Page 118 - The Language of Composition 4e Teacher Edition Sample.indd

my project from hikers consisted of either
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effusive praise or dead silence. I chose as many
DIFFERENTIATION Identity short story, essay, and poetry collections as pos-
sible to encourage exploration. I thought about
Connections to Text what the author or protagonist of the title might
Students can read a Washington Post arti- have wanted to see. I got to a view. I held them
cle titled “An 82-year-old man hiked the to the light. I told them, firmly, “This is yours.”
entire Appalachian Trail. Then he danced a This country had done an exceptional job mak-
jig” (published October 26, 2017). There is ing clear what wasn’t — equality, safety, justice,
Copyright (c) 2023 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Uncorrected proofs have been used for this sample chapter.
also a YouTube video about five minutes financial mobility, the right to vote. In America,
long on the same topic. Dale Sanders offi- the word “progress” was rooted in fluidity. It had
cially became the oldest person to hike the always been progress for now.
entire 2,190-mile trail in under a year. How If there exists one stereotype about the 5
would students compare Sanders’s “trail Appalachian Trail among minorities — and, on
angels” to Haile’s long list of her own a larger scale, hiking in the United States in
guardian angels? general — it concerns its undeniable (but, it is
Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Strictly for use with its products. Not for redistribution.
important to note, not entirely unapologetic) COURTESY RAHAWA HAILE
whiteness. The whiteness in and of itself is not a
DIFFERENTIATION bad thing. The AT is without question the kind-
est, most welcoming, least aggressively homoge-
Connections to Text neous space I’m likely to encounter in America The author of this essay, Rahawa Haile, took this
If students have read the Brent Staples in the next four years. Thru-hikers aren’t gath- photograph herself while she was hiking the
Appalachian Trail.
essay earlier in this chapter (p. 212), you ered in the woods for six months to assert the What does the juxtaposition of the novel by
might ask them to compare his experience superiority of their racial composition. They’re Gloria Naylor with the rocky path on the trail
of his Blackness to Haile’s experience of there to embrace nature, challenge themselves, communicate? What is both in place and out
hers on the Trail. You could ask them to get stoned, sprain ankles, avoid rattlesnakes, of place, according to Rahawa Haile?
find passages from each essay to juxta- fuck, pursue adventure, and otherwise treasure
pose, and then ask them to discuss, in the joys that find them along the way, large or
writing or with the class, how the writers’ small. Many are simply looking to heal. were. Even me. Especially me. Here, all were
experiences are similar and how they differ. That they happen to overwhelmingly be purportedly safe. “Look at how we’ve grown.”
white is largely a coincidence for those on the The unintended consequence of colorblindness
trail (“I never noticed it until I saw you,” a hiker was benign erasure, a discomfort with looking at
once told me), a weird fact of life. It is anything how we hadn’t.
but circumstantial for observers of color on the There is no divorcing the lack of diversity in
outside looking in. the outdoors from a history of violence against
Racial diversity matters uniquely on a trail the black body, systemic racism, and income
that’s considered a great equalizer in most other inequality. A thing I found myself repeatedly
respects. Individuals have no identity but one: explaining to hikers who asked about my books
hiker. For many, who you were or what you and my experience wasn’t that I feared them,
came from wasn’t important, because everyone but that there was no such thing as freedom
was sharing the same stretches of bad weather from vulnerability for me anywhere in this land.
and sore feet. It was the hiking community’s way That I might be tolerated in trail towns that
of saying all were welcome, and from what I didn’t expect to see a black hiker, but I’d rarely if
gathered over the six months of my hike, they ever feel at ease.
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224 chapter 4 / Identity

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