David Labistour, the CEO of Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC), has apologized for decades of company advertising that targeted White customers and ignored people of color:
In a surprising apology, Mountain Equipment Co-op, the Canadian outdoor apparel giant, admitted to helping advance the “vastly incorrect notion” that the outdoors is for white people only, criticizing decades worth of its own advertisements and catalogues for depending almost exclusively on white models to sell wares.
“Outside is for everyone,” MEC CEO David Labistour said in an open letter Monday. “It’s time we acted like it.”
The letter — titled “Do white people dominate the outdoors?” — includes a collage of old MEC ads: white people hiking and biking and rock climbing and cross-country skiing; white people in khaki shorts; white people rafting in wetsuits.
It was an unorthodox move, since the apology wasn’t pre-empted by scandal — as has become the norm — but by quiet feedback, as well as an online survey of outdoor leisure and sport habits across the country, according to the company. In an interview Tuesday, Labistour said the tendency to use white models in advertising had “just been a traditional thing.”
“It’s how we grew up. It’s a historic part of our organization and the industry,” he said. “It’s been our industry paradigm. And it’s been, kind of, what we’ve always done. And sometimes we have to shift that paradigm.”
Monday’s apology was coupled with the unveiling of a new MEC “initiative,” bent on changing “the way we represent the outdoor community.” The move, MEC clarified in a statement, comes after employees and co-op members requested more diversity in the company’s ads.
“We know we’ve been part of the problem,” Labistour wrote. “This initiative isn’t about patting ourselves on the back. It’s also not about me, another straight white male with a voice in the outdoor industry.”
Labistour told the National Post that revamping advertising to feature more people of colour would help attract a more diverse workforce for MEC stores. “We have to be seen as a brand that represents the diversity of Canada in order to attract the diversity of Canada,” he said.
Asked how he would respond to someone who saw the move as cynical — as an attention grab or an attempt at simply broadening the company’s consumer base — Labistour said: “I can understand the cynicism because the world is full of cynicism right now.”
“The reality is that our purpose is to get everyone active and outdoors, and everyone means the spectrum of the Canadian demographic,” he said. “If we’re not representative, we’re not a viable organization.”
MEC released an overview from its Canada-wide survey conducted with Environics, claiming that people of colour are actually more active outdoors than white people. The online survey of 2,640 participants — conducted in two rounds, in the spring and fall of 2017 — found participation in outdoor activities to be eight per cent higher among people of color than white people. Specifically, people of colour were found to have higher participation rates in climbing and snow sports, and similar participation rates to white people in hiking, water sports, day hikes and camping. In fact, MEC said, the survey found people of colour spent three extra hours on outdoor activities a week compared to white people.
The findings, however, run contrary to doctoral research by Jacqueline Scott at the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. In an interview with the National Post in May, Scott suggested people of colour face cultural barriers to outdoor activities.
“There is a sense that the outdoors is a white space, that people of color don’t belong in that space,” Scott said. “People of colour want to do it, but they need a bridge to get them there.”
Scott, too, blames advertisements from wilderness outfitters for helping solidify the outdoors as a white person’s realm, comparing it to the notion of “visual apartheid.” “Look in the outdoor catalogue, you don’t see us,” she said in May. “Look at outdoor recreation in general, you don’t see us.”
Reached by phone Tuesday, she welcomed MEC’s move but noted that “sticker diversity is easy,” while lasting organizational diversity, in management and the workforce, is the more difficult next step.
This supposed online survey that claims there are more people of color participating in outdoor sports than Whites is fundamentally ludicrous and fake. Anyone who has participated in any of these sports knows that they are all lily White. One could go backpacking for 30 years and never see a Black or Asian in the mountains. Good luck ever seeing a Black water or snow skier. There might be one somewhere, but it’s a needle in a haystack. To answer the question posed in the title of the original article, “Yes, outdoor sports belong to Whites.”
Anyone who has watched the Winter Olympics knows without even thinking about it that they are 99% White, and therefore “racist”. The National Park System has spent millions of dollars to lure people of color to the park to no avail. They have given Blacks and non-Whites jobs in the parks to attract non-Whites, and that, too, has failed to change the fact that only Whites are interested in outdoor sports.
Even if MEC “diversifies” their catalog, they won’t change the fact that people of color will not buy their products or start mountain climbing. In fact, White people might be turned off by the blatant pandering to “diversity” and decide not to buy MEC products out of sheer “inclusion fatigue”.
Yeah, I’ll be one of the cynics…what a completely spineless, pandering move obviously in an attempt to broaden their customer base. Maybe if corporate and govt. policies weren’t so destructive to the white demographic, business would be much better, and a WHITE BUSINESSMAN could give 2 shits about courting a minority of minorities to patronize his business!
I don’t think this was motivated by crass capitalism–I seriously doubt the CEO honestly believes that by including non-White models in their ads, they will increase revenues.
After all, everyone in the fashion industry knows that when women’s fashion magazines like Vogue and Elle put non-White models on the cover, their sales plummet, but they do it anyway for ideological reasons. This is about wishful thinking, wishing that reality were different.
Yup, just one of the many fads in the world. They are making this change because they are probably thinking that it’s better to take the hit in sales now than be labeled by the masses as a racist company.
In regards to if non Whites participate in these sports, I can assure you they do not on any sort of a meaningful scale. Not only does it take general enjoyment of the outdoors and God’s creation to want to do these sports, it also take a good bit of money. You need to purchase the equipment, and you need money to purchase a vehicle capable of transporting your equipment, and you need storage to store all of your equipment which usually coincides with a decent sized single family home. The vast majority of blacks are too concerned with buying old luxury cars and putting shiny rims on them and buying the latest basketball sneaker to be able to afford outdoor sports. The same can be said for “Hispanics”. Asians tend to take the other route where they are very frugal and buy econo cars and penny pinch on everything. The non-frugal Asians are the ones that buy import cars and throw all their money into them, hence the term, “ricer”. Just my personal experience… But what do I know–I only work with all the other races and have a step “dad” who is Hispanic.
The simple facts are that these other races are different and have different priorities. Whites tend to have priorities that line up well with wanting to mountain bike, kayak, and mountain climb etc.
There’s a sizeable Black middle class now, and they don’t necessarily live like their ghetto counterparts, but they still aren’t interested in the great outdoors even though they could afford it. They’d rather sit in front of the t.v. watching sports and playing video games.
I also think Blacks are generally cowards, and they perceive outdoor sports as too dangerous–and some of the sports do involve a lot of risk, like climbing, para-sailing, etc. They also tend to avoid anything to do with water.