Well-Meaning But Clueless White People
Out There
Willow Belden
4.6 • 608 Ratings
🗓️ 10 January 2019
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Part of our mission at Out There is to make the concept of ‘the outdoors’ more accessible to all. But so far, we don’t have a great track record.
Contrary to our intentions, this has become a show mostly about white people — and while we’re at it, mostly straight, upper middle class white people.
On this episode, Host Willow Belden and Business Development Director Alex Eggerking sit down for an honest conversation about how we got here, and what we hope to change in the future.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Willow Belden and you're listening to Out There, the podcast that explores big questions through intimate stories outdoors. |
| 0:14.0 | This episode is a bit different than most. Today, we're turning the camera, or rather the microphone, inward, and we're looking at one of our own shortcomings. |
| 0:24.6 | It's a problem that's been on our radar for some time, and we've tried a few different things to fix it, but we haven't really known how to go about solving the issue. |
| 0:34.6 | So a couple of weeks ago, our business development director, Alex Eger King, and I |
| 0:40.8 | sat down to talk about it on tape. We want to be totally upfront with you about our failure |
| 0:46.3 | and share our honest thoughts about what's going on. The situation is this. When I started out there, |
| 0:53.5 | I wanted it to be inclusive. I did not want to make stories that would only appeal to hardcore adventurers who have all the right gear and know all the lingo and spend all their time conquering mountains. I wanted the show to speak to and about a broad array of people. And in some respects, I think we're doing that. |
| 1:13.1 | But in one important arena, we are failing rather spectacularly. |
| 1:25.6 | Almost all of the voices that we have on the show are white people. |
| 1:34.3 | And the show has become very much a show about white people and about white people's realities and about white people's problems. |
| 1:43.4 | And while we're at it, |
| 1:46.0 | mostly like middle to upper class white people who are straight. And I feel like that's a |
| 1:55.0 | really big problem. Yeah, and I agree. I do think it's worth saying that I think that what the show has done well is appeal to women, which isn't always the case in the outdoor industry. |
| 2:11.3 | But all of the things you just said are very true and I'm not proud of them. |
| 2:16.6 | Yeah, and you're right. |
| 2:18.1 | We have had, the vast majority of our stories are by or about women and that's great. |
| 2:24.8 | And that was not by design. |
| 2:26.1 | It's just happened that way. |
| 2:28.1 | But when we look at other things, it's like, okay, you know, in 2018, we had zero stories by or about black people, zero |
| 2:36.2 | stories by or about Latinos. |
| 2:40.2 | We had only a handful of stories that were about any other people of color at all, and only |
| 2:46.9 | one story about someone in the LGBTQ community. |
... |
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