Camp Pros must keep fighting for justice and equality

To be Black in America is to walk in the valley of the shadow of pain and death. The fact that Black people still manage to carry on and create and find joy and love in the valley is nothing short of a miracle.

What good is it to recruit new Black campers to camp if they don’t feel safe and welcomed while there?

It is time to identify and update our practices so that all campers feel physically and emotionally safe while at camp.

Thanks to historically racist systems, the correlation between race and socioeconomic status is high. In a 2014 study, the Pew Research Center found that the average white family has 10-15 times more wealth than the average family of color, and was increasing.

We’ve identified our own racism, removed cultural appropriation from our programming, and diversified our staff; marketing and recruitment are next.

Campers need to see counselors, program specialists, and administrators that look like them.

When white people are confronted with racial stress for the first time, the automatic response is to be defensive, guilt-ridden, and/or emotional. That concept has been termed “white fragility”. Getting past these feelings is another instance when anti-racist work is often bogged down.

Summer camp, as an industry, is a primarily white institution. There are exceptions but your typical camps, especially residential camps, are overwhelmingly not very diverse.