Offensive Route Names
Dear Gripped magazine,
On July 1, Global News reported that Gripped magazine is compiling a list of “offensive” names of routes and boulder problems. “[Gripped] is looking at route names in Canada and coming up with a list [of offensive names] … and sending that list out to guidebook authors … to see what they think … If it offends somebody, if anybody is offended … just change the name,” Gripped senior editor Brandon Pullan told Global [emphasis added].
Such an undertaking is yet another troubling development in today’s thin-skinned cancel culture, where individuals take to the internet to unleash a social media mob against even the slightest “offense.” Does Mr. Pullan truly believe that “if anybody is offended” by the name of a climb that the community should “just change the name?” Does Gripped not see where such a slippery, Orwellian slope could lead?
Squamish’s top 100 routes and boulder problems contain names that an individual could indeed find “offensive.” Here are just a few classics that might fall under Mr. Pullan’s censorious guidelines:
Dreamcatcher: cultural appropriation
Borderline: triggers the mentally ill
Peasant’s Route: classist
Yorkshire Gripper: glorifies violence
Straight Outta Squampton: racist
ATD: sexually offensive
Crackhead: racist, ableist
Swank Stretch: classist
Sloppy Poppy: ableist, ageist
Ramen Raw: racist
Phat Slab: fat shaming, sexist
Baba Hari Dass: cultural appropriation
Mantal Madness: ableist
Black Dyke: racist, homophobic
Black Magic: racist
Feed Us a Fetus: offends pregnant mothers, pro-lifers
The Crystal Method: racist, ableist
American Gigolo: sexist
Does Gripped not see how silly this exercise is? It would be ill-advised to go down the route of censoring the names of some of Squamish’s most cherished climbs. Scrubbing the name off of a route or problem does nothing to advance social justice. Instead, Gripped’s efforts to sanitize “offensive” names is nothing more than virtue signaling to score woke brownie points. It would be far more productive in the fight for social justice for Gripped staff and the climbing community to volunteer at a homeless shelter, rape crisis centre, the spca or a children’s charity.
Allowing just one person to cry “offense” about the name of a climb would erase our community’s rich and colourful history and rob first ascensionists of their vision.
Brian Vincent, Squamish
I strongly disagree with the point of view of this letter but Gripped publishes a range of opinions—brandon Pullan