at X location and nobody calls you, nobody writes in,

no participation. And then you say, well, we're going to go out to the same location and have a picnic. And that all of a sudden everybody comes because I guess it's just more approachable. And you just happen to have along with you your spotting scope and some binoculars and you achieve the same birding.

Everybody birds. Yeah. The intention is still met, but like whatever it was, like people just like, it doesn't grab them to go birding. Yeah. Well, first of all,

I got to give you props for digging into the crates because that interview I did like, I don't know, like eight years ago probably. Thanks, Corinne. Crops. Corinne. Yeah, like went deep into the crate. Corinne does her job, man. Yeah, well, I mean, and it's still true.

I mean, it's an evergreen issue where, you know, people, you got to pay attention to people and ask them what they want, right? And people, I'll tell you the thing that got a lot of people out initially with us is that people just want to meet other people. They just want to meet other people with similar interests. And so when you create, you know, opportunities for people to connect with people, then there's all kinds of magic that can happen. And so it's absolutely true. I love watching wildlife. I love watching birds.

I don't really consider myself a birder per se just because it kind of gets us to a very narrow point in my mind. Like highly specialized. Yeah. And I just, you know, I mean, I never cannot notice a bird. Let's put it that way. But am I, you know, tracking a meticulous life list

or anything like that? You know, I can't say that I do. But I think it's really important for people to notice birds also because noticing birds and other wildlife really puts you in tune with the rhythms of where you are and the health of those places. And I, you know, I love going to Lake Merritt in Oakland, which is

the oldest wildlife sanctuary in the country. And it's also a fine place to have a cookout. And I grew up as a little girl going to places like Lake Merritt where there's wildlife all around us, but not necessarily the focus of why people go there. But you appreciate it, right? And you know it's important. And there are people, indeed, who bring the breadcrumbs and buy seed and really engage with the wildlife there. But what I like to do is exactly that, like find a way that people are open to getting outside. And even like hiking, like to say that, you know, you want people to go for a hike, like that sets up a lot of expectations for people about skill, difficulty, hardship, you know. And so sometimes I'll say, let's go for a stroll, you know, like just even just shifting, like how you talk about things opens the door wider for people to feel like, okay, I can do that. And so when I say, okay, let's have, you know, a cookout, people show up for that because, you know, people love food and people

love people and- They probably get it. Yeah, and they get it. Like, I can imagine how this will go. Yeah, but if I called it birding, people might think it's some kind of, you know, very finite educational, you know, thing that's happening or that they have to come in with a certain amount of knowledge or bring binoculars or whatever. And so by eliminating those things, you know, and getting people to just show up,

and I have the spotting scope and I have the bird guides, and I have a chance to talk to people about the migration of these birds. And also one of the things I love to do with Outdoor Afro is to talk about just migration histories of black people, as we mentioned earlier. Oh, it's interesting. And how we can learn and really connect in with the migration of wildlife similar to the migration of people and thinking about like, you know,

what do you need during, you know, the times that our people have traveled? You know, what do they need to be sustained? What do they need to feel safe? And talk about also, you know, those same birds that were around, you know, who are flying from Alaska along the Pacific Flyway. So it's a really fun way to connect people into a conversation that's not just about this purely academic exercise, but one that is really about belonging and connecting and noticing. And I've been really thrilled to see the ways that people have really caught on. And we've got people in our community who say they're birders.

We have, you know, a really robust number of people who just, you know, have embraced wildlife observation and engagement. But you got to meet people where they are. Do you ever pitch people on it? Like, do you ever encounter someone who says, no interest, man, no interest in nature? And do you, are you like, cool, I respect that. Or do you then go like, oh, but hear me out. Okay. So the conversation for people usually goes something like, I'll tell people what I do. And they'll say, well, I don't like camping. And I don't like hiking.

And I'm like, okay, all right. Well, I mean, do you like to fish? Well, yeah, yeah. You know, me and my dad or me. You know, there's a story. You know, there's always going to be like a breakthrough story that you can connect with that relates to something that people are already doing. Another thing that people do is tailgate. Like, if you ask me, like, tailgate is like day camp.

Do you mean like tailgating like? At a game. Yeah, yeah. That's day camp. Do you mean like tailgating? At a game. Yeah, that's day camp. I mean, if you look at all the equipment that people buy, it's the same equipment that people buy when they're going camping. Complete sometimes with a tent and the grills and the chair. Chairs, food prep. Everything. Everything is very primitive in those environments with rarely any running water.

Usually a cooler with ice and some beer. Yeah. I mean, exactly. So, you know, so getting people to just see the things that they're already doing as outdoors. Because I think that the other problem we've had is that there has been this representation that there's the right way. There's like, there are the best ways to be in the outdoors. And then there's ways to be in the outdoors that don't really matter as much. And again, I look at how, you know, especially busy working families, stressed communities, and the idea that someone can find leisure in an experience like dangling off the side of a mountain is ludicrous. You know, like instead, you know, people who have recreational time, if they have the ability to take time off,

because a lot of people work through weekends or they work in the evening times, what they want to do is probably do a cookout, you know, or maybe, you know, connect with, you know, some of their friends and go fishing and not do some of these really high adrenaline, far away activities. And so that's been a really important part of our work. And when I did a poll early, we had just enough of a sample size asking people like, what's in the way for you? Like how, you know, how can we help solve some of the ways of, you know, getting you outdoors if you're not already? And gear and equipment was huge. Like people just, they were

lost about, you know, what do I need or what do I already have that it can be, you know, repurposed for outdoor experiences. And, you know, as you know, quite a lot you already have that you don't have to go and buy. Where to go, what to do. Fears and perceptions. Fears of not only, of course, wildlife, but also of other people not feeling welcome. But the number one reason was time.

Is that right? Yeah. And here's the thing. It wasn't that there's not enough time, but it was the perception that you needed a lot of time in order to get out. And so- Because if you can't go to Yosemite for a week, does it count? Yeah, it doesn't count. Right. So that's what we set out to do was to help create opportunities for people to get out in nature in chunks of time.

And so we started doing like these, like, you know, these hiking happy hours, you know, where people might spend time like in a bar or, you know, something after work between, you know, work and going home, but instead invite them to go out in nature with us. Creating those opportunities on a weekend that took no more than two hours from start to finish so that you still could go and participate in the soccer practice or take care of grandma, go to church or whatever. And so, you know, we really are meeting people and especially busy working families in the point of their need in order to open the door to access.

And then we can take people along a continuum to do more things, you know, things that take more time. But by then we've established trust and we've also established a way for people to feel more comfortable. in your head, do you ever play a numbers game about representation in sort of like the industry of the outdoors or the non-profit, like the non-industry of the outdoors? Do you look and think like, man, it would be great

if we could get to some level of parity? Or is it more you're just interested in individual experiences and you're not using like a metric of totality? Yeah, I think when you start playing the color by numbers game, it's dangerous. You do? I don't. You know, I don't. Or rather, I don't play the color by numbers, meaning like we've got to have X number.

You know, again, I go back to looking like America. Let's start there. Let's be proportionate at least, right, by gender, by race, but also really looking at where people live. Like I don't expect to see a big population represented of people who look like me in places where we don't even live, right? Or when I look at, for example, places near Oakland where there's tons of beautiful hiking trails, when you go on those trails, it looks like the population of people who are there. It does. Yeah. And so I expect where people live, and it proves to be true, that where people live and where is accessible to people, they are. I think it's really important, however, that the industries that are associated with the outdoors do a better job of representing that reality.

And I think that's what we don't see enough of. And that's when, you know, again, our beginnings in working with the outdoor industry years ago, there were very few folks who look like me who were on those show floors and really talking about representation in this way. And I'm really proud to say that they've come a long way. But again, I'm looking for representation that actually feels realistic and that actually does represent the realities of what people do versus it being just a marketing strategy. Yeah. I think that – sorry, did you reset? I have a representation, I think, question. I want to know, like, what does it make you feel?

Because we noticed, I don't know how many years ago, a brand that we love and use a lot mountain house uh dehydrated food products are you familiar yep and their packaging has always had a group of people camping and sort of like no no historically it was the back that's the painting remember it was like oh and then it went to the million years it was like a backpacker like in the pacific, like a painting. But they changed the packaging and all of a sudden there's a picture of a very diverse looking group of people. I think there's, I can't remember exactly now. Two men, one woman, a person of Asian descent, a black person. Yeah, the man's black, right?

So when you see that are you like great applause good for you or are you like yeah you know when i do i look at the company's leadership that's what i look at that tells me the real story is that right who's represented there yeah so you're not like, oh, sweet, I'm buying this stuff. No, no, who's on your board? Who's on your board? Who's in the C-suite? Yeah.

Because I believe that equity and representation starts with design and not with optics. You know, just because you hired a model, you know, to be on the cover of your product doesn't mean that you really stand for. And that's one of the reasons why we're really thoughtful about the partners that we have as part of our partnership portfolio. Because I really want to know what you're doing when no one's looking. And I also want to make sure that we have a reciprocal relationship where we can learn from you and you can learn from us. That's not just you're going to pick our brain for diversity, equity, and inclusion because we have so much more to offer than that. We have just a network of just super brilliant people who come with their own expertise that continue to help you shape outdoor Afro that is also, you know, able to move into some of these organizations.

Like the thing that's really made me so happy and inspired is to see so many people who become outdoor Afro leaders get awakened to a whole industry of professional opportunity that they didn't even know existed. You know, and so, and we're talking about not entry-level professionals. We're talking about mid-career people who are able to pivot some good education and experience into these fields and get good jobs and jobs that have influence. And so I really care a lot about what's the holistic way that a company or a nonprofit organization is showing up. And I know that if you've got folks who are really at the helm of decision making, then I'll have a lot more confidence in the authenticity of those efforts.

I have a thing in my note. I don't want to read it. I'll tell you what. I have a note that's not well articulated. It says fear of cynicism around inclusion. note i don't want to read it i'll tell you what i have a note that's not well articulated says fear of cynicism around inclusion and what i meant when i wrote that is that i don't like when i look at our own company okay um i'm aware in my head like i'm aware that we've built a company that is equal male like about 50 50% female, about 50% male.

It might be a little bit off, but it's like remarkably better than the industries that we work in. Okay. And so I look at that and like, I feel proud about that. But then I think, and you'd want to, so when you're forced into a conversation about this, about gender equity, you're forced into a conversation. I don't like the feeling of needing to say, oh no, look, my co-CEO is a woman.

Right. Because they're like, I don't want to, I run the, I don't want to risk making her feel trivialized or making her feel like an emblem right or that she's not qualified yeah so it's like why is it being really hard like i i see it i acknowledge it i'm proud of it but i'm afraid to like start applying numbers to all this shit lest people all of a sudden start looking around the room and being like,

why am I here? Am I here because you run around counting all this shit up in your head? Yeah. And you're shooting for some goal and I'm like part of this master plan. Is that what I'm doing here? Because I thought I was here because I'm kicking ass at work. And on the flip side of that. Like, how do you, like, tell me, like, explain to me, like, how I deal with that.

How do they deal with that? Well, I think that one of the things that challenges us right now, especially in this time, is that people – I call it thirsty for diversity. You know, like, people just want it just to be – because it's emblematic, you know. Yeah. And you can really – For sure, man. And you can tell, like, when it's not – I think they feel like they got a – they got a, like, I don't want to say a gun to their head, but they feel like enormous pressure to be like, here I am, kick an ass.

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, we're really thoughtful. Like, we can smell being a grant deliverable like a mile away, you know, because. Really? Yeah. You know, people want the picture. They want, you know, they want us to. Explain grant deliverable. Well, for some not-for-profit

organizations, you know, they have mandates through their funding streams to commit to diversity, equity, and inclusion, right? And that might mean that you need to make sure that your programs have representation, outreach, actual engagement, you know, of certain demographics. And there are folks who reach out to us routinely, you know, we want to partner with you. And for us, you know, partnership means a few different things, right? Partner may mean like you've got something already baked in, you just want to invite us to be a part of that thing that we didn't necessarily have a part in creating, but we're invited and then the photo gets snapped and it looks like it's diverse, right? But it wasn't really thought partnership involved. It was just kind of more of an optical

exercise. Another version of partnership is when, you know, two or more groups get together and think about something that makes sense for them all to participate in. And that feels a lot better. And then the third is just outright sponsorship. Like we, you know, we love what you're doing. We want to give you support to keep moving in the direction that you're moving in. And so I think. No optics. No optics, you know, that people really want to support what you're doing and don't necessarily need to center themselves visually in a way that validates its success. Yeah. So I think to your question, though, I think it always boils down to relationships. Right. And people, even online, and I know you've experienced this too, like people know when you're authentic and when you're not.

Yeah. And so I really want to encourage us all to get in better relationship with each other. You know, I feel thankful. Like I'm on a board right now with the Wilderness Society and we've been in relationship with each other for over a decade. And it started with them just seeing me, seeing my work and using their platforms to share what I was already doing. They didn't co-opt it. They were like, hey, this is what she's doing. We want to recognize her.

All the way to, you know, helping us with some office space in D.C. And then, you know, now I'm on their governing council. But it was like a long time for me to feel like – and I get asked to join boards all the time. Yeah, you can tell that you're on the normal path to a board member. Yeah, right. And not just someone who – Meaning there's a courtship. There is.

And so I think that the same thing has to be true in our workplaces where we really need to get different sectors in the same room together. And one of the goals that I have for Outdoor Afro, you know, in this conversation, obviously, is a little piece of this. the same conversations with the same people and mix things up and get into other sectors where they may be a little further along in some of these areas that we care about. But also, it gives us some exposure to different ideas and really helps us to do a better job of network weaving and be able to have access to other resources that we wouldn't otherwise be able to. It's like I feel at times, you know, that insularity makes, it feels like a pond that's overfished, right? It's just like, it's people going back to the same people, the same conversations. It's the same people on the same panel discussions, you know.

And I'm just like, I'm done. I want to make new friends. I want to go new friends. I want to go to different places. I want to learn how other people in sectors are doing things and take those new ideas back home and create, you know, a sense of real innovation. Do you feel like you get, when you talk about the pond being overfished, do you feel like you get a lot of calls that come from superficial internet searches? Yeah, definitely. I mean, you know, I'm sure that we probably pop up on the first page of, you know, putting in just a few select keywords. And I think it takes people

a while to get to know who we are and the nuanced way that we show up that, you know, informs the best partnerships, you know, and good partnerships they just have for us. They've taken time. We have a lot of people right now who are coming on board, you know, and I'm not deducting points for timing, you know, by any means, because I think, you know, we got to start someplace. But I do want people to know that we're not interested in just getting a check.

You know, we're not interested in, you know, being a social media mention or putting them on our social media. We're really looking for people who we can go out for a beer with and talk about stuff and really get to know and really innovate and think about, you know, new ways of, of addressing old problems. And, and again, it really comes down to relationships. And I always say that change only happens at the speed of relationships, you know, so all of, all the folks who are out here trying to, you know, rush kids and communities to the altar of conservation, you know, in a single grant year or a single program are just not going to get it right. places and the more we understand about people and places and take the time to really get to know those places, then we'll land in a really solid place where we can build from there. Room app. How can people find you? Outdoor Afro across all the platforms. Love to hear from people. Love to hear how we can

be in relationship with each other. Yeah. I think that I'm pretty confident. Um, a lot of people be real annoyed that they had to listen to us, have a difficult conversation. They don't want that, but then a lot of people will, uh, hopefully a lot of people reach out to you. Well, I think a lot of people are going to want to know what they can do more than just reaching out. And what would you say if I was just like, you know, I'd be really interested in doing something with Outdoor Afro?

Yeah, I think, you know, we're in a really interesting time in our country right now where people are. They're wanting to find like where the pathways, the lanes that feel relevant to them. You know, so obviously people in the outdoor spaces, you know, are coming to us versus from other industries. But I just would invite people to start with checking us out and really getting to know Outdoor Afro online before coming to us with this thing that they already have baked in that they want us to do with them. I think the people who take the time to get to know us, because we're not going anywhere.

You know, there's no like, you know, deadline here for people to connect with us. So take the time. Before this all goes, I got to get in before this goes away. Right. I mean, we're not going anywhere. We're solid. We've been around for 10 years. That's an interesting point. who we can connect them with. So if it's a program, you know, I've got a great program director who could, you know, get into conversation with people and find out if there's something of mutual benefit there. People can always donate to us. I mean, we're a not-for-profit organization, and we need resources to maintain that high level of professional delivery

that we do for everyone. And then we also invite people to get outside with us. You know, I always like to say that you don't have to have an Afro to be a part of Outdoor Afro. So if you believe. I felt like it was going to be a stupid question, and I've made that a goal of my life to, you know, not think that anymore and just go ahead and ask.

But I was going to ask, like, do you have to have an Afro to join? No, no. I mean, we really welcome everybody who believes in what we're doing, right? So if you believe in what we're doing and you want to be a part of that, you know, we welcome it. So if you were having an event and like me and Yana showed up. You'd have a ball. You'd have a ball. You'd have a ball. We wouldn't get kicked out. Oh, God, no. No, no, no, no, no. I mean, you know, here's the thing about Outdoor Afro that's been great, you know, and that is specificity has been universal.

We could have been called people of color and the outdoors. And that's like everybody and nobody. And sometimes in our reach to try and include everybody and everything, we can see exactly where we are on a map in their relationship, you know, either close or further away from it. But they know, you know, there's a definite dot on the map. And that kind of specificity I have found has made our message feel more accessible and universal to more people. And because people get that, people sometimes choose to come out with us. And sometimes they say, you know what, you guys need to have some space to work some stuff out. And I don't have to center myself in those spaces. But as far as like the welcoming piece, you know, when we have our annual training, you know, that obviously comes up, you know, people want to know, you know, if, you know, they need to be a certain way or, and we always say that everyone is welcome. And, you know, we have multiracial families and all

kinds of folks, you know, who bring, you know, all kinds of identities and geographies and economic classes. So we're really happy to be an open door for people who are behind what we're doing. Well, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. I hope some people come find you. Yeah, I'm sure. And I hope some people come find you. You're going to fish tomorrow. I'm looking forward to come find you. You're going to fish tomorrow.

I'm looking forward to that. Okay. We're going to eat fish tonight. I'm loving that idea. Yeah. What kind of fish are we going to eat? I want to know. What am I missing?

Well, from my trip for DOS Boat Season 2 DOS Boat, I brought home a bunch of lake trout fillets. Nice. Holy shit, are those good, man. Mostly smoking them? No, I grilled them. I was. I was going to smoke them, but then we fell in love with eating them grilled. I got one left.

And then I put some turkey, wild turkey breast in a brine. And then when I have people over, I always cook yams because I don't have to. I just put them in the oven and forget about them. Nice. Yeah. That's lazy. They think it's nice, but it's just lazy. No, it works.

It works. And I brought you guys something, too. Nice, yeah. That's lazy. They think it's nice, but it's just lazy. No, it works. And I brought you guys something too. Oh, really? Yeah, I brought you some cherry jam that I made last month. So if you have maybe some ice cream or something. Yeah, my kids will be into it. Yeah.

Okay, I will see you later. Brody will see you tomorrow. Thank you very much. Looking forward to it. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. OnXH is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season.

Now, the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet.