Rahawa Haile. Rahawa Haile is now a social media icon after she completed her thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail in 2016. Listen: Being a queer black woman is not the easiest thing, as you can imagine. Finding the best deals for the warmest and lightest stuff was a year-long mission. Longreads : The best longform stories on the web. Did the environment around race ease up the farther north you went? Haile began her trek in March in Georgia and completed it seven months later in October and stood proudly atop Mt. Im tired of this man. ENGL 100 CU Rahawa Haile Going It Alone Politics and Culture Discussion. I had this moment where I thought, Okay. Thanks! Choose either Simpson, Rankine, or Haile (NOT Martir; because Its assigned just to help us think about the other three). Hailes six-month journey was filled with hardship and beauty, not to mention exhaustion, foot pain, and one too many bowls of Idahoan Instant Mashed Potatoes. Like all good fantasy, it casts a light on the choices we make as a society and offers perspective on what those decisions mean for humanity. A Look Back at Hiking the Appalachian Trail Alone as a Black Woman Rahawa Haile set out on the AT during one of the most tumultuous periods in our political history. I cannot recommend this podcast enough for every conservationist out there. We must feel and act, too. It turns out people hike up mountains. Does pain count? Going It Alone, by Rahawa Haile. There was a lot of breaking down and bawling. Youve written that some of your best friends on the trail were Black authors, like Zora Neale Hurston. Someone suggested Sunny, but it seemed like there were 6,000 Sunnies out of 5,000 thru-hikers on the trail that year, and I didnt want to be Sunny #429. A friend took me hiking on Bear Mountain, and I remember following those white blazes. M.Z. pic.twitter.com/cEFZpvTWzZ, Rahawa Haile (@RahawaHaile) August 16, 2016. The Fourth of July by Audre Lorde and Going it alone by Rahawa Haile thesis statement Expert Answer In " The Fourth of July" written by Audre Lorde, an author and minstrel who took it upon herself to defy and address issues of racism, she describes the time she took a trip View the full answer Previous question Next question My biggest hope is that some black woman reads this essay about what it was like for me as a black woman, and sees that I finished the trail, that I wasnt killed, and that its not impossible. I came out, well before the story ran, and she did not respond well, and we didnt really speak about it for months following that. It highlights a major human flaw, and one that is very noticeable in our modern American society: we, at large, are stuck in the past, be that in racism, xenophobia, or the like. Essay: Going It Alone, Rahawa Haile. She explores the history of the American wilderness; the question of who is allowed and intended to explore this wilderness; and the way in which people of color are consistently forced to confront politics, history, and danger in areas that . "Going it Alone," Rahawa Haile : DUE: Sun., Mar. Youre African, not black-black. Finney seeks to reimagine the stories we tell about who gets access to nature and why. In this book from 2007, Shiva makes a compelling case for rejecting a development paradigm of a fossil fuel-dependent and commercial agricultural economy that has slowly siphoned sovereignty and power from farmers and indigenous communities. We're proud to be recognized as a financially accountable and transparent organization. Of course, it depends on the kind of writer that one is. So, yeah, my two biggest worries were hate crimes and deer ticks. I was careful to cite my sources. Sometimes people need to see that X is possible, that it has been done, before they are inclined to do it themselves. Alex is one of the most phenomenal editors Ive ever had. They could type into some app on their phone. I dont know if many of them intended to turn those notes into a piece of journalism, but I sure did. We review their content and use your feedback to keep the quality high. None more black, I weakly joke. I want to talk about your experiences on the trail, good and bad. Youre not black.. But the next day was this perfect clear day, and I hiked over Max Patch, one of the most scenic areas of the entire trail. Conservation International/photo by S. Khaunani Springer. to lose weight. Blacks dont hike.. Black, female, and gay, and going it alone during the political rise of Donald Trump, even if she hadn't wanted to think about the human-inhabited places along the trail, the humans . . It highlights a major human flaw, and one that is very noticeable in our modern American society: we, at large, are stuck in the past, be that in racism, xenophobia, or the like. I dont believe people who say otherwise. Not a month goes by that I dont think of something Ezekiel Kweku wrote a couple of years ago, after yet another black person was shot by a cop: Id rather be tweeting about basketball and telling my bad jokes. Something youd like us to research? In this piece, she shares her experience of being a queer black woman backpacking across the Appalachian Trail and challenges the preconceived notion that blacks dont hike. It was a rigorous fact check. | All Rights Reserved, https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/08/24/1113585846/how-educating-girls-and-women-hcan-fight-climate-change, https://www.scidev.net/global/supported-content/just-20-of-climate-change-studies-written-by-women/, https://www.ecowatch.com/lessons-from-lgbtqia-environmentalists.html, https://atmos.earth/brazil-pride-activist-uyra-sodoma-deforestation/, https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/ukraine-war-climate-fossil-fuel/. And my heart breaks into a million pieces. Learn how your comment data is processed. Raul Quintana, senior writer. Grand Canyon University. Since she finished the AT, Haile, 36, has hiked the High Sierra Trail and the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail, retracing the steps of John Lewis and his fellow civil rights marchers in 1965. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Total cost: $ 9.5 Download Topic: Writing Voice: Going it Alone by Rahawa Haile (Reaction Paper Sample) Instructions: Reading Response Prompt: Read all of the readings I attached. I did this shakedown hike over Thanksgiving. Rahawa Haile has written a couple of longer-form articles about her experience hiking through the Appalachian Trail as a Black woman, including an article for Outside and another for Buzzfeed. No, nothat was all I asked for! eds. Im in a tug of war between the trail and home. I'm tired of this man. I did fall into trail families for a hundred or two hundred miles, but for the most part, I hiked on my own. Redirecting to /2170266/solo-hiking-appalachian-trail-queer-black-woman/ (308) The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user. A post shared by Rahawa Haile (@rahawahaile) on Oct 3, 2016 at 9:06am PDT. I definitely come out guns blazing. It took quite a bit of self-encouragement to step out outside and into the woods by myself. 5. 5. But it wasnt present in this piece. One example of this issue that Haile uses early in the article really struck me, as she intended for it to do, is a response from a fellow hiker she is chatting to after she says she is of Eritrean heritage. N.A. Sign up today. I so appreciate how its shaking up and shedding light on the connection between hiking and pursuing justice. That helped, because its hard to condense six months into 3,500 words. NPRs Throughline podcast is all about understanding the historical origins of current issues. A brilliantly produced mix of ecological, anthropological and historical inquiry, Future Ecologies looks at how race, power and environmental factors combined to produce the American and Canadian landscapes we see today. Shed started in Maine and tried to head south to Georgia. And this is a good stage to start our inward inspection, Your email address will not be published. Not really, he says. The first time I read Going It Alone, Rahawa Hailes memoir of her Appalachian Trail thru-hike for Outside, I was surprised the piece was so much more about race than nature. Everything you can imagine, from scary moments of racism to new friendships to soaring epiphanies about the timeless value of America's most storied trekking route. Going It Alone Rahawa Haile . She cites Evelyn C. White, author of Black women and the wilderness, who describes wilderness as both an access to the past and a trigger of race-based suffering, since these places have history of abuse, eradication and persecution of non-white hikers. No, I dont think that the end goal is that were just hikers. Thesis/Argument. Required fields are marked *. In the meantime, keep up with her on Twitter @RahawaHaile. I crave so deeply ways of re-seeing and relating differently with my childhood home in the Southern Appalachian Mountains. Im thinking of the violence against queer women hikers in the past. The essay below, Going It Alone, was published in Outside magazine in April 2017. I didnt see another black woman for a very long time. He laughs and says, No, but really. We followed up with her to find out what scared her the most, the one piece of gear she couldn't live without, and why thru-hiking is always worth it in the end. I took an extra day off in a trail town just to read the whole thing. Not black-black. (LogOut/ What happens when an African American woman decides to solo-hike the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine during a summer of bitter political upheaval? The author was in a relationship that was at, loggerheads. I took photos, too, and would scroll through them maybe once a week. I tell him my family is from Eritrea, a country in the Horn of Africa, next to Ethiopia. APRIL 17, 2017 _____ Apr 11, 2017 . 21st:Bibliography (5+ sources) and initial summary : 9: Library/Historical Society Visit : . Youre African, not. I cant tell you how many people, especially Black people, tell me, Wow, that made me never want to hike the trail. It appears to be the modus operandi for many, though not all, on the right, is to blatantly ignore or downplay examples of it, while some, though not all, on the left try to elevate the situation for their benefit. Nothing . "Perspective is everything.". They were also useful if I couldnt take notes, if it was raining, or I had some gloves on, or I didnt want to type on my phone. Its work to hold on to that clarity. I say that not as an insult, but as a point of pride. Its worth reading the whole book, a beautifully written and deeply incisive reflection on race, outdoor spaces and peoples evolving relationship with nature. 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