I’ve had friends and family members tell me that they don’t feel welcome in the same places that I feel welcomed. The truth is I have had a strong hunch all along that the outdoors weren’t experienced the same by everyone. As I read and listened, I was surprised at some of the stories she told and then I was simultaneously not surprised. But I was/am also pretty willfully ignorant. I was/am fairly naive about the black experience in the outdoors. I will also go ahead and be completely up front. Although they all tie together and build on and play off each other, I highly recommend reading one chapter at a time and letting her insights for each one sit with you for a minute before approaching the next chapter. Each chapter as well serves as a stand alone on specific topics.
It’s weighty and heavily sourced forcing you to put it down often to think through and process what you just heard. It’s not a critique of the book, but just know that it’s not a leisurely read.
Her book is filled with notes and parenthetical documentation that shows she’s not just describing her perspective as a black woman in the outdoors, but shows her conversation with a long historical tradition about who could and should have access to outdoor spaces. She builds her argument and thesis like the professor and PhD she is.
The book doesn’t quite read like a text book, but it’s not an easy read either. You don’t have to travel or look far outdoors to see that black Americans are underrepresented when it comes to nature, conservation issues, and outdoor recreation on public lands.įinney comes from a strong academic background so her book primarily approaches the subject from that perspective. As someone who has grown up around the outdoors my whole life and am now fully immersed in the outdoor lifestyle with a small business to go along with it, I was eager to read this book and listen to a new perspective.įinney’s book shares the history of the outdoors and how black Americans in specific have interacted with it. I recently got the opportunity to dig into and read the book Black Faces, White Spaces by Carolyn Finney.
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