Welcome to Terra Incognita Media where we deliver nuanced feminist analysis about issues surrounding race, class, and gender in response to the outdoor industry.
Tomorrow many families across the United States will sit down at a table to celebrate a holiday rooted in colonization and genocide. The history of the ongoing struggle for indigenous rights and self-determination has been co-opted and re-written by colonizers to make forced removal seem amicable. But the fable that is “Thanksgiving,” what many Indigenous leaders and activists call “Thankstaking,” was anything but friendly and good-natured.
As a black woman of Turtle Island I am asking EVERYONE to STOP speaking of “Decolonization” without explicitly naming and confronting Anti-blackness. Anti-blackness is deeply, unshakably inherent to colonization — as much as land theft, rape, genocide, white supremacy, hierarchy.
At the most recent Craggin’ Classic in Payahüünadü (so-called Bishop, CA), Indigenous Women Hike, Legendary Skies Enterprises, and Climb the Gap were invited to the yearly event by The American Alpine Club with the expectation that each organization would be participating in some sort of panel discussion to speak about their org’s work and mission. But in the days following the event, Climb the Gap and Indigenous Women Hike reported on their Instagram stories that they felt disrespected, exploited, and tokenized.
Erin Monahan, founder of Terra Incognita Media, shares what it’s been like behind the scenes at Terra, what it has taken to build the platform you see today, and some exciting shifts that are going to happen as we enter 2020. She writes, “Some of the original people who answered my call for support ended up leaving because my vision changed. It went from a feminist/political climbing journal, as embarrassing as that is to admit, to the feminist response to the outdoor industry that is today. It’s nothing like it was at the beginning because the platform has evolved as I have evolved. I hope in ten years it’s nothing like it is today.”
Fuck Columbus. This day is Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Our platform is dedicated to speaking the truth of this land’s history, not perpetuating the vile origin myth of “this land is your land, this land is my land.” The US resides on stolen land. We are unwavering in our solidarity with Indigenous peoples in the struggle for sovereignty.
This image and caption of Alex Honnold and Pattie Gonia posing together brings forward some questions: Who gets the privilege to perform queerness without consequence? When did the word “ally” become an identity or label? Has “allyship” lost it’s meaning? Is it no longer a verb that requires action?
Instead of playing it safe we need leaders who are going to speak the truth without hesitation because they know America was never something to have "faith in." America has never been great. It has always been an ongoing settler-colonial project to this day.
Do you feel like you’re not doing “enough”? Well, that is white supremacy culture making you feel like you have to be constantly productive. And if you do nothing, like really do nothing for more than five minutes, you’re just a sack of lazy potatoes. But this is absolute bullshit. Resting when you need to rest. Take mental and emotional health days if/when you can.
Children (and adults too!) need to feel empowered to decide for themselves what their version of healthy looks like.
From Hurricane Harvey, to Hurricane Florence, and now with Hurricane Dorian, it is clear our government does care about incarcerated people, an already vulnerable population, made even more vulnerable in these times of natural crises.
According to the April 2019 report by the National Partnership for Women and Families, “Black women in the United States who work full-time, year-round are typically paid 61 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men,” a fact pulled from the U.S. Census Bureau 2018. Race, gender, class, and ability, are just a few major factors that impact Black womxn’s ability to get paid what they deserve. It’s not just a matter of learning how to negotiate a pay raise.
The Kānaka Maoli do not consent to the building of the Thirty Meter Telescope on our sacred mauna, Mauna a Wākea, or Mauna Kea. In the Kānaka culture, natural things like plants, rivers, oceans, animals, and mountains are viewed as ancestors because it is said that when we die, we embody things in our ʻāina (land). Mauna a Wākea is sacred for this reason, it is said to be our Kūpuna, our ancestor.
Trump’s anti-Mexican rhetoric has emboldened California’s racists, and on June 8th, I encountered a small army of them at San Diego 100, an ultramarathon held near the Mexico-United States border. A one-hundred-mile race that cuts through Mount Laguna Recreational Area, the Pacific Crest, Noble Canyon, and Lake Cuyumaca Trails, the SD 100 operates under permit on the Cleveland National Forest. While the race’s website claims that the SD 100 is “an equal opportunity provider, employer and lender,” volunteers working for the event contradicted this mission.
Can we get to self-acceptance and self-love if we have been indoctrinated into an anti-fat and anti-Black mentality? Am I really “body-positive” if I am anti-fat and anti-Black? If I’m not working against these oppressive forces in my psyche then I am definitely not anywhere near “body-positive.” Are your favorite white “body-positive” influencers talking about the fact that we have historically demonized and dehumanized fat Black womxn and femmes?
These Black trans womxn have been killed since the beginning of 2019.
This is a call to action for my fellow white people of the gym, the white people in management, the white people who work there: interrogate your inherent racism, transphobia, homophobia and work against it. Say those words out loud and discuss them. They are not dirty words. They are lived realities. Action that is performative, like a free one day belay lesson during Pride month, is only serving to uphold the current status quo. Planet Granite will look like an “ally,” will get some pats on the back, call it “baby steps,” and then go back to business as usual. It is not good enough.
Everyone benefits from a world and a culture that upholds body sovereignty. One that says: you get to decide who you are. No one else but you.
The farmed landscape blurred as we sped down the highway, our thoughts never lingering on the fact that we are colonizers traveling to Osage, Miami, and Očeti Šakówiŋ (Sioux) territories about to move into a house that sits on land that is not ours.
Christian Beckwith and I confront similar internal issues, aside from his position of power as a cis male. As a white woman I am constantly questioning why I enter into the work, spaces, conversations, that I engage in. Where do I need to check myself? How can I check myself in order to prevent harm? I ask myself questions that I wish Christian Beckwith would ask himself: How can I stop myself from acting on my superiority complex? How can I stop myself from needing to be included in everything, or how can I heal my need to share my opinion on everything? Is this my whiteness taking over, or do I genuinely have something to contribute of actual value? Will this add to what is happening, or am I doing this/saying this for myself just to center myself?”
