Nature is meant for everyone to enjoy. The pristine beauty of landscapes, the amazement of the animal kingdom, and the stress-relieving properties of merely being outdoors entices people from all backgrounds to search for their happy place amidst the chaos of everyday life.
Unfortunately, not everyone can experience the great outdoors with the same feeling of freedom as the birds one might be watching.
One example of this is Ms. Rue Mapp. Ms. Mapp is an activist that focuses her time on getting the black community involved in the outdoors. However, one day in 2011, Ms. Mapp was leading a nationwide campaign to connect African Americans to outdoor experiences when she had a disturbing encounter.
According to reports, Ms. Mapp's group were on their way to a park in California when a white woman spotted them. The woman then followed Mapp and her group of young African American children through the park as they explored and learned about nature. Then, once the children began to play in the dirt, the woman started to harass them, claiming they were introducing "invasive species" to the park.
"The kids around me might have rightly been thinking, 'Is she talking about us?'" said Rue. She continued to say that the situation prompted "so many levels of shame, embarrassment and of not feeling welcome in nature."
A more recent occurrence is that of what happened to black bird watcher, Christian Cooper, earlier this month. Apparently, Mr. Cooper was birdwatching when he encountered a white woman who was breaking leash laws in the park. When he asked her to leash her dog, the woman reportedly became confrontational. Subsequently, she called the police, saying that an African American man was harassing and threatening her in the park.
Mr. Cooper's video of the altercation soon went viral, and according to reports, the woman involved lost her job, her dog, and was receiving threats on her life.
Sadly, this is not the first time white people have made black people feel unwelcomed in nature.
"This is a story beyond one person, a story beyond that park. It is a story writ large of who owns spaces, who has privileges to those spaces," says blackbirder Drew Lanham.
Lanham authored a paper called 9 Rules for the Black Birdwatcher, where he lays out some important and potentially life-saving tips to African Americans that enjoy bird watching. For example, rules number three and four may just keep a black bird watcher out of trouble with the authorities.
Rule number three plain and simple says, "Don't bird in a hoodie. Ever."
You can see why this would be important as many preconceived notions of the black community would state that only thugs, or gangsters, wear hoodies, not calm, intelligent nature lovers. No, nature lovers should be dressed in khaki with knee-high white socks.
Rule number four may be the most helpful as Mr. Lanham states that, "Nocturnal birding is a no-no." This, too is understandable, and discouragingly accurate.
"Yeah, so you're chasing that once-in-a-lifetime rare owl from Outer Mongolia that's blowing up your twitter alert. You're a black man sneaking around in the nether regions of a suburban park - at dusk, with a spotting scope. Guess what? You're going to have some prolonged conversations with the authorities," Lanham continues.
Lanham's ninth rule is possibly the most disturbing, "You're an endangered species - extinction looms."
This rule outlines the grim truth of the matter, and that is that black birdwatchers are few and far between. Chances are, if you're a black bird watcher, then you know most of, if not all of, the other black birdwatchers. And this all stems from black people being made to feel uncomfortable by fearful, ignorant, and prejudice humans, who have no more of a right to enjoy nature than anyone else.
However, until we as a society can change the narrative, black nature lovers will be forced to remain on their P's and Q's as not to incite any racial mania in the minds of old, entitled white women. A fact that is outdated by more than a century, yet is still prevalent as if it were 1865.