Racial Equity in the GRCA

RACIAL EQUITY IN THE GRCA ZINE

The folks of the GRCA’s People Of Color (POC) Caucus were excited by the conversations we had and the space we held for each other at the 2018 GRCA Conference. We would love to keep that support going throughout the year to create more continuity and unity between camps. In the spirit of the upcoming Caucus Advisory Council, we hope to provide more structures and tools within the GRCA for effectively addressing race-based conflict and anti-racist work as a way to support POC within our movement. As a first step, we thought it was important to hear the experiences of POC within our movement so we can collectively figure out how to best support camps/organizations with their different needs. We acknowledge that racism and white supremacy takes on different forms for different camps in different regions and countries. 

Through speaking with each other and sharing our experiences, we found that one of the biggest issues is the isolation that our POC members feel in our camps. When issues or conflicts arise, they usually do not have anyone to turn to and receive no support from their camp. We hear stories of tokenization, having to constantly correct people, and instances of racism directed not only at our POC members, but also our youth of color. Eventually members feel disengaged, burnt out, and either are being pushed out or struggle to stay.

We hear these things year after year, and there is anger, heartbreak, and frustration within our most marginalized members. So we wanted to do something to help facilitate change. We sent out a survey to everyone in our camps. From there we compiled,, analyzed, and learned from the data. These are the results. 

We did this with love. Love for our members, love for ourselves, and love for our rock camps.