"Climbing is not inherently racist, however, conventional climbing from the beginning—like big wall climbing at Yosemite and stuff like that—it was born during a system of racism, so, therefore, it’s impacted by it, right? Black people were banned from national parks up until I think it was like the mid-fifties or something like that. That’s already a barrier that’s already been set and that has already impacted who is allowed to control the narrative within this certain sport, and who continues on with it. So, it’s like, no wonder black people haven’t really been getting into it—because we weren’t even allowed to get into it in the first place. … And frankly, when a lot of these big wall accomplishments were going on, black folks were trying to get the right to vote. They weren’t worried about hammering in pitons into cracks and stuff like that—they were trying to just have basic rights. So, who gets to control that narrative from the beginning really has an impact on how things are carried out today. You see it in tech, you see it in climbing—politics. It’s everywhere. ...Because the entire time I’m watching Valley Uprising and I’m like 'Oh, this is cool. This is neat—but, come on, man. Without your heightened status within this country, it wouldn’t have been a possibility whatsoever. You know, you had the opportunity to do this because of your legal status within the country at the time.'" — Brandon Belcher For the Love of Climbing, Episode 17, "What We Know"
"And in a lot of areas, if you’re wanting to get into climbing, you have to go outside of your neighborhood—which can already have its own sort of loaded historical trauma, depending on the neighborhood and stuff like that. You’re going into a space where, primarily, it’s a lot of white people handling ropes. Emily Taylor has always highlighted this: there’s a lot of loaded historical trauma with that imagery." — Brandon Belcher For the Love of Climbing, Episode 17, "What We Know"
"And, that’s called privilege. Knowing that a life of security, minivans, buying homes, and retirement is firmly within your grasp is privilege. Golf as a backup plan is privilege. What we think of as adventure, in the conventional sense, is privilege. People like myself who are born into privilege sleep under the stars because they don’t know what it’s like to be homeless and climb mountains because they don’t know what it’s like to be scared some caprice of nature—like a bullet with your name on it from an officer’s gun—might take your life. Adventure, in short, is wanting to experience something you’ve never experienced before. The particular kind of adventure someone seeks out is an easy way to know what experiences they have and haven’t had." — Chris Kalman Email Newsletter
"You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, 'You are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair." — President Lyndon B. Johnson 1965 Howard University Commencement Address
"Separation is not always segregation." — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
"The journey you travel on your feet is less important than the distance you cover in your head." — Mishka Shubaly
"People and decisions and time and circumstance will align themselves in the most astounding ways if you loosen your grip, if you allow things to form naturally, to flow into whatever reality they tend toward." — Carolyn Highland Out Here: Wisdom from the Wilderness
"If your bag is packed full before you leave, there is no room to tuck in the treasures you find along the way." — Carolyn Highland Out Here: Wisdom from the Wilderness
