Introducing Climb United

https://americanalpineclub.org/climb-united

"Introducing Climb United

Through the Climb United initiative, the AAC is convening climbers, climbing organizations, and iconic climbing brands to strengthen our community's culture.

Climbing culture is rich with traditions—some worth celebrating, and some that need reexamining. 

On one hand, we celebrate values such as perseverance, conservation, and community. On the other, we allow practices that lead to the exclusion of some. Discriminatory route names, underrepresentation in imagery and story, and practices that limit access to climbing are some of the ways that women, people with disabilities, Black, Indigenous, people of color, and LGBTQ+ individuals are made to feel unwelcome and unsafe in the climbing community.

At the American Alpine Club, we know that our actions, or lack thereof, have made us complicit in furthering the issues that we see climbers facing today. We hear your feedback, and we know that we must do better.

To start, we’re introducing Climb United, a new initiative to engage the climbing community in the process of reflection, learning, and growth—read on to learn more and join us on this journey."

Here we go...

Before pitchforks are brought out, it is guidelines for PUBLISHERS - NOT for route developers. You can continue making routes whatever names you want, but a publisher might say "route 23" instead of "Dickbutts AssBlaster Offwidth."

Yeah... how about instead of that we talk about Nazis and other unrelated 'political' talking points, tho? Like, deciding what I think about this 'guidelines for route names' thing seems hard. 

So I'd rather just reinterpret this as part of a culture war. Cause deciding how I feel about the culture war is easy, and surely almost as good as thinking about this for myself.

The actual prohibited list is pretty short. In particular I think most of the redacted route names in index would be reversed under these guidelines for what that’s worth. This seems way better than the mountain project aimless redaction approach. My biggest critique that is frustrating and gonna damage your mission is the website is essentially a circular reference to itself. The guidelines link you back to the principals and the principals to the guidelines  and it would be so much easier if the whole thing was on one page.

I would also change the wording that’s says names that offends any climber because anyone can find something offensive. I would change it to some.

AAC members will be happy to know that their dues were used to pay someone to make a spreadsheet with a list of naughty words.

This is a reasonable, thoughtful initiative. I support it.

Edit: To address Trevor’s concern above, I believe it said any name that “hurts” another person. That’s very different from a name that “offends” someone. 

Peter Beal wrote:

https://americanalpineclub.org/climb-united

"Introducing Climb United

Through the Climb United initiative, the AAC is convening climbers, climbing organizations, and iconic climbing brands to strengthen our community's culture.

Climbing culture is rich with traditions—some worth celebrating, and some that need reexamining. 

On one hand, we celebrate values such as perseverance, conservation, and community. On the other, we allow practices that lead to the exclusion of some. Discriminatory route names, underrepresentation in imagery and story, and practices that limit access to climbing are some of the ways that women, people with disabilities, Black, Indigenous, people of color, and LGBTQ+ individuals are made to feel unwelcome and unsafe in the climbing community.

At the American Alpine Club, we know that our actions, or lack thereof, have made us complicit in furthering the issues that we see climbers facing today. We hear your feedback, and we know that we must do better.

To start, we’re introducing Climb United, a new initiative to engage the climbing community in the process of reflection, learning, and growth—read on to learn more and join us on this journey."

Here we go...

This looks so cool, thanks for posting. How will Climb United be engaging with the community?

Tradiban wrote:

This looks so cool, thanks for posting. How will Climb United be engaging with the community?

Through a "thread-cast."

soft crux wrote:

AAC members will be happy to know that their dues were used to pay someone to make a spreadsheet with a list of naughty words.

Homie joined MP just to complain about this

Creed Archibald wrote:

This is a reasonable, thoughtful initiative. I support it.

Edit: To address Trevor’s concern above, I believe it said any name that “hurts” another person. That’s very different from a name that “offends” someone. 

That hurts me :(

I appreciated that when I was a kid growing up I had seen a clip of some Disney cartoons with a heavy disclaimer that they were being shown for historical context and that the imagery and caricaturs used were racist and insensitive. It made me think about those kinds of things as a kid, how maybe other kids who don't look like me might feel watching these cartoons. Made me not like that stuff from a pretty young age.

Most of the routes I climb I barely remember the names. I learned to climb at Dixon lake, Escondido, where there's a sweet slab with a mono pocket called 'butthole express.' I've called it "the express" to kids and people I want to take out where maybe I don't feel like talking about buttholes in that moment. It's a pretty popular area, and a popular climb, and I don't think anyone would mind if it got a footnote in a guidebook or something - really it's not a big deal. Maybe if you really care about having your routes published make them publishable, lol.

This would be a harder conversation to wrap my head around when I was 22, but I've lived a little bit and I can definitely see a value in coming up with some standards - at least, I want to be a part of that discussion, so that's my $.02.

Three posts in and Jonas is already preaching about his culture war

Greg Davis wrote:

I appreciated that when I was a kid growing up I had seen a clip of some Disney cartoons with a heavy disclaimer that they were being shown for historical context and that the imagery and caricaturs used were racist and insensitive. It made me think about those kinds of things as a kid, how maybe other kids who don't look like me might feel watching these cartoons. Made me not like that stuff from a pretty young age.

Most of the routes I climb I barely remember the names. I learned to climb at Dixon lake, Escondido, where there's a sweet slab with a mono pocket called 'butthole express.' I've called it "the express" to kids and people I want to take out where maybe I don't feel like talking about buttholes in that moment. It's a pretty popular area, and a popular climb, and I don't think anyone would mind if it got a footnote in a guidebook or something - really it's not a big deal. Maybe if you really care about having your routes published make them publishable, lol.

This would be a harder conversation to wrap my head around when I was 22, but I've lived a little bit and I can definitely see a value in coming up with some standards - at least, I want to be a part of that discussion, so that's my $.02.

Under these guidelines, “butthole express” wouldn’t be changed. That’s the type of name that might offend some people but is not hurting anyone. (Except for snowflake Dan.) 

Oh man wow, cant the

world of climbing rocks exist with both positive AND negative aspects? This path of trying to achieve perfect PCness is getting completely out of hand. 

"As a white, heterosexual, middle-income male, I don't find these route names to be offensive -- so clearly this is an overly PC culture war thing that I will oppose."

This seems like a good thread to just read the headline and then apply a bunch of trigger-ed/ing labels to people and their actions, no? 

Tradiban wrote:

This looks so cool, thanks for posting. How will Climb United be engaging with the community?

What the Eff happened to you dude???

Tradiban wrote:

This looks so cool, thanks for posting. How will Climb United be engaging with the community?

I’m assuming it will mainly be through their membership drives, gala dinners and AAC crag gangbang events.

I'm glad I took my AAC membership off auto-renew.

Creed Archibald wrote:

This is a reasonable, thoughtful initiative. I support it.

Edit: To address Trevor’s concern above, I believe it said any name that “hurts” another person. That’s very different from a name that “offends” someone. 

Listening to a lot of briefs and looking at a lot of claims the plaintiffs concept of harm is variable. While I agree they should be different someone wanting to redact a lot of routes names may recognize this difference. I just think its kinda trapping yourself when you say any or all.

Trevor Taylor wrote:

The actual prohibited list is pretty short.

Oh don’t worry, I’m sure the list will grow exponentially in a short period of time.