ABC, National Parks are racist

ABC

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"The outdoors and public lands suffer from the same systemic racism that the rest of our society does," said Joel Pannell, associate director of the Sierra Club, which is leading an effort to boost diversity in the wilderness and access to natural spaces. New government data, shared first with ABC News, shows the country's premier outdoor spaces -- the 419 national parks -- remain overwhelmingly white. Just 23% of visitors to the parks were people of color, the National Park Service found in its most recent 10-year survey; 77% were white. Minorities make up 42% of the U.S. population. "That tells me that we've got a lot of work to do," said David Vela, acting director of the National Park Service.

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environmental advocates agree that the racial disparity in the outdoors is an existential crisis. "If we don't address this, and we don't see how all these things are interrelated, then we're going to risk losing everything," said Pannell. "You're not going to have public lands to enjoy."

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David Vela is the first Latino to lead the agency. I’m sure this is just a coincidence as to why we are seeing claims of racism.



The crux of the article is, minorities don’t want to or can’t afford to go to National parks. And because the country will one day be a majority of minorities, if the parks don’t encourage minorities to visit, they will lose funding and eventually go bankrupt.