Path to inclusion not all smooth
My husband and I have been members of the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) for something like 20 years — long enough that I can’t remember when we joined.
We’ve had many great experiences with ADK, both using main club facilities in the High Peaks Wilderness and during hikes with local chapters. We met a lot of caring, interesting people. We hiked and backpacked with Albany and Schenectady chapter members, slogging through rain and snow and heat, boosting each other up steep rock faces and sharing snacks. There was a deep core of kindness in many of our interactions.
So I was pretty upset to read one club member’s response to ADK’S commitment to inclusion. An article on that commitment ran in the September/october issue of Adirondac, the member magazine published by the main club. In the following issue, the magazine printed a letter responding to the article. In it, a club member (not a member of any Capital Region chapter or someone that I know) suggested that the very discussion of racism was racism in itself, that ADK was creating an issue where one did not exist, and that because the letter writer had never witnessed any acts of racism themselves while hiking, it wasn’t a problem.
Similar comments appear on Facebook posts whenever someone — be it a club or discussion group — shares an article about diversity in the outdoors. “The outdoors are for everyone” and “There is nothing preventing people of color from enjoying the outdoors,” people will inevitably write, conveniently ignoring easily found stories from others who have indeed experienced racism when trying to recreate outdoors.
Michael Barrett, executive director for the ADK, said he has heard the comments before. In addition to the letter the club printed, it received a handful of similar missives in response to
the article.
“They don’t have the experiences,” he said. “We’re talking about perceived barriers, and we’re talking about barriers that are not visible, but are manifest in other ways.”
One example, he said, is people of color being followed by police or pulled over on Adirondack roads.
Barrett said changing the minds of club members about the need for diversity and inclusion initiatives often just requires explaining the issue to them.
“It takes one-on-one conversations to talk to them about these issues, because they’re not going to get it otherwise,” Barrett said. “I just have to pause for a bit and educate them and then they’re fine.”
Adirondack Diversity Initiative Director Nicole Hylton-patterson said it’s natural for people to feel uncomfortable discussing race. The solution, she said, isn’t to avoid discussing it, but instead to sit with that discomfort, and spend some time thinking about where it comes from.
The challenge for clubs like ADK, which rely on dues-paying members, is that a commitment to inclusion that causes discomfort may lead to a loss of members, she said.
“If you just want to enjoy the outdoors but you don’t want to have to go through this critical and cultural consciousness, you can find another mountain club to pay for and join,” she said. “Are you willing to risk the funding by articulating a vision for inclusion and belonging that is now politically fraught, but you’re doing it just because you know this is what has to happen and it is the right thing to do?”
Barrett said ADK’S diversity projects have come from staff with the approval of the board of directors. The club’s plans include bringing residents of marginalized communities to the Adirondacks to expose them to wilderness experiences and identifying “barriers to entry.”
“No one is standing in our way,” he said, noting that a few “curmudgeonly” letters from members won’t derail the efforts.
“Even when there’s a dissenting voice, what we’re doing is the right thing to do, and we’re going to be going forward with it,” Barrett said.
Barrett, a former public defender, is dedicated to the mission. Besides educating some club members, he also spent time with this club member, explaining why the Adirondac printed the letter that upset me.
And it did upset me. The letter exposed a side of the club I had been blissfully unaware of, and I wished — and still wish — that it hadn’t been printed. I especially wish that it had not been printed without comment or refutation. I worried: If a club member or prospective member of color read the letter, would they still feel welcome? Would they take the letter writer as representative of the membership as a whole?
Instead of silencing voices of dissent, Barrett and the club are choosing to try to reach out and change minds one at a time. But it will be up to individual club members to provide a truly welcoming environment to a (hopefully) increasingly diverse membership.