Mickey Fearn, the National Park Service Deputy Director for Communications and Community Assistance, made headlines when he claimed that black people don’t visit national parks because they associate them with slaves being lynched by their masters.
Yellowstone, the first national park, was created in 1872 in Wyoming.
Slavery was over by then and no one had ever been lynching slaves around Old Faithful anyway.
But false claims of racism die very hard.
Now Alcee Hastings, an impeached judge, and a coalition of minority groups is demanding increased “inclusiveness” at national parks.
High on their list is the claim that, “African-Americans have felt unwelcome and even fearful in federal parklands during our nation’s history because of the horrors of lynching.”
What do national parks have to do with lynchings?
Many national parks have trees.
People were hung from trees.
It’s racial guilt by arboreal association.
Trees are racist down to their roots.
The origin of the bizarre racist lynching theory of national parks appears to be Carolyn Finney. Finney was an actress noted for, apparently, little more than an appearance in The Nutt House.
Then she became a cause célèbre for race activists when she was denied tenure by Berkeley’s Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management because her work didn’t meet academic standards.
Her supporters blamed racism, rather than her academic shortcomings, and protested vocally.
These days she’s a diversity advisor to the U.S. National Parks Advisory Board..."
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