Environmental justice beyond physical access: rethinking Black American utilization of urban public green spaces

Abstract

ABSTRACT Black Americans have historically reported aversive attitudes towards the outdoors. First, cultural meanings of the natural world are shaped by historical legacies of racial violence and racialized slavery. Second, public policies after slavery continued to reproduce the separation of Black Americans from green spaces. Thus, Black Americans have developed preferences for more cultivated green spaces as an adaptation to these structural exclusions. This study explored how Black women participating in outdoor activities in Franklin Park experienced the outdoors. The Black women interviewed reported managing facial and bodily expressions, when they are participating in outdoor activities outside of Franklin Park, in order to negotiate the contradictions of racialized outdoor spaces. To explain this, I developed the concept of racialized emotional labor which is: (1) mediation of structural and/or individual racism: required to participate in dynamics where they are systematically racially objectified, (2) hyperawareness of Blackness: required to participate in the minimization of their racial objectification. This study argues that Black women engage in racialized emotional labor in uncultivated green spaces and rural areas because the areas aren't welcoming towards Black people and do not foster a sense of comfortability and belonging, compared to urban parks with diverse crowds like Franklin Park.