Having a Black face doing science,
doing adventure, leading an expedition,
learning something new, making a discovery
and normalizing that in the media
is going to normalize it in our societies.
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Hello, everyone.
I'm Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant, and I'm a large carnivore ecologist and
a National Geographic Explorer.
And I'm Dwayne Fields, speaker, polar expeditionist,
and recently featured in Nat Geo's series "Welcome to Earth."
Dwayne, thank you so much for joining me here on Disney+
Voices in celebration of Earth Month to discuss ecological
preservation and the importance of racial
diversity in the field of wildlife science.
I'm so excited.
I stopped everything else I had planned today
just to be here with you because this is so important.
I want to focus on you, Dwayne,
and I'm curious, what led you down the path
of polar exploration?
And can you talk to me a little bit
about how you found the meaning of life through that journey?
If you think back to when you were three,
four, five, six years old and the world was new
and everything was amazing, and you had this intrigue,
this innocence where you wanted to lift every single rock,
and you were just so inquisitive about the world,
and then something happens during puberty where you kind
of give that up because you want to please
everyone else around you.
That's exactly what I went through.
I was born in Jamaica where I had
all the freedoms and the freedom to explore
all the environments around me.
I moved to London when I was six years old.
And the moment I got to London, I realized how different I was.
I felt different.
In order to fit in, I just liked to say to things
that other people said and talk about the things
they spoke about, and like the things that they liked.
I carried on that pattern of behavior
all the way through my teens until one
day when an incident happened and actually a gun
was pulled on me.
Luckily, the gun jammed twice.
He pulled the trigger twice, it jammed both times.
But everyone around me was saying, you need to get him,
you need to do this, you need to--
and I thought, if I do go and try and get this person,
it's going to be that same six, seven, eight-year-old
kid trying to fit in and doing what everyone else wants to do.
The only thing I could think of was the only thing
I love doing was being outdoors, being in the wild,
being in the wilderness, climbing trees, swimming
in ponds, swimming in pools, wading through streams,
and I thought, well, I want to do that.
But how do I do that on a mature level?
And it led me down the path of opting to go to the North Pole.
And during my preparations for the North Pole,
I came across a man called Matthew Henson.
And Matthew Henson-- I don't know if you heard the name,
but--
Oh yes.
I know all about Matthew Henson.
Even National Geographic has a lot
of his history featured in their museums and in their archives.
So I used him and his experiences and I thought
to myself, 100 years ago, this guy with all the challenges
that we faced at the time-- and by "we,"
I mean Black people in general.
One, we didn't have the vote.
We couldn't ride the front of the bus.
And I thought, well, actually if he could walk to the Pole
then, surely in 2009, I could do it.
Tell me about you and your journey into wildlife
preservation and how your role as a National
Geographic Explorer came about.
Your story is so powerful, and mine is similar in just
a couple of ways.
I mean, I grew up as an urban Black kid in the inner city
with really wonderful parents who exposed me to a lot,
but not to the outdoors.
The outdoors was something that was really unknown to me.
And that is ironic because I was born in California.
I was born in San Francisco, California.
The state of California's full of biodiversity,
full of wildlife, full of natural areas
that are really easy to get to.
But I didn't know that.
To me, it was worlds away.
And I got exposed to nature through watching TV.
And I always loved watching nature shows.
And for so long, I would tell my teachers and my parents,
I want to be a nature show host when I grow up.
Because to me, the only job in nature was nature show host,
and I admired them so much.
Luckily, as I grew up, I became interested in science.
And as I became a college student,
I was able to realize, oh, you know what?
There's a science to all that I saw in those nature shows.
It wasn't just entertainment.
There is wilderness and wild animals
and wild places that are threatened,
and there's actually a science to saving those places
and saving those endangered species.
So very, very quickly, I was able to match-- Goodness.
That's what I want to do with my life.
But I had no experience in nature.
And so I signed up in college for a study abroad program.
It took me to the wilderness of Southern Kenya.
And that, on my very first day, is
where I saw my first wild animal, I took my first hike,
I pitched my first tent, and I met
my professors who were Black Kenyan wildlife ecologists.
And seeing other Black faces in a leadership sense
as wildlife professionals teaching this work really
allowed me to see myself having a future in this world.
Ever since that exact day--
I mean, I remember the day--
I have been studying wild animals,
following them all around the world,
and trying to figure out the science
behind keeping them alive.
What impact do you think being on a series
like "Welcome to Earth" has had on Black audiences
in particular, both adults and kids?
If you think about it, you've never
actually seen two Black leads in a series like this before.
So I think this is actually the first time it's happened,
which is, for me, awesome because there's
young people and old people out there looking at saying,
I never saw that before.
I think I can do that now.
It's possible.
It's been done.
There's a path to making it happen now.
And for us to come together and go on this epic adventure
and showcase these beautiful places and showcase
the human stories behind it, in my opinion,
the more we go out there, the more we're going to love it.
And the more we love it, the more we're
going to work to protect it.
It's good for your mental and emotional health
to be in nature.
It's good for your physical health with exercise.
It's good for your intellectual health
when you just learn something new.
There's all these ways that being outdoors is actually
a privileged space to be in, and it's
a type of justice and advocacy work
to get Black folks out there into those privileged spaces,
because why not?
And to be clear, we have a very rich history of being
stewards of the environment.
And so that's still within all of us.
So we are more attuned with nature than we think.
Yeah.
Over the years, what kind of difference
have you noticed in your field of ecology
for women in particular, and more specifically,
for women of color?
You know, that's a great question.
So my field as a wildlife ecologist doesn't require,
but it really kind of leans on academia.
And over the years, we've seen more and more
women, just in general, enroll in colleges,
go on to graduate school.
We've seen more women in the sciences.
And all of that actually kind of trickles down to seeing
more and more women in ecology.
And so it's a good thing.
We're not actually stuck.
There's been a lot of movement.
Although I'm still one of very few
Black female wildlife ecologists,
I'm not the only one.
So that gives me so much hope.
There's still so many barriers to women,
and especially women of color, and especially Black women
to become leaders in science.
You love what you do, and passion is contagious.
I want to be a wildlife ecologist now.
It is. It's contagious--
Yes, you do!
We actually need more people joining us
every day with ideas and plans and energy
and action and passion,
to your point, to join us out there so that we can solve
the Earth's problems, keep this beautiful globe spinning around
so that more people can explore it.
Which is actually a great segue into what
I want to ask you next.
On a personal scale, what does it mean to you
to have become the very first Black British person
to ever reach the North Pole?
That's monumental.
How does that feel?
Well, I don't actually want to be the first.
I don't want to be the only, I don't want to be the last.
I just want people to believe that anything they want to do,
they can do.
And the truth is if I'm the first,
that means for years ahead of me,
people didn't believe they could or there were so many
barriers that they didn't.
So it's bittersweet.
What types of barriers might you
have had to overcome to even reach
this important accomplishment?
I think the biggest barrier, Rae,
is not having a role model.
I didn't have anyone to talk to, I didn't
know how to tell my friends because it wasn't something
that people from my community did,
so I didn't feel confident going out and saying to my friends,
I want to go to the North Pole.
I wanted to be a role model.
I wanted to be somebody that someone
could look at and say, well, actually, if he can do it,
I can do it.
By me doing it, it wouldn't be so hard for the next person
is what I was trying to do.
The moment you overcome that challenge-- and oftentimes,
the challenge itself is the fear that you have for the thing
that you're about to do-- and the moment
you step over that boundary, you cross that line,
you go through that barrier, you feel
this sense of accomplishment.
What are your thoughts on the lack of Black representation
when it comes to science and the media around the world?
And what effects does a show like "Born Wild:
The Next Generation" have on bridging the gap,
specifically someone like yourself featured in it?
I feel a lot of rage, actually.
I get actually enraged when I look around and realize how
few Black folks have shown up in the science
and media space over time.
Because it perpetuates this idea that we are not scientists
or we can't be scientists or we're not
interested in science, and it also
trickles down to impact me personally
and other people like me.
I mean, sometimes when I show up to teach a class
at a university, we'll walk into the room
and the students will say, when is the professor getting here?
And that's because I walked in and I
definitely don't look like someone who
could teach them about science.
And the media--
I mean, I think we all know it.
I mean, anyone who has ever experienced any type of media
at all knows the power that it holds.
The media tells us what society is.
Having a Black face doing science,
doing adventure, leading an expedition,
learning something new, making a discovery
and normalizing that in the media
is going to normalize it in our societies.
And so I'm so thankful that National Geographic was
able to put together so many good Earth Day, Earth Month
programs.
And filming "Born Wild:
The Next Generation" was awesome.
It was honestly filming me doing what I do every winter.
So my normal field work with adorable, newborn baby bears
in their winter bear den, pulling them out of the den
for a little bit, checking on mama bear,
giving them a big check-up, having this amazing adventure.
To viewers, it shocked them.
Like, oh my gosh, you can be a scientist and do this?
And, oh my gosh, Black women do this?
Little do they know this is what I do all the time,
and it's available for everyone.
So the power of the media is really important to me,
and I am so dedicated to continuing
to show up and do that.
There are several historical examples
of where white men have taken credit for the work
that Black women have done.
What are your thoughts on underrepresentation
of accomplishments of Black women in particular?
Oh gosh.
You know, this is a very timely question
you're asking me because I have recently gone down
a pretty deep rabbit hole of learning about and giving
myself a self-education on hidden figures
in natural history.
And to your point, I mean, there are so many stories,
so many stories of Black folks being
erased from natural history, especially in America.
And I am thinking about taking it on personally and maybe
with some collaborators to really change that narrative,
to rewrite history and write it properly so we understand
the incredible contributions of Black folks
and, in particular, Black women, and other women of color
to natural history.
It's important for us to know the truth for us
to know who the real heroes are like, Harriet Tubman.
Did you know that she memorized bird calls and owl calls
in order to signal to different people messages
in the night to help them escape from slavery more safely?
Understanding our world history properly
and in a balanced and justified way
allows us to move forward more powerfully
and understand what we, especially
as Black women or women of color, are capable of.
Dwayne, this has been absolutely amazing.
Connecting with you today on all of these things
we're so aligned on, it has just been so empowering for me.
So thank you so much for this conversation.
Can't wait to talk again.
You're one of my favorite people as of now.
That's it.
Hands down.
So thank you so much, and thank you so much
for joining us on Disney+ Voices, and be
sure to watch "Born Wild:
The Next Generation" and "Welcome to Earth,"
now streaming on Disney+.
Happy Earth Month.
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