What Can I Do?
By Latria Graham
I am going to say their names first: Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Tony McDade. The events of the last month have left me unmoored. Our country is on fire.
You might be wondering: How does what is going on in the streets pertain to Outdoor Retailer? The way I see it? Everything.
For years, I’ve made it my business to travel the country telling the stories of the disenfranchised. I was in Flint. I saw and cataloged the systemic issues that led to Standing Rock. I work on the staff of The Daily at Outdoor Retailer because I saw the same things in the outdoor industry that I saw reporting those stories: income inequality, racism, sexism, and policy choices that have life-altering consequences for people with little recourse.
At this moment, the lens is focused on police violence, but the larger systemic, unrelenting unequal treatment of Black people got us here. Police brutality is just a symptom. The dearth of people of color in the outdoor industry is another symptom.
I don’t want to do this anymore— watch someone die in high-definition as a catalyst for protest and a clarion call for equality. I have a sense of deja vu because we did this four years ago—I reported on it; the clips are still live. The old way is not working. We have to do something different. So how can we sustain momentum in order to bring about real change?
When situations like this arise, I think about advice from literary titan Toni Morrison; she instructs us to do what we can from where we are. So, I want you to think about this question: What can I do with what I have?
Sometimes that will mean passing the mic to someone else, as The Weekly has done here. We have to continue to do that very thing—not just to me, but to other people of color in the outdoors so that readers can experience our perspective— what we love, what we’re anxious about, and what needs to change in order to create a more equitable space.
This is not the last you’ll see of me in the pages of this magazine. From now on, my main goal as a member of this staff will be to elevate voices from which we rarely hear, in a bid to get you to listen and consider what they have to say and process how we can implement everyone’s suggestions. I hope you will be willing to do that too—it is the only way I see that we can move forward.
Latria Graham, Contributing Editor, The Weekly