Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors

Introduction

1 Introduction surely i am able to write poems celebrating grass and how the blue in the sky can flow green or red and the waters lean against the chesapeake shore like a familiar, poems about nature and landscape surely but whenever i begin “the trees wave their knotted branches and . . .” why is there under that poem always an other poem? —From Mercy by Lucille clifton n May 2006, Vanity Fair, a monthly magazine with national distribution, published a special issue focusing on environmental issues. Labeled the “Green Issue,” it had such celebrities as Julia Roberts and George Clooney, resplendent in green, alongside politicians Al Gore and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., gracing its cover. Inside the issue, Al Gore outlined the global warming “crisis” and then shared the “good news” that “we can solve this crisis, and as we finally do accept the truth of our situation and turn to boldly face down the danger that is stalking us, we will find that it is also bringing us an unprecedented opportunity” (Gore 2006, 171). Following his optimistic proclamation were twenty-eight pages of photos and text reflecting the voices of well-known eco-activists, environmental organizations , and celebrities who are considered proactive in combating the world’s environmental crisis. Among the sixty-three pictures and profiles, however, only two pictures of African Americans (and one African, Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai) could be found. It might be tempting to dismiss this striking imbalance because of the issue’s celebrity-driven feel (even if Gore lent some gravitas). For a gossip-driven, advertisement-heavy magazine, allocating an entire issue to I 2 in t roduct i on environmental concerns could also be construed as a bold move. But there was nothing groundbreaking about who the magazine decided was the face of the environmental movement and who was seemingly at the center of the environmental debates. Sadly, although the environmental movement’s expressed desire is to engage a broad and diverse constituency, this special issue reinforced for its thousands of readers that neither environmentalists nor media executives seem to recognize the significant role of race in the movement and its aims. In light of Hurricane Katrina (2005), where the complex interaction of race and environment have been highlighted in the media, scholars and practitioners were presented with an “unprecedented opportunity,” as Gore put it, to address the connections linking race, identity, representation, history, and the environment—an opportunity to awaken from our “historical amnesia” and begin to create a more inclusive, expansive environmental movement devoid of denial and rich in possibility. Vanity Fair’s “oversight” in highlighting hardly any African Americans or other people of color in their “Green Issue” speaks volumes about how Americans think, see, and talk about the “environment” in the United States. The representation of environmental issues and the narrative supporting the visual images provides insight into who Americans think actually cares about and actively participates in environmental concerns. In addition, how the environmental narrative is portrayed will be an indicator of who is actually being engaged in the larger conversation. If popular media is one effective way in which to transfer, inform, reinforce , and legitimate ideas about the environment (Braun 2003; Bloom 1993), Vanity Fair is not alone in creating a racialized perception that when it comes to concern for the great outdoors, participation in outdoor recreation in our forests and parks, and the environmental movement in general, African Americans and other nondominant groups are on the outside looking in. Other magazines such as National Geographic and its subsidiaries, Outside, and Backpacker, continue the tradition, lending authenticity to “original” stories of the American wilderness as fundamental American truth through photographic and discursive representations of the “Other”—other places and peoples (Bloom 1993). This racialization feeds stereotypes and ideologies that become entrenched in our national psyche (Elder, Wolch, and Emel 1998), and it can lead to forms of exclusion from places (housing, employment, etc.) and processes (educational opportunity, professional advancement) that are thought to be inclusive and reflective of the cultural and social diversity of the United States (Sibley introduction 3 1995). A “white wilderness” is socially constructed and grounded in race, class, gender, and cultural ideologies (DeLuca and Demo 2001). Whiteness, as a way of knowing, becomes the way of understanding our environment, and through representation and rhetoric, becomes part of our educational systems, our institutions, and our personal beliefs (Sundberg 2002; DeLuca and...