CHELSEA WOODY
PHOTO: JASON ZULLO
Some may feel diversity in surfing is a minuscule concern compared to other issues of injustice that are being addressed today. How does surfing fit in with the larger racial justice movement? I think the lack of diversity in surfing on the mainland is an extension of the structural racism that we have in this country—when you think about water spaces and who “belongs” in those spaces. It may seem very minuscule to somebody who doesn’t live in that world of generational restriction. But for example, if your grandparents were told that they cannot hang out at a certain beach or swim in a certain place, that gets passed down and it takes generations to undo that. Surfing is a broader visual of what systemic racism touches, and I would suggest that systemic racism touches all aspects of our daily lives. How is surfing a platform for creating change? I think social activism comes in many different forms, and with surfing, I feel like localism reflects some of the structural racism that this country has kind of been built on. If we just look back 60 to 70 years ago during Jim Crow and beach segregation and access to water—that has played a big role in what we see in outdoor spaces today and, specifically, beaches and surfing. I think that surfers tend to be environmentalists because they love the ocean and care how the environment is treated, but you have to open up that space to get more people on board with protecting it by letting them have a connection to it as well. And I think if you don’t have examples of folks that look like you in a space, you have a hard time imagining yourself in those places or achieving those things. How can the Santa Cruz community improve when it comes to issues of race in surfing? Of course, when we look through the pages of Santa Cruz Waves, it’s a lot of the same people and imagery being recycled. Maybe there can be some involvement with groups working on diversity, like The Wahine Project, Brown Girl Surf, and City Surf Project—there are a lot of groups in the Bay Area working on this. Also, I understand that waves are in limited supply and the thought of having more people in the lineup is cringeworthy, but the access to outdoor spaces is for everyone, and we have to learn to share that space. I think we have to let go of the idea that a space belongs to a particular person or group of people.
PHOTO: NICK LAVECCHIA
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