Outdoor Afro Named Best Nature and Green Living Blog
This may be old news for those of you who follow our Facebook Page, but I am still so tickled to be honored by The Black Weblog Awards, an annual celebration of Black social media excellence -- Outdoor Afro was recognized for Best Green Nature/Outdoor Blog!
The Black Weblog Awards was founded in 2005 to give recognition to Black bloggers (and those of the African diaspora) which are normally largely overlooked by other Internet award events on and offline. Winners were selected by members of the public through an online nomination process and determined by popular vote.
“The Black Weblog Awards create amazing energy each year within the Black blogosphere,” said Gina McCauley, the Executive Director of the 2011 Black Weblog Awards. “It is that one time of year when we all pause to recognize the hard work and determination it takes to produce content and build vibrant engaging online communities year-round.”
This year in the first time in the seven-year history of the Black Weblog Awards, the winners were announced in a live ceremony in Los Angeles, CA on July 9, 2011 during the 2011 Blogging While Brown Conference. I was away on an outdoor adventure with my family and could not make it, but me and the kids managed to watch live on my Droid from the Santa Cruz mountains, and squeeled in delight at the announcement.
“I am delighted and excited that the Black Weblog Awards were presented with the Blogging While Brown Conference,” said Maurice Cherry, Founder of the Black Weblog Awards. “This was an amazing opportunity to showcase hard-working bloggers, video bloggers, and podcasters to an audience of tastemakers and influencers.”
Take a peek at the video coverage of the event, Outdoor Afro (NOT Outdoor Diva) is mentioned at 3:15...
Thank you all for your enduring support and respect for this unique message from the very beginning. I am deeply humbled and grateful.
5 Free Outdoor Activities To Do This Weekend
Getting outdoors does not have to require a lot of time or money, but they are the biggest reported barriers among Outdoor Afros. With these fun, and mostly free options below, you can get your outdoor fix on, without sacrificing an entire weekend or your piggy bank.
1. Hike - Check out the options near you via local city parks, rec/nature centers, and National Parks. Do pack a snack and plenty of water to take with you!
2. Stargaze – In some parts of the country, the evenings are the best time to be outside. Grab a loved one, and take a slow stroll near where you live, or drive to more remote areas for a better view with less city light competition.
3. Backyard Cook-Out – Grilling meats and veggies outdoors always feels like a treat, and is much less fuss and clean-up than kitchen cooking. Bonus points for eating outside on a blanket and inviting the neighbors over to share!
4. Ride a Bike or Skate – Time to pull out that bike or pair of skates you’ve had in storage for the last five years! Spray a bit of WD-40 to loosen up the rusty bits, and away you can go! Don’t forget water and a helmet!
5. Bird Watch – Contact your local Audubon Society for a list of birds local to your area. They may even have a pair of binoculars you can borrow too! Challenge your companions to find their “best” bird or count how many of the same species you find.
What other activities can you think of that are free and easy to do in the outdoors?
Back From Family Camp
I just drove in from my time in nature with the kids at Feather River Camp where we spend a part of every summer. On the way home, I reflected with gratitude on how adaptive the camp experience is. For a change this year, instead of high impact adventure, tie-dye shirt making, and day-long trips to nearby waterfalls, I chose instead to spend most of my time curled up under shade and enjoyed with new perspective my 20-year-old copy of the classic Their Eyes Were Watching God that links love to nature in ways I never before understood.
So this year at camp, I spent less time doing, and more time watching, noticing, and being. For instance, I identified new species of birds and bugs (yes, bugs). I stared at a doe at rest among the Ponderosa Pines for what seemed like forever, and I was still enough to observe without meddling the humorous social entanglements between my children and their camp friends. As a result, I am back home feeling rested, and revitalized instead of in need of another vacation.
I encourage more of you to take the chance this summer to get out with your loved ones and simply be in nature. It really is enough.
To learn more about accredited family camp options in your area, check out the American Camp Association website.
Raising Sand
I remember my southern mom always used the term, raising sand to describe someone having a fit. When I saw these images shared by facebook friend Aimee Allison, I almost wanted to shout in response to these stunning photos of real sand.
This is the same sand that lines our coasts and fills our childhood sandboxes. We feel its warmth between our toes, and shake it free from our shoes. The stuff of play and comfort, most often seen in utilitarian terms. In these photos, we imagine sand in a completely different way, magnified so that we can see the spirit of each grain. As unique as a snowflake.
I doubt I will ever look at sand the same again...
Learn more about the formation of sand and the source of these images,
taken by Gary Greenberg, PhD.
Outdoor Gear: You've Come a Long Way Baby!
It seems like these days we are all obsessed about having the latest and greatest in outdoor gear, and swear we just can't "live without" [insert gadget here] on our outdoor adventures.
The folks at Eastern Mountain Sports thought it would be nifty to look back at the old tools of the trade through some research, and used their results to put together this neat-o infographic.
What camping innovation can't you live without?
National Black Agriculture Awareness Week: July 10-July 16
Did you know?
- That only 1 in 100 farms are Black owned farms
- The average age of a Black Farmer is 63
- 1920, 14% of all American ag producers were Black
- 2010, ONLY 1% of American ag producers are Black
- These numbers account for Black Land Loss of over 10 million acres of production and counting...
What Is Black Ag Awareness Week?
Black Agricultural Awareness Week is a week set aside to recognize and celebrate black agriculture, while bringing awareness to the needs and the decline of Black Agricultural Producers; as well as focus attention on the African American community regarding food and food choices.
When Is Black Ag Awareness Week?
Black Ag Awareness Week is celebrated from July 10, 2011 through July 16, 2011. National Black Ag Week falls during the week of George Washington Carver's Birthday.
Who Hosts Black Ag Awareness Week?
Healthy Solutions hosts the national campaign. However, the awareness efforts in individual communities across America are as influential - if not more influential - than the broad-scale effort. A planning Guide and Toolkits will be produced to allow for communities the opportunity to host events in celebration of this vital week. Healthy Solutions also partners with several organizations and businesses nationally that work to make this week happen.
What Is Black Ag Awareness Week All About?
Black Ag Awareness Week is about recognizing, educating, and celebrating the contribution of African Americans, and People of African Descent, to agriculture in our everyday lives. The National Black Ag Awareness Week encourages everyone to:
- Understand how the decline in Black Agricultural Producers is an issue that needs immediate attention.
- Educate youth to want to pursue Agriculture as a viable option to build a foundation for themselves and communities.
- Appreciate the many agriculturally related accomplishments that benefit not just black agricultural producers, but agriculture as a whole, and impact us on a daily basis.
- Bring awareness to food and agricultural issues in the African American community as a whole
Why Celebrate Black Agriculture?
Why not?! Agriculture provides almost everything we eat, use and wear, but few people truly recognize or understand the part that Black producers, scientist, chemist, and African Americans in general have played to make Global Agriculture what it is today. Oftentimes we see pictures of farms and food and the true picture of Black Agriculture is not represented.
On December 18, 2010 the UN Declared 2011 as the International Year for People of African Descent, with the themes of Recognition, Justice, and Development. We feel there is no better time to celebrate those who paved the way for agriculture in the US while educating our people, and bringing awareness to the fact that black farmers may soon become extinct if we do not act now by educating and training our youth, and our communities to pursue agriculture. The saying that there is No Culture Without Agriculture will become truer than ever as Black Agriculture will become extinct without immediate action and the awareness brought about by weeks set aside to insure that a culture, food, farmers, land, and heritage will not be lost.
What Can I Do to Help?
Get involved! Your participation in Black Ag Awareness Week is critical in helping us spread this message about black agriculture. If you are interested in planning an event, download your Planning Guide today. Of course, there are other ways you can lend your support, including sending a letter to your local newspaper, sponsoring outreach activities, volunteering on local black farms, hosting educational events with our toolkit, hosting a Black Farmers Market, advocating for your local store to feature food from a Black Producer for this week, hosting a day of Prayer and Healing at your place of Worship, calling your Congressional representative, providing in-kind donations to get the word out or simply purchasing from Black Producers this week.
Where Can I Find More Information?
Contact the Healthy Solutions at (888) 415-2667, their website: www.SaveBlackFarmers.org (check site as information will be updated regularly) , or email [email protected]
The Center for Whole Communities
July 2011, Session One Fellows:
This month I had the good fortune to engage with leaders in sustainability from around the country with the Center for Whole Communities at Knoll Farm, located above the Mad River Valley in Vermont. Over the course of a week, under the leadership of facilitators Kaylynn Sullivan TwoTrees, Matt Kolan, and Carolyn Finney, we visioned sustainability and collaboration in our work to inspire social change.
As a land-based leadership development organization, the Center for Whole Communities brings together leaders of different race, class, profession and ideology to find shared purpose and renew their collective strength.
The fellowship is designed to innovative and invite responses from different sectors of the environmental and social movements to address the complexity of today’s challenges, such as the fragmentation that exists in American society around politics, race, class and privilege.
I remain grateful for a gift I am still unpacking that has already infused my work with greater clarity and inspiration.
Thank you Center for Whole Communities for such a rich and powerful experience.
A Weekend Dip in the Lake
Submitted by Outdoor Afro contributor Reginald James, who reflects nostalgically on a recent swim in a local lake with friends.
A few weekends ago, I went swimming with a group of friends at Lake Anza at Tilden Park in Berkeley for the third year in a row.
The idea for a swim began through a 2009 Twitter conversation with my friend Charles Perkins. As a child in Berkeley public schools, Lake Anza had “childhood nostalgia” for Perkins. He remembered swimming at the lake more than the nearby WIlliard Pool while he was in elementary school.
Two other friends, Katia Allen, and Chinyere Tutashinda, soon joined the Twitter conversation. We all liked to swim, despite the reservations of many of our peers. Just a few months before, USA Swimming released a report about six out of ten Black children being unable to swim. And according to a University of Memphis study, 70 percent of black people cannot swim or have limited swimming abilities.
“Anytime you talk about Black people and swimming, that issue is going to come up,” Perkins said. Since all four of us could swim, could we be the four Blacks out of ten that could swim?
There are many reasons that Black children don’t swim. Many Black children, whose parents grew up in Jim Crow communities, did not have opportunities to learn how to swim. And many of those folks sure didn’t teach their children. And many people don’t have access to neighborhood pools, so many young people grow up without learning how to swim. Some people even associate swimming with “acting white.”
Not to mention the transformative effects of water on Black hair!
Growing up, I was fortunate that my mom insisted I learned how to swim. As long as I can remember, I could swim. In fact, when I fell in Lake Merritt feeding ducks in 1987, I was able doggy paddle back to the edge.
(Sidenote: Swimming in Lake Anza is far better than swimming in Oakland’s Lake Merritt. Uggh!)
I later moved to nearby island town of Alameda. Although I lived in what some people considered the “ghetto”—in the historically segregated West End of Alameda—the Buena Vista Apartments had a big swimming pool. Coupled with some swimming lessons at the Encinal Swim Center, I practiced in my neighborhood every summer in our pool. But swimming in neighborhood pools is nothing like going out to the lake.
Lake Anza is like a small beach inside of Tilden Park. Just past the Little Farm, this jewel is surrounded by hiking trails in the Berkeley Hills. For a small entrance fee, you can enter Lake Anza’s sandy beach area. Surrounded by trees in sort of a clearing, it is full of sun and free of extra wind. There’s also a nearby picnic area.
We began our annual Lake Anza swim in 2009. As my friend Katia said, “There’s no such thing as a ‘first annual’ anything.” But after going two years in a row, “Now it’s a tradition.” This year, we decided to go a little earlier in the summer, and we also decided to invite a few friends.
I put out a Facebook event called, “Fantastic Voyage at Lake Anza” I invited a few people. Somewhat to my surprise, a lot of folks wanted to go. Unfortunately, many had scheduling conflicts, while there were also some who could not swim.
On short notice, the turnout at the Lake tripled. Besides our group, we also had Jumoke Hinton Hodge, Falilah Aisha Bilal, Joy Gerner, Khaya Wig, and Cedric Troupe. (Cedric convinced me to swim with him September of this year during the Escape from Alcatraz swim.) And a few folks brought their children and families.
We brought fruits and vegetables and other snacks. Some of the children played with buckets and shovels, while the bigger (adult) kids swam out to the lap area. A few of the guys took a little hike on the main trail too.
“It’s important to get back to the simple things in order to connect with nature,” Perkins told me. “Swimming at Lake Anza is a very spiritual and holistic process; walking on dirt instead of concrete and swimming in a lake instead of a pool.”
Many people don’t have access to pools. Lake Anza is a great place to swim. And there are lifeguards on duty.
Swimming at Lake Anza is a great experience that I hope to share with others for many summers to come.
Reginald, son of Deborah James, was born in Oakland, CA and raised in the nearby island city of Alameda. He is currently studying Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, after transferring from Laney College, where he focused on African American Studies, journalism, and political science.
Classic Outdoor Afros
Colleague Camille Dudley of Outward Bound Adventures had some terrific images of natural beauty on her facebook page. I just had to share!
Invasive Species
Last spring, I helped to organize a local event as part of a national campaign to get people connected to nature. As much as I wanted to share how wonderful the event was, how well attended and rich the experience, until now I was unable to do so because there was a part of the experience that day that pained me, and has since sat like a lump in the back of my throat.
All the time I hear reasons why African-Americans do not engage with the outdoors. From experience, I know it’s not just because of the bugs, or a rustic engagement with nature that can signal a lack of modern-day progress, but sometimes because of the people they may encounter along the way. In some circles, whispers still remain of “strange fruit,” or a fear that bad things happen to black people in the woods.
Many have seen the satire of Blair Underwood, stymied over and over again by the way those he encountered responded dramatically to his unassuming hike in nature. For many black people who find ourselves on a back-country trail as the only person of color for miles around, each Underwood scene, no matter how humorously staged, rings true, and exemplifies the psychological barriers we must push through in order to simply enjoy nature: the nervous or inquisitive stares, questions about what we are doing, or the overly enthusiastic embrace that can leave us feeling like a rare, identified species discovered in the wild.
So I partnered with an organization I respect tremendously to bring youth and their families by bus from the local community to come out for a day of play in nature. Leading up to the event, we deliberately reached out to families who live in poorer communities within a city (like many) divided geographically and socially by class, with many never venturing beyond the ten-square blocks of their own neighborhood, much less into the remote wild that looms perilously in the skyline. In the weeks before the event, we personally invited people at local community meetings, and early-childhood development centers. We obtained the blessing of city park and recreation leadership and also made promotional materials available in a few languages. Our efforts left us feeling hopeful that the event would reflect the true diversity of the community not commonly seen in local nature.
What began as a diverse group of families exploring nature, many for the first time, was quickly shaken-up by the presence of a nearby and vocal resident, who demanded to know: “What is going on here?”
The concerned resident was visibly upset, struggling to string together words to name her distress. She mentioned that the event came to her attention because she found herself in her car, stuck behind a slowly climbing bus on her way home. She decided to follow it to see where the diesel carrier might go, what it might contain.
She followed the passengers off the bus into the public park, and along the trail leading to the narrow, curved strip of land where the event was staged. There, she found a temporary play space in an impacted clearing, with imported natural materials such as dried bamboo, palm fronds, mounds of dirt, rocks, native plant clippings, and plenty of wet mud. While surveying the new park visitors, she expressed concern about the presence of so many “non-native” species, and said she was troubled by the threat to the local ecology.
Feeling responsible, I stepped in to try to engage her in a discussion about how people can engage with nature in a variety of ways. I tried to discuss cultural relevancy and how the event was a safe, rare invitation for families to discover and begin to build a relationship with the wild spaces right in their home town. I tried to explain how the material would be removed once the play event was over. But as we talked, I saw she was not satisfied with my answers, and became more agitated and resolute. With a sinking feeling, I could see my expressed passion for connecting this community of black and brown folks to the outdoors was very misunderstood.
Without satisfaction from our conversation, the resident said that she needed to speak to someone else because I had an “attitude,” and therefore decided she was going to contact the City Council as well as a national environmental organization to protest the event. Feeling deflated, yet still hopeful for resolution, I led her to my co-organizers and colleagues (all white) who helped to reassure her of the merits of the event and clean-up plans. And I listened nearby with humility, as they were also obliged to vouch for my character.
My own feelings aside, I was actually more worried about who might be overhearing this passionate exchange, and how they might react; Would they feel unwelcomed? Would they ever return to nature again?
The resident was eventually able to calm, and I decided to get present to the gifts all around me. I observed my own giddy kids from afar building forts and fairy houses, the pride of families creating in nature for the first time, many muddy fingers and toes, and relaxed parents (relieved from always having to say “no” to play in their own neighborhoods) finally safe to say “yes.”
Yet it was heartbreaking that the concerned resident could not see past those magic moments and into the future of these youth and their families to become the conservationists our lands and their health so desperately need. She could not see that the seeds of love for self and the planet evolve from connectedness and relationship between land and people, most often through unstructured discovery and play – and that there were no invasive species that day after all.