As a former videographer for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Crystal Egli filmed a series of her learning how to hunt big game. As a young Black woman, she had a feeling this would be perceived a certain way by the sport’s predominantly white, male base.
“One thing I did very intentionally was never mention race, never mention diversity, never mention any of that,” the Denver woman recently told an audience of about 50 in Colorado Springs.
“And guess what complaints we got.”
Comments were along the lines of: Why do you have to make it about race?
“I didn’t talk about it, I knew I couldn’t talk about it, and I still got crap for it,” Egli said. “That is white supremacy, and that is a huge barrier to the outdoors.”
Egli is co-founder of Inclusive Journeys, a tech company using data to help businesses and organizations be more inclusive. She was among local and statewide experts convened to talk about the issue in parks, open spaces and trails, as part of El Pomar Foundation’s latest Heritage Series event.
The nonprofit program aims to “celebrate and raise awareness of the natural assets of the Pikes Peak region.” But this discussion, organizers noted, was no celebratory affair.
Egli’s story was but one shared that underscored wrongs emerging to the forefront of outdoor leaders, advocates and brands.
“When I go outdoors and look around and notice I’m the only one that looks like me, I try to make myself literally and figuratively smaller sometimes,” said Patricia Cameron, the Black woman behind Blackpackers, the Colorado Springs-based nonprofit addressing underrepresentation and economic inequity.
It can feel unsafe, being the only one, Cameron explained — a feeling rooted in historic, ongoing racism. “Bring your voice down,” she said she tells her son. “We don’t wanna draw attention to us.”
In its latest annual outdoor participation report, Boulder-based Outdoor Foundation continued to track what it called “troubling trends” amid a record year for fresh-air activities. Nationwide, the organization’s study found 72% of people enjoying nature are white. Participation percentages among people of color remain well below their overall population makeup.
Another recent survey by Trust for Public Land determined people of color have quick, easy access to 44% less park space than white counterparts. In Colorado Springs, the study found that divide to be 83%.
“I talk a lot about transportation in Colorado Springs in particular,” Cameron said. “It’s something I’m intimately familiar with, as somebody who didn’t have a car, as somebody who grew up on the southeast side.”
She cited research showing the racial wealth gap to be as wide as it was in the 1960s between Black and white Americans.
“Even if I get past the fact that maybe I’ll be the only Black person at Eleven Mile State Park, that’s fine,” Cameron said as an example. “Even if I get past the fact that I have to drive up there, and do I have a car that can make it up Ute Pass? … But do I have the money to afford a pass? Do I have the money to afford the camping site?”
The Outdoor Equity Grant Program was authorized this year — a program dedicating more funds to related initiatives around the state from Great Outdoors Colorado’s lottery-funded pot. This comes as GOCO has pledged its attention to neglected neighborhoods, said the agency’s interim executive director, Jackie Miller.
At the El Pomar discussion, she encouraged leaders to “work with organizations who have those trusted relationships,” she said, “and ask communities what type of outdoor experiences they value, and mobilize around that.”
Egli offered another recommendation.
“Just because you don’t see folks out doing these activities doesn’t mean they’re not out there already. It just means they’re not doing it where you’re doing it,” she said. “Re-examine the spaces where you’re doing it.”
This content was originally published here.
