***All official Terra swag is being sold on our Bonfire storefront.***

We got feedback that our design for the shirt that reads: "Stop Glorifying John Muir," was a little hard to read...so we made a shirt that is crystal clear. This shirt is for those who like to cut the crap, and get to the point.

John Muir directly encouraged and aided indigenous genocide through his writing and "environmental activism." We often praise him for his work in creating the national parks, but just like Muir's writing, the parks are rooted in exclusion and violence towards indigenous peoples. The parks are said to preserve what European colonizers called "the wilderness," a construct they created in order to keep Indigenous folx from accessing their homelands. This was also a convenient way white settlers could justify reservations under the guise of helping Indigenous folx to be "civilized." We want to acknowledge and give thanks to Indigenous Women Hike for bringing this to the forefront of conversations in the outdoor industry.

Often people who feel loyalty to the national parks (because the wealthy elite have done well to tout them as environmental sanctuaries), will argue, "But the national parks would be vulnerable to vandalism, abuse, and private corporations looking to extract the resources if we didn't have the national parks in place." And to that we remind folks that the original peoples of the land have been, and always will be, the original stewards of that land. This means that who is better suited to protect the land than those who have been here for time immemorial?! Why are we not looking to them? Why are we not uplifting their voices and work, and centering their stories in conversations about the environment?

Mostly it's white people who feel shocked by these sentiments because it puts into question their version of reality that they have been conditioned to believe in. National parks are *not* the penultimate of environmentalism. In fact, they are one ingredient in the grand scheme of colonization. The parks and the narratives that we tell about the parks, work really well to keep people convinced of their supposed inherent benevolence.

If we need to re-think our handed-down heroes, like John Muir (puke emoji), who/what else do we need to re-think? How are our organizations set-up? How can we get rid of hierarchy, which is a product of white supremacy? What about the pace of how we work? Sense of urgency is a product of white supremacy. What about how we treat each other? Are we caring and making room for mental health days? Are we budgeting for equitable outcomes for everyone involved? Does our organization's impact create equitable outcomes for all?

We hope these T-shirts will help you start conversations and take action against the myriad ways white supremacy shows up in ourselves, our organizations, and social circles.

Oh yeah, and fuck John Muir.