Racism in the National Parks...Ha!!!

This is just too typical.  An innocuous story on why there is only one African-American park ranger in Yosemite is turned into another round of anti-guilt patrolling (click on the title to this blog to get to ABC's blog page by Jon Stossel).  It is very surprising that there is so much online about this report.  Well, actually I am not surprised because every time there is a report about race and anything, there is a blogosphere orgy about how crazy black people are for thinking that race embeds everything.  

For instance, one comment on Jon Stossel's page reads:"what a crock! come on people- we haven't had slaves for almost 150 years.  Quit blaming slavery for everything! If minorities don't want to visit the National Parks-their loss!  Just quit blaming racism and slavery for every discrepancy in society".

First of all, if you watch the video there is no mention of racism in this report; there is mention of one man's view on how slavery impacted African-American's view of nature, but that is not a claim that National Parks are racist.  And just to drive home the point, a park cannot be racist, only people can be racist.  

Second, the report is more about how African-Americans feel about their relationship with the natural world, and not about how the park goers at Yosemite are being racist to the park ranger Mr. Johnson.  The reactions to this report are pure hyperbole and nothing else.  The report was attempting to show a man on a mission to "reconnect" African Americans to "nature".  Is it assigning blame to anyone by commenting that perhaps slavery affected African-American's view of nature and the "soil"?  This is not a new idea; check out this book for more information: 

Restoring the connection to the natural world: 

essays on the African American 

Environmental Imagination By Sylvia Mayer (2003)

or African American environmental thought : foundations 

 by Kimberly Smith (2007)

Here's another comment from a different blog:  (http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2009/08/slavery_makes_b.html)

"I'm sure that it has nothing to do with the life of government dependency the left has inflicted upon them, which keeps them close to urban centers that provide the left's oppressive entitlement programs" 

Or perhaps this one is better:

 "What a bunch of garbage. This yahoo thinks he is some sort of ex-slave and that all the blacks(not african americans) problems are because of slavery. Blacks problems are because of themselves! They choose not to better themselves and cling so tight to the slavery culture of past generations that they know nothing of. Slavery of the blacks in the Americas is almost nothing compared to the slavery of other races, cultures and creeds worldwide.I have three words: Get over it."

Wow, and I though Jon Stossel's page was bad.