This book has been on my nightstand for months (I tend to harbor a tall to-be-read-soon stack) and I started reading it a few weeks before the incident in Central Park. Lanham’s prose is so heartbreakingly lovely that I have had to read a few chapters, slowly savoring the gorgeous language, then put it down to rest – I feel as if I want to start reading it all over again as soon as I finish.
The implicit and reflexive biases that cause one to see an African American man with binoculars walking through a park not as a birdwatcher, but as a threat, can be unlearned. I see you, birdwatcher. I see you belong in the wild places. I hear that you have things to teach me, and I am listening. The wild places hold us all.
I am working to recognize my own biased thoughts and actions, and to replace them with openness and inclusion. And I am researching ways to further support diversity in the outdoors with my time and my economic choices. The wild places hold us all.
