It was spring in Portland, Oregon, one year ago today. I had returned from Yosemite and the Creek. Once again, I was working part-time at Planet Granite. Conversations that had fallen short around the campfire lingered in my mind. “We’re just trying to drink whiskey and play cards, and you want to talk about feminism,” says my friend as we sit under a tarp structure that we had assembled in haste as the rain fell in Camp 4. The ratio is ten men and one woman. As the surrounding granite walls turn darker gray, as the Nose on El Capitan gets washed of all its dried shit and piss from climbers the day before, on a mission to nab their credibility in the history and glory that is Yosemite, we resolve to playing ukuleles, coming up with bad lyrics, singing out of tune, and instead of talking about that dirty -ism, we talk about why we shouldn’t. My friend is too busy preparing to climb the nose in a day to expend any energy thinking about such trivial matters.

The war on terror is not far away in the Middle East. It is right here, sitting with us right now. Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Idle No More, Honor the Earth and movements like these keep me going. When someone says to me there’s no point, I think about Tawakul Karman, Aung San Suu Kyi, Angela Davis, Edward Snowden, bell hooks, Laura Poitras, Margaret Jacobsen, Diane Maxey, and my friend, Jolie Varela who lives here in Bishop, who is starting a cultural revitalization project here in the valley. It is time we connect on a deep, individual level with the people who we live among, the people who are sitting beside, and the people who are not here, who live off Barlow Lane, those who have ancestors resting under the dirt, largely unmarked, without tombstones, where often a dirtbiker will plow over their graves like its their God-given right.

In Bishop, California it is too clear how segregation is still alive and well between white people and the Paiute tribe.

Gentrification is modern colonialism – whiteness benefits from it, and even “the aesthetic and cultural aspects of the process assert a white Anglo appropriation of urban space and urban history,” reveals Rowland Atkinson and Gary Bridge in their book, Gentrification in a Global Context: The New Urban Colonialism. Our American society has short-term memory loss. Often, we forget the greatly destructive implications and lasting consequences of “old world” conquests. Why do we glorify Alex Honnold for living out of his car, and ignore those who do it out of necessity?

1.    Give gear and clothes to the houseless

2. Acknowledge feminism, the intricacies of the feminist movement and its history, and that feminism is the driving force of true women and minority empowerment

2.   Support and sell books by authors of color who talk about the systemic issues related to getting outside: Jourdan Imani Keith, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Angela Davis, bell hooks, Lauret Savoy, Carolyn Finney, James E. Mills, Dianne D. Glave, Camille T. Dungy, Dorceta E. Taylor, Alison Hawthorne

 2017 is the year of bigley news: Women are people too. True savvy, successful business people have recently discovered that half of their consumers identity as women.

Collective survival depends on collective action. Companies like One Percent for the Planet are important, but we cannot fool ourselves into thinking that this is all we can do. Too often environmental activism gets shrouded in the belief that donating money is the solution. Voting with our money by donating to good causes is helpful, but these are Band-Aid measures. The work shouldn't stop there.

Do not be afraid to cause a tsunami in the ocean of patriarchy.... “Beta Babes” is not just a trivial phrase that should be dismissed as catchy and cute. It is conning women out of their fullest potential.