Scott Briscoe and the Power of Inclusion, Connection and Stories
Scott is passionate about inclusion and protecting our wild spaces.
He has shared his experience in the outdoors with thousands of young men and women of color. He counsels various companies and groups on how to be more inclusive, diverse and equitable. And more than anything, he loves his four-year-old daughter Semiya.
Scott and Max first met and connected at the Patagonia store in SF after we climbed the Grand Teton with Bob. We’ve kept in touch on social media and he is an inspiring, genuine and thoughtful man who understands how important our connection is to the natural world. We talked about how his story and background informs his work in Diversity, equity and inclusion in the outdoors, his dream project “We Got Next”, and how becoming Semiya’s dad changed his vision and understanding of inclusion. I am so grateful to Scott for sharing his story. Read all the way down for his valuable list of recommended reading and action steps.
AH: Can you tell me about your relationship to the natural world and how your experiences led you to work with youth of color and companies about diversity, equity and inclusion? Were there any key people, moments, or stories that impacted and changed your path?
SB: I didn’t have a traditional path like backpacking or skiing at a young age that connected me to the outdoors. The first spark of connection with the natural world was with my grandparents. They lived in Reno, NV and I was able to spend summers with them. I’d take the bus from Sacramento, where my mom and I lived, through the Sierras and they’d pick me up at the casinos. My grandmother had a garden in her back yard. She grew all kinds of food like radishes and rhubarb and she’d cook with all of them. My time there allowed me to gain an understanding about what the natural world provided. I realized it could provide warmth and substance and life, literal life. My grandpa cut wood. He’d talk about how important the process was. You need to find the right wood, cut it, stack it, and dry it right for winter use.
I got lucky when I started high school. My mom worked hard and I was able to attend a private school. All of my friends there were totally different than the ones I grew up with. They were super rich and all white. My home environment was different. My mother is a 3rd generation Latina with Mexican and Italian roots and my father is black, and he wasn’t part of my life as my parents separated when I was young. We lived in a poor neighborhood. We used to go dumpster diving and pull out cool stuff like carpet and make forts. I lived these bookends in terms of social, economic and racially divided spaces.
My friends at school had cabins in Tahoe and time shares in Hawaii. Through them, I had the opportunity to try traditional adventure sports in these big landscapes. I got good at skiing. I went to college at Loyola Marymount University and lived on the beach and started surfing. I wasn’t academically inclined at the time, so I left school and moved to Leavenworth, a small town near big mountains. I worked at ski areas and started climbing and my exposure to adventure sports and this community tuned me in to Patagonia. I worked for them when I decided to go back to college in Washington DC. I connected to the community of employees, ambassadors and ethos of caring for the environment and loving these wild spaces.
I always felt some sense of disconnect because there weren’t faces like mine in any of these outdoor environments. It didn’t prevent me from participating, but I wondered why there was such a lack of representation. I’d go climbing or snowboarding and wonder, why am I the only person of color in these spaces? At home, the faces were completely different and that stuck out to me. This thought evolved into me working with youth. I started with the Boys and Girls club as a program director and created curriculum for summers and afternoons in city or state parks. I started relationships with climbing gyms and worked to marry the two worlds.
I remember around 2009 I was talking to a close friend who was a NOLS instructor. He identified as black, African American. He’d go on expeditions and all the students were rich and white. We would talk about it and try to figure out what was going on and how to change it. NOLS had a director for diversity, equity and inclusion, Aparna Rajagopal-Durban, who put together a big project (“Expedition Denali”) and we became the first all African American team to climb Denali in 2013. There were nine of us with a wide range of experience. The two folks who had the least experience and never mountaineered before became NOLS instructors.
Expedition Denali Crew
Photo by Hudson Henry
After the climb, the members on the trip traveled around for a year and shared the story with communities. I continued doing the work, traveling around, showing the film and marketing for NOLS. I started encouraging Patagonia, at the corporate level, to take a hard look at what they were and were not doing in terms of diversity, inclusion and equity. I see social and environmental experiences and organizations as inextricably linked, not separate. At the retail level, I had tremendous success as the environmental coordinator at the store. I’d look at grants we received and see the ties between social organizations and the environment that didn’t seem apparent immediately. I’ve always felt like I was in the middle of two worlds both racially and economically and I’ve made an effort to include people—women, people of color, people with disabilities—and it’s so powerful for me to experience their inclusion. That feeling is the bigger force driving my work.
Photo by Hudson Henry
Recently I flew out to Golden, CO and spent the day with the American Alpine Club talking about the importance of people feeling welcome to the climbing community. I help companies understand that the way they market, tell stories and their resources should include a wide range of individuals. I hear from organization leaders that they don’t have the language to help their staff feel comfortable. These conversations are hard. Like, when we’re talking about white supremacy, just the structural parts of it that are set up to benefit one group over another group, it can be hard for companies when they don’t have language developed or supports in place that help them feel comfortable about being uncomfortable. Without language and support, there’s push back against these conversations and actions that support more inclusion.
The outdoor industry realizes that the diversity of the country is changing. They know if they don’t start considering those marginalized groups that have not been part of their marketing plan historically, they won’t connect, and they won’t buy products. Economics is a valid motivation. But they are also motivated to protect our wild spaces. Kris Tompkins said if people don’t know what a space is, they won’t connect and love it, and they won’t protect it. This need for knowing, connecting, loving and protecting requires the inclusion of a wider base.
Because of the structural systems that create a divergence in groups that experience the outdoors, there’s many affinity groups that are composed of predominately one community. Outdoor Afro, Brown Girls Climb, PGM One Summit—these groups and others bring people of color together who work in the outdoor industry, conservation and environment. The benefit of these groups is that they provide a safe space for people to speak, share ideas and stories, that help them become elevated and reenergized to go back into the spaces they work in and feel like they have the confidence, language and ability to approach difficult conversations about inclusion.
AH: I was moved by your story on The Cleanest Line, "Nature and the Opportunity to Build Diverse Coalitions" and how you've shared stories with more than 6,000 young African Americans and Latinos about glaciers, national parks and other wild places. I especially like how you discuss our inherent and primordial connection to the natural world and our ability to experience wildness whether we're alone in the woods or walking through neighborhoods to the park. Can you tell me about your experience sharing this message with young men and women of color?
Photo by Hudson Henry
SB: For the youth, seeing someone who looked like them doing something they never thought was possible was the most important part of my story and what I shared. They’d see me on stage and on this mountain and it was something they’d never seen. I represented them and who they are and showed them you can do something different and I could see that light a spark in them. My responsibility was to take the spark and use it to ignite a fire. Seeing me and the other members on Denali made this type of adventure a potential reality when it hadn’t been before. It put it in their mindset and made it possible. They may never actually see Denali, but they were able to imagine themselves there now.
I encourage outdoor organizations to find ways to incorporate more diversity into their visuals. The optics are easy, the tough part is language. I hear sometimes from these companies that they don’t want to offend or tokenize people of color. To me, it’s hard to understand because there’s athletes of color out there already who are at the top of their craft. It’s not tokenizing, the athletes are already there you just need to work with them.
AH: What is your vision for your work?
SB: I’m such a dreamer. I’ve been working on a project, “We Got Next”, that redefines the typical definition of athlete ambassador and includes people with diverse backgrounds and abilities. This project is where I see myself having the greatest impact. I don’t know if I’ll be successful, but I am successful at connecting people. I’ve had my feet in both worlds and lived both of them well. I’ve always wanted to bring people together. Sharing stories through adventure is one of the most powerful and inspiring ways to connect. I’ve been figuring out the next steps for “We Got Next.” I was talking to my friend Timmy O’Neil about it and how I was scared to share the idea or worried someone might take it. He told me I was living out of a scarcity model. He said, don’t live like that. Share it with people and hope and trust more ideas will come. At the heart of the project is connection and sharing stories.
Scott’s four-year-old daughter, Semiya Sage Strongheart
Photo by Scott
4. Shifting gears, can you tell me about your daughter, Semiya Sage. I read your extremely moving Instagram post to her on her 4th birthday. How has she changed you and how has she shaped and impacted your work and your experience of the natural world?
Semiya was born at home in a tub in the living room in Oakland, CA. It was a planned homebirth and our midwife was an incredible woman named Jamie. Semiya immediately started nursing after she was born and everything was calm. Jamie was monitoring Semiya and calmly told us that her heart sounded a little off, and that we should consider calling our pediatrician. She said there was no rush and continued to monitor Semiya. We called the pediatrician three hours after she was born, her heart issues were affirmed and we checked into the hospital.
It was a shit show at the hospital, the total opposite of the prior three hours. We were at home, blissed out and comfortable, and it was a hard transition. It felt extreme. We were there for three days, and Semiya had a ventricular defect. She also had a genetic test that confirmed Down syndrome. We left the hospital and visited the cardiologist weekly. She had open heart surgery when she was three months old and it successfully repaired the hole in her heart.
It was traumatizing. It’s amazing how our minds take control of things. For me, when I’m scared I just ask questions and want to know all the details. What does this medication do? Why is she hooked up to this machine? It wasn’t until two months after the surgery that I lost it and let go and realized, looking at photos, that is was so traumatizing. When she was five months old, we checked with the cardiologist to see if we could take her backpacking and we spent four nights on a camping trip in the Trinity Alps. It was perfect. She was nursing, so we didn’t have to bring extra food, and we just carried her, fed her, and kept her clean and safe.
The first thing I think about Semiya is how intuitive she is. I’m an emotional person. With her, for some reason, I don’t share that yet. I try to talk about how I feel before I show her because I don’t want her to feel worried or concerned. But, when I’m feeling distressed, she’ll put her hand on my head and ask, Ok papa? Ok? She has a really magical intuition, it’s very special. It’s part of who she is and part of being a child, she’s connected to what is primal in all of us and connected to that simplicity.
She loves to dance and draw. She’s super active and she’s incredibly cheeky. She goes to a Forest School in Oakland and they do everything outside. They take naps outside and if it’s warm and raining, they dress for the weather and stay outside. They talk about race and gender equality and these kids are 3-6 years old. With parents consent, they’ll take kids to marches and they learns songs and chants. Semiya will be in the bath and she’ll say, “Black lives matter. Water is life. Together we stand. United we fight!” Her time at the school and outside deepens her therapy. She has to walk up hills and on uneven surfaces and runs up against challenges that help her develop skills.
Scott and Semiya in Joshua Tree. Photo by Claudia DiDomenico
Photo by Hannah Aldern
AH: What are your biggest hopes and dreams for Semiya's future? How do these dreams drive and inspire the way you live and the work you do?
SB: I’m a man and a person of color and until Semiya was born, I thought about diversity, equity and inclusion in that realm. Semiya blew my world wide open and I realized it’s about inclusion of everybody. The inclusion of women and people with different abilities wasn’t new to me, but it was on the periphery. I’ve always worked from my story and experience and my story has broadened and opened up and I’m excited to tell new stories from all sorts of people that inspire change.
I hope for Semiya that she feels like she can do anything and go anywhere, which isn’t so different from what other parents want for their kids. I hope she never feels like, since people treat her differently, she can’t do something. I’m learning how to best be by her side and working to be her ally and that can take form in whatever shape she wants.
What are 3 actionable steps people can take to support and promote diversity, equity and inclusion?
First and foremost people can learn and listen, and then ask. People tend to get defensive or feel like they’re being attacked personally. In diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) work, where spaces are and have been predominately white cis-male, the conversations can be hard and emotional because they drive at who we are and how we have and have not been afforded privilege based on our race, gender or sexual orientation. As Shelton Johnson stated, “It’s too easy to be comfortable, we need to be ready to comfortable with being uncomfortable.”
Here are some resources that support learning and listening: Biased by Jennifer L. Eberhardt, White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, the resource page the Avarna Group (“The nexus of social and environmental justice"), and a great article by Ryan Honeyman at LIFT Economy on white supremacy.If you work for a company, or sit on a board, and positions become available, think about looking in new areas for people to fill those positions, especially positions of leadership. If you work for an organization that is looking to evolve in its work of inclusion and wants to accurately represent the US workforce, stand up and be outspoken for paying leadership positions in addition to internships. This work of inclusion is about the long game. If the young people who are going to be stewards of our spaces in the future do not see themselves represented in positions of leadership or in natural spaces as we know them, they will not think that those spaces are for them as they grow into this world.
Lastly, the work to create more safe, just, inclusive and diverse spaces in both work environments and natural spaces is important. At the heart of this work is deep caring for those who feel excluded, which I believe everyone has felt at some point in their life. There are communities of people that feel left out of outdoor spaces, but some of us have been lucky enough to feel welcomed in by the outdoor community. I choose to be inclusive not only because it makes sense to build strong and diverse coalitions to protect the wild spaces I love, I choose to be inclusive because it’s the right thing to do.
What are you inspired by right now and what are you reading?
Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What See, Think, and Do by Jennifer L. Eberhardt
The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander
On Blossoming by Gia Lynne
Teresa Baker is a friend and inspiration. She’s an activist, environmentalist and compassionate person who is relentlessly putting herself in uncomfortable and new spaces to try to find ways to protect our wild spaces. She’s the founder of African American National Parks Event and she’s the co-founder of The Outdoor CEO Diversity Pledge.
Time and time again, I find myself drawn to the valley of Payahuunadü (Land of Flowing Water), now known as The Owens Valley. There is something so magical about that valley that rests between the great California Eastern Sierra and Nevada White Mountains. The hot springs, wild weather patterns, fly fishing, climbing and hiking make the area very special.