RunOut #44: Covid, BLM, and Favia Dubyk

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2 responses to “RunOut #44: Covid, BLM, and Favia Dubyk”

1. 

   June 18, 2020

   Luke Calvin

   Excellent podcast. Thoroughly enjoyed this one!

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2. 

   July 16, 2020

   Peter Dorsa

   Great podcast, it brings up a lot for me as an old climber, started in 1972 through Scouts, in Ohio of all places. For the most part I was self taught , no mentors in the first few years no role models to speak of either. I’ll be 64 end of August. Climbing has been a foundational and fundamental part of my life. I have lived in Laramie, Wyo (University 75 to 80) predominantly white; Seattle ’80 to “92, very diverse overall and within climbing community; Colorado 92 to 94 Denver, ’94 to 2008, Glenwood Springs. Then finally NY 2008 to 2013, the gym north of the city seemed fairly diverse as a recall. Now back in Ohio since 2013. So I have experienced a broad spectrum of the climbing community. In the 70’s and ’80’s it was relatively small compared to other sports. There was a fringe element to it, especially in Yosemite Valley. Camp Four in 1976 was dirtbag city.

   And yes now that it has been brought up it is predominantly white sport. Yet I saw climbers as climbers not by race or gender. I admit to being ignorant of white privilege and have not thought about racial and gender injustices within the climbing community that much. The articles on Melanin Base Camp, wow. I’m still trying to digest the issues with MP and Nick. As for MP, when a thread gets off topic and derogatory I quit reading, no I don’t call the person out, maybe I should? But its like FB posts it doesn’t change anything in the real world.

   I grew up in a time when work place quotas were put into place. In many ways this was the definition of institutional tokenism. I missed out on my first potential post undergrad job with a corporation because I was not black and female enough! I believe I met the young women and she was definitely more qualified then I for that job. Did her employers see her qualifications more the her gender and race? Certainly hope so. Quotas fueled resentment and created further division, at least thats the way I saw it.

   So the question I am struggling with is how can I have been a part of the climbing community for so many years in a number of different places and not seen or been aware of the racism that is being called out. In all honesty as an older white guy, I often feel really out of place in most gyms, like I don’t belong. Being taught old school we did not progress through grades like now and there is a definite attitude about grades in climbing. Is gradism a word?. When the guidebook says there are a few easy 5.11’s on the left side of the wall that make excellent warmups, its like what the fuck! Being able to climb said warmup would be my project. And it was evident in Rifle, even my partner said, well you shouldn’t be climbing here if you can’t lead these routes. She might still live in Carbondale, we never climbed together again! And there were more times in Rifle I could not get a belay from someone. And not to project just to see how far I could get up something and lower as soon as I fell off, I lived in New Castle so would run out there in the evening sometimes. This was contrasted to Indian Creek, Donnelly Canyon. Pulled off the road, these 2 guys pull up behind me, noticed I was alone and asked if I wanted to join them and their friends who were just pulling up. So much fun! Just worked our way down the wall, smoking dope in between routes. This was September 1992, they were from Durango, 2 of the guys wore painters pants and old I mean old Forrest swami belts and leg loops. Didn’t use chalk and did not hang. The one guy down climbed from the crux move of Los Hermanos 7 times before falling and then and only then hung and worked out the move. Such a good route. That was to me the stark contrast between Trad climbers and Sport climbers. Which may have been the beginning of the change in the climbing community makeup. Climbing gyms just by bringing more people in to climbing has changed the culture. In the ’70’s and ’80’s climbing was about stewardship and conservation. We are just getting back to really looking at our impact as the numbers increase.

   And yes women have always suffered the mansplaining thing, that always drove me crazy, “no you fucking idiot she led the route not me!” Let’s face it what climber did not want a climbing girlfriend? Let’s go back to Laramie Wyoming 1975, there were very few women climbing back then. The ratio of all females to males was 10 to 1, women that climbed made it like 75 to 1! One evening I went to this girls apartment, there was the what looked to be a partially drank coke on the table, at least thats what I thought but she had not thrown out her chew spit bottle. Def deal breaker! Disgusting!

   Sorry I get off on tangents. One last thing then I’ll shut up. Favia brought up wanting companies and gyms to hire be more diverse in terms of hiring. While thats a great idea its harder to implement particularly with the virus. Gyms are from running at full capacity and the owners have an obligation to their current or former employees to bring back first. So to mandate these changes now in particular won’t happen easily. And as you said Chris these things won’t happen over night. Reflecting this on the broader needs for societal change the demands being asked will take time. I feel as a white older male, what can I do? And those that have a platform are being called out – what’s your agenda what are you going to do next? It like white people can not do enough right now. And sites like melanin base camp – are almost too extreme and are rather exclusionary. As a white male I would not feel welcome there, so will the pendulum have to shift really too far before a balance can be found? Obviously I’ve had a lot on my mind, really appreciate this podcast and the Enormocast as well. Thanks Guys!

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