MeatEater

[JFC1]

People make a variety of interesting points here, as do both Rinellas. However, I don't see how Steve R is being an "SJW."  At the same time, I agree that the 14th Amendment is not about counting up the number of ever-more specific identity categories and assuring they're always represented equally, mathematically. That's a pretty hamfisted technique for making things equal. Yet I don't think that's the point SR is making--he makes a good historical point in writing,  

"I became a hunter because my father was a hunter. Everyone isn’t that lucky. Following the Civil War, we enacted aggressive legislation and policy that was deliberately intended to dissuade African Americans from hunting. If you want to pretend this can’t be true, go read “Hunting and Fishing In the New South: Black Labor and White Leisure after the Civil War” by Scott Giltner. With their personal hunting networks severed in the past, does that mean African Americans should be discouraged from taking a seat at the table now? And what about Native Americans, who were removed from their ancestral hunting grounds many generations ago? "

So if American history includes the direct banning and prosecution of certain groups for hunting or carrying a gun (see Southern Hunting in Black and White by Anthony Marks), then how are we gonna expect dads and grandfathers to lead kids of all groups into hunting today? Or do we not want that? 

Congrats to Matt Rinella for welcoming hunting trespassers onto his land. I wouldn't have the generosity to do that, unless the Rinellas have more more land than I can imagine.

One of the most perceptive points Steve makes is when he says, " When we do a high-profile purchase of a property to support a hunting mentorship program, maybe we’re displacing a family who’s already been doing the quiet job of hunter recruitment on that place for generations." Good point. The hunting guru who lives in Brooklyn becomes an unwitting rural gentrifier in MI's failing family farm regions by trying to support deer hunting? I never thought of that.  It's not about race or gender. It's about money and class and the position of independent farmers in the US today. 

Maybe all the above is why or a result of the fact that Rinella is such a good hunter, and communicator--he thinks about all the angles. Not all work out, but he thinks about them. I respect him even more.

[JFC1]

On 3/27/2021 at 9:30 PM, Haskell_Hunter said:

The moral of this story, IMHO, is that education quashes ignorance.  Most people who are anti-gun and anti-hunting are that way largely due to ignorance.  Once you start educating yourself, things often look very different than from an ignorant stance (a magical things called "tolerance" also comes from educating yourself).

Thank you, Haskell_Hunter. 

[Haskell_Hunter]

2 hours ago, JFC1 said:

People make a variety of interesting points here, as do both Rinellas. However, I don't see how Steve R is being an "SJW."  At the same time, I agree that the 14th Amendment is not about counting up the number of ever-more specific identity categories and assuring they're always represented equally, mathematically. That's a pretty hamfisted technique for making things equal. Yet I don't think that's the point SR is making--he makes a good historical point in writing,  

"I became a hunter because my father was a hunter. Everyone isn’t that lucky. Following the Civil War, we enacted aggressive legislation and policy that was deliberately intended to dissuade African Americans from hunting. If you want to pretend this can’t be true, go read “Hunting and Fishing In the New South: Black Labor and White Leisure after the Civil War” by Scott Giltner. With their personal hunting networks severed in the past, does that mean African Americans should be discouraged from taking a seat at the table now? And what about Native Americans, who were removed from their ancestral hunting grounds many generations ago? "

So if American history includes the direct banning and prosecution of certain groups for hunting or carrying a gun (see Southern Hunting in Black and White by Anthony Marks), then how are we gonna expect dads and grandfathers to lead kids of all groups into hunting today? Or do we not want that? 

Congrats to Matt Rinella for welcoming hunting trespassers onto his land. I wouldn't have the generosity to do that, unless the Rinellas have more more land than I can imagine.

One of the most perceptive points Steve makes is when he says, " When we do a high-profile purchase of a property to support a hunting mentorship program, maybe we’re displacing a family who’s already been doing the quiet job of hunter recruitment on that place for generations." Good point. The hunting guru who lives in Brooklyn becomes an unwitting rural gentrifier in MI's failing family farm regions by trying to support deer hunting? I never thought of that.  It's not about race or gender. It's about money and class and the position of independent farmers in the US today. 

Maybe all the above is why or a result of the fact that Rinella is such a good hunter, and communicator--he thinks about all the angles. Not all work out, but he thinks about them. I respect him even more.

Discerning between right and wrong means considering everything else in between.