Color the Water - Deepenings of Care

Green space, park access, and trees

County of Los Angeles (select only if your project has a countywide benefit) City of Los Angeles (select only if your project has a citywide benefit) Other

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

Surfing, though slightly more diversified than when we started in 2020, hasn't undergone any cultural paradigm shift or systemic change. It is still suffering from a legacy of colonialism and white supremacy. It still covertly oppresses and excludes the already oppressed. It has changed its appearance, but carries the same character. Recent studies have shown that Black people have gotten more surf lessons than other groups, but still make up a minuscule portion of those who would consider surfing a core part of their lives. It makes sense. It is far, expensive, and though it was invented by melanated folks all over the world, it is whitewashed. We are here to continue to resist that. To offer surf space that is about personal attention and care, not performance. To look critically at how the characteristics of white supremacy have infused themselves into surfing, and found more and more covert ways to harm us. And, to center joy as nourishment for the oppressed, that we may get free.

Decolonizing Surf Support: through Surf support that is intentional about it's unsubscribe from white supremacy, we offer instruction in ways that reject ableism, patriarchy, racism, sexism, homophobia, and every other facet of harmful forms of oppression. We are not perfect in this, but we are constantly looking at our approach and modifying it to center the most vulnerable. Our surf support is either individual or small group and is designed to honor the many aversions that People of Color carry. This is our core offering.
Education/Learning Space: through a combination of conversations, writing, courses, and facilitated community space, we will continue to critically analyze surfing so that we can name as many of the ways it's been colonized as we can find. This naming is an important step that we must take if we are going to decolonize.
Art/Media/Storytelling: surfing at its origins was a spiritual indigenous practice that reviewed nature, communal harmony, and celebration as its core values. We hope to embody this practice and share our messages through various forms of media.
Innovation: Part of the colonization of surfing is its current design. Wetsuits are made from a chemical that leaves a legacy of cancer for many people of color. Foam and fiberglass or materials derived from war technology. We are committed to finding alternative ways of enjoying surfing that do not continue to harm the Earth in the ways that we've inherited it.

We will be able to continue a specific kind of work in this BIPOC surf space that we believe is lacking. As deep, and as far as we have searched, we cannot seem to find any other groups that are looking at surfing and hoping to redesign it with aspects of genuine liberation philosophies. The words that we use are often in popular conversation. However, what we have found is that though there are more people of color surfing, the culture hasn't changed. We can still be people of color and surf in a white supremacist way and we are here to do our part to make sure that there is a space and a voice that seeks to truly dismantle that system of oppression in this green space. As long as we can keep doing this, the people of Los Angeles have a chance to surf as a form of genuine resistance. We can modify the way we teach into curriculum. We can work with our partners to make what suits and boards that do less harm. We can keep radical hope that our collective liberation as possible.