AltBrothers

Get Outdoors Young Man
By Marcus Stringer

You’re a little black boy, about the age of five and you sit gazing from your family’s kitchen window, out to some snow sprinkled mountains in the distance. You’re fascinated by the sight of the towering mountains. “Mommy, how come there’s snow up there but it’s warm down here? She explains how the air, water and altitude work. You like the mountains.

Then again, the family car pulls into a slot. You’ve got all the necessities for the day, the food, towels and flip-flops. Swimming gear already on, you make a dash for the sandy shore, when you’re called back to help mom or dad carry some items. But you fell in love with the beach. Beaches take your mind away.

Most of us have a place in our minds where we fell in love with the outdoors. Some of us have many places and memories of enjoying outdoor activities. But there are too many of us who have no experience at all.

The summer I graduated from high school, I took a job as a camp counselor in the beautiful and at times breath-taking Hudson Valley region of New York State. The church camp was predominately black and surprisingly to me, many of our campers had never been outside of their respective urban neighborhoods and cities.

There aren’t many visual images of the black man in peaceful, joyful outdoor sports and activities. Black men don’t talk much about exploring the outdoors. Often we excuse ourselves, saying that we have more pressing issues to focus on in our urban neighborhoods, forgetting that many blacks do not live in cities, but in rural settings.

I remember while living in Alabama, my father taking me out to the property of some church members. He’d be visiting them for some reason or another and I saw some of the rural black life, both the educated and wealthy and the uneducated and poor. But they all had land, trees, ponds. Some (including the educated and professional blacks) had farm animals such as horses, cows, and chickens. These images were powerful, especially that of the educated country blacks. They were etched into my mind at an early stage.

When you look at the mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes, oceans, deserts, you’re looking at physical gifts of Mother Nature and Father Time. The environment doesn’t care what race you are, but often we let our race or cultural experience keep us from dwelling in and exploring the healing places of our natural surroundings.

“What are you going hiking for? That’s what white folks do! You can insert a number of other activities to fit statements that you might have heard blacks say to each other. It makes for a rare appearance of blacks in nature. And when blacks are absent in nature we cannot behold living images of ourselves in nature.

Gay and bisexual men of African descent may have an even rarer presence in the outdoors. When we have entered the great outdoors, it most likely was with non-gay blacks or non-black gays. Rarely have the two met. Urban hip-hop culture has mass appeal today, and many young people find it to be a desirable venue of self- , cultural- and life-expression and exploration. Yet too many of us are trapped in and controlled by the language and images of this highly consumerist urban culture.

Images depict and dictate real and potential realms and ways of being. There are other possibilities for self-, cultural- and life-expression and exploration outside of consumerism; outside of the limits of urban life.

By experiencing and exploring the natural and country spaces of our planet home, you will find personal enjoyment and more. You will see and create images of yourself –physically and intelligently free– in new contexts, new living relationships and new possibilities. Get into the great outdoors, man. It’s a gift, fo’sho.