There aren’t many role models for aspiring Black climbers and we take much longer to receive support as athletes.
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“We’re asking, what are my challenges; what keeps me away from climbing and what brings me towards it,” said Melissa. The intention is that, by focusing on content and a diverse user experience, they can move beyond the one note depiction of climbers as white, cisgender, able-bodied and male.
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Mountain Project, and REI by extension, were more comfortable with protecting the rights of first ascensionists than with envisioning a future where no climber has the power to name a climbing route Black Chicks in Heat.
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You’ve started climbing in the gym regularly and are hooked; but you also see photos of people climbing outside and want to give that a try. Leaving the comfort of padded floors and color coded routes can be daunting, and the rock is not nicely labeled with their grades. So how do climbers know which rocks to climb on?
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…they have the means, the resources to condition themselves for the single-minded pursuit of an irrelevant task that adds no value to the world, that saves no one, that does nothing to address actual problems. And we, the audience watch to see if, with every possible resource and assurance, they are able to complete the task. Spoiler alert, they usually do.
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Being a woman is another reason to be the best athlete you can be at any sport you love, because your success is someone else’s motivation to start.
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I’ve dealt with anxiety since I was a child. I came out at 12 to a conservative community, and was bullied throughout my elementary and high school years for being queer, gender nonconforming, asian and for my weight. The ongoing stress from these experiences resulted in my brain being wired in a way that always anticipated the worst.
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Dawn Wall and Free Solo took up so much screen time, so much cultural space, that I am left feeling as though none of the work around diversity in the outdoor industry is ever going to pan out if we keep bolstering straight, cis-gendered, white men as demigods.
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…I finally realized that my inner discomfort is rooted in a feeling of not-belonging. The problem is that we live in a society dominated by whiteness, and I will always be othered because I am not white.
The outdoors do not always feel like a great place for a woman of color because of the other people who occupy, and in most cases have ownership of that space. The same people who claim there is no barrier are often the ones building the fence while denying they’re holding a hammer and nails.
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