Why The Outdoors has a Race Problem and How it can be Fixed

We very much recommend reading this article: Skin Deep | Why The Outdoors Has A Race Problem And How It Can Be Fixed

The most salient extracts for us were:

👉 Feeling unwelcome in the countryside

“Our lack of presence in the outdoors is not, as is often perceived, a rejection of the countryside and nature. It stems from the unknown and concerns about how people see us, and respond to our presence in that space. We suffer from intimidation in cities, where more people look like us, and this becomes amplified when we are in isolation in a ‘foreign’ environment with people who look at us as outsiders.”

👉 Lack of positive representation from brands

“If every image I see of someone hiking a mountain, running trails, or pinning a corner features a white person as the protagonist, how am I ever going to believe that it’s a space I can inhabit?If every time an outdoor brand wants to use a model that’s black or brown it’s set against a graffiti backdrop, what kind of message does that send out?”

👉 Loss of message

“If you don’t really care about race, if it doesn’t impact on your life, or even if you disagree with what I’m saying, just think about how the outdoor community are currently falling over themselves to claim that we have to do everything in our power to save the planet; that there’s too much plastic in the ocean and our glaciers are melting.”

👉 Key challenges for us as a company to consider

  • What can we do better with our media, content and policies
  • What can we be doing differently as part of the experiences we create

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