I’m black and I like camping.
End of discussion.
The same reason they don’t smile when having their pictures taken.
Can you elaborate on why this is? I am not disagreeing with you at all. I have occasionally noted the same phenomenon and wondered why this is.
My specific experience is this: I have had Labrador Retrievers in an area of Chicago that is sometimes described as the most ethnicly diverse part of the city for about 10 years. Although these are reasonably large dogs, they are the typical happy-go-lucky Labs, and most people seem to recognize this, and show no fear as I walk down the street. Overwhelmingly, the exceptions tend to fall into one of two categories: Blacks, and some varieties of not-born-in-the-US immigrants (mostly Hispanic and Asian).
As people of Asian or Hispanic descent born in the US don’t usually react this way, I figured that their immigrant parents came from areas where dog-ownership was less common, and so they (1) didn’t know dog body language at all; and (2) aren’t familiar with breed distinctions (which, while not completely dispositive, do help in evaluating the chance that an unfamiliar dog might be aggressive, whether through disposition or training).
But this analysis doesn’t seem to apply to African American Blacks. Is it that those black people who are fearful grew up in areas where large dogs are more likely to have been trained or bred to be aggressive?
I’ve actually wondered why I don’t see more white people family reunions. The summer is filled with black people congregating under park pavillions, dressed in brightly-colored family reunion t-shirts, and barbequing. But rarely do you see white people celebrating like this.
Why cant’ white people use apostrophes?
I think they prefer hotels.
Several months ago VCO3 was pitted (overly harshly, in my opinion) for starting precisely this kind of thread. Which makes me a little surprised that he did start it, since he already brought up the camping question back then (see page 2). But anything that can be said against him—as well as what he said in his own defense—can be found there, so it’s probably not necessary to jump all over him here.
I’m black, from Washington state, even - and I camp… from time to time… well, more when I was little with my family (who are also black).
I also like labs.
I wonder if those of African-American culture are more likely to still be in the place they grew up in. That would facilitate having a family reunion, since even if a substantial portion of the family moves around the country a lot, just a 20%-30% difference could mean the difference between having the critical mass to commit to the reunion which would then attract the rest of the far-flung mass, and just never being able to pin down a date for a reunion when enough people can come to make it worthwhile.
My family, which genetically represents people from nearly all over but is mostly European-American culturally, has found it hard for a reunion since we are living all across America.
Then again, I don’t know if A-A families tend to stay where they grew up more than E-A’s so I might be wrong.
Plus, on both sides of my family, we don’t use a city park for a reunion, although I have been to some other reunions of E-A families that were, but this was in the early 80s in the Western NY rust belt so things might have been different at that timeplace.
Nice to meet you. I’m white, hate camping, and am not a dog person.
Let VCO3 explain that.
VCO3 shouldn’t be slammed for having the BALLS to say what every single person here is thinking, but doesn’t have the guts to post. 
I hadn’t seen that pitting. Thanks for supplying the link Thudlow. It seems VCO3 has an inordinately intense interest in day-to-day practices of Black people as well as an intellectually lazy habit of inexplicably cleaving to unproven racial stereotypes. Okay then, one less person to waste my time taking seriously.
Whitey is more uptight than his darker brethren. Therefore Whitey doesn’t care to don brightly colored clothing and let it all hang out with his extended family in the local state park. For recreation, Whitey likes to emphasize his antisocial and self-sufficient nature by doing something alone or in a small group, like camping, bungee-jumping, hunting. Sports? Sure, that’s for recreation 60 minutes at a stretch, but for a profession? Too many eyes watching, we hates the eyeses! Dogs? Give us something non-threatening and potentially useful like a lab or lap dog, we’ll guard our homes with our guns. Keep that nasty rottie/pit bull away from us!
I don’t know that one group is necessarily smarter than the other, but if I were to back a stereotype I’d say that one group is certainly more prone to interact with other members of its species as equals and the other is more likely to see other members as threats.
I was in the Scouts back in the 70s, and there weren’t any Black kids in our troupe. I went to Philmont (a huge Scout ranch in New Mexico) in 1976 and don’t recall a single Black kid there. While I’m sure there are more African-American campers than there are Korean blues musicians, I suspect Black folks want to avoid situations that might involve banjo-strumming boys, white folks with rifles and no access to home turf.
I could be wrong.
Couldn’t find the link, but NPR had a segment on this a couple months ago. Of the African-americans polled, Fear of racism was the number one reason. As a non-white who loves camping I’ve only experience a couple cases and it was never bad enough that it would make me stop.
Holy crap man, get over yourself. Who says “sigh” after a long-winded thrashing over semantics, anyway?
uh, they do. Crotch-rockets are incredibley popular among certain African-American subcultures and plenty of yuppie blacks do the whole Harley thing.
They have subcultures? Is that legal, strictly speaking?
Dude, what do you expect from the guy named Onomatopoeia?
Actually black people would love to go camping but they know they’re so loud it would ruin the experience for the rest of us, so they graciously stay home. Thanks, black people!