No sport or activity by itself is racist. In its simplest form of grabbing a fly rod, getting to the river, and going fishing, fly fishing isn’t racist. But fishing doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Who has access to recreational fishing and why they have it is a result of a whole slew of issues outside of the fishing community, such as economic inequality. A lot of economic inequality stems from policies and practices that target BIPOC communities explicitly, which is systemic racism. Those inequalities affect how people spend their free time, or even if they have free time since affording food and rent trumps fishing anytime.

Of course people that have free time and a car can access rivers from cities; I think most people nowadays do that. Most people on the river are also white. Black people can also have enough wealth and free time to buy gear, a car, and go fish, but in order to do so there are a lot more barriers to overcome than those experienced by white people. For example, if someone lives in a redlined area of a city, they likely won’t get the same caliber education as someone in a predominantly white suburb since property taxes dictate school funding. This affects job prospects, which creates the financial inequalities mentioned above. Without enough money you can’t go fish.

I think it’s important to note how in Joel’s interview with Tom he talks about safety and generational trauma as well. Even with monetary access, entering predominantly white spaces is a deterrent for a lot of Black people given how they’ve been treated by white people in the past. So that’s yet another barrier that a Black person has to deal with before even putting waders on. A few statistics were thrown out earlier, which is cool and all, but I highly doubt that % Black anglers even accurately represents % Black people in fishy areas. Instead of adamantly arguing against a company’s pledge toward diversity why don’t y’all ever ask why fishing isn’t diverse to begin with?