A Hunting Trip Murder

They didn’t believe me. And then it happened.

When I opened my email that day, I had to pinch myself. I couldn’t believe it. The MeatEater, Steven Rinella, was emailing me! I had just written a story about being an adult-onset hunter for another public figure in the food world I deeply admired, Anthony Bourdain.

That experiences was bonkers, but somehow this email from Steven Rinella’s group was even more unbelievable. The article I wrote for Part’s Unknown — Hunting While Black — had made its way through various channels and grabbed the attention of the only hunting program on TV that I could stand to watch (Most hunting shows are really poor quality and play up the aspects of mainstream hunting culture I dislike; trophy hunting, settler ecologies, and of course, white patriarchy and capitalism).

But that day the MEATEATER folks reached out and wanted to talk about me potentially being on their podcast. I’ll talk more about the steady decline of that relationship in next week’s newsletter, but where things began to go sideways was early on in my phone conversation with the man himself, Steven Rinella.

If I’m being honest, I’m still kind of shook that someone with such a huge platform and following took the time to talk to me on the phone.

I’m paraphrasing from memory here:

Steven: “So, something about what you wrote I’m having trouble with. You write about being afraid to hunt on public land because you’re worried about being shot by racist white people.”

Me: “Yes”

Steven: “Right, so I don’t want to speak for your experience, but I just found this part hard to take. Like, do you have statistics on how many times that’s happened? Because I can’t think of any examples where, anyone has been maliciously shot by another hunter.”

Me: “Well, it wasn’t malicious, but didn’t Dick Cheney just shoot someone in the face with a shotgun? I can’t think of a racist incident where a Black hunter was killed by a white hunter, but there are plenty of instances of Black people being killed by white people. Here in WV, two Black men who had just bought a property were murdered by their white neighbor who suspected the Black men of trespassing on his land. He shot them from his house and then called the police.”

I don’t recall much of the rest of the conversation, but I remember feeling that Steven wasn’t convinced by my argument. A few years later, he confirmed my impression of our conversation when he referenced our conversation in his interview with Rue Mapp on the MeatEater podcast.

I never appeared on the MeatEater podcast, though I was contacted by one of the other podcasts they put out after the host, Ben O’Brien, interviewed the brilliant Carolyn Finney about race and the outdoors. The MeatEaters clearly wanted to talk about race, but in a way that recognized my concerns or the concerns of Dr. Finney or Rue about anti-Black violence in hunting and the outdoors.

And then, the nightmare scenario every Black person in America tries to avoid every day of our lives happened to a Black person in the outdoors.

**

In early morning of December 12, 2021, Peter Spencer, a 29 year old father-to-be, was shot to death at a hunting camp he was invited to by a white former co-worker. According to the four membersof the group, all of whom were white, Spencer started “acting crazy” after taking hallucinogenic mushrooms and firing off his AK-47. He was “beyond reason” and threatening to shoot them, allegedly, so his co-worker shot him nine times in self-defense.

The surviving members of that trip were detained by police, but released shortly after giving their statements. No charges were filed. No investigation was initiated.

The Venango county police department and DA’s office declined to investigate the incident for weeks until Spencer’s killing made national news. Ultimately, the killers were not charged with any crime and the shooting was ruled justified self-defense.

There’s so much about how this incident mirrors so much of what I hate about this country, but what I want to talk about in this week’s post is what something like this means to a Black adult-onset hunter.

One of my first emotions in hearing about this story was vindication. Yes, I know, I feel disgusted that I felt this, but it’s true. Part of me felt vindicated in my writing and feelings about maintaining my sense of paranoia about where and who I hunt with.

I wanted to email MeatEater back and say, “see you clown-ass mf-ers! This is what the f*ck I’m talking about! Do you believe us now?! Do you understand what I was talking about now?! I literally told you this is what I was afraid of, and then it literally happened! What more do you need to see?!”

Then again, if Kirk Herbsteit’s crocodile tears of racial awakening couldn’t convince them that racism is alive and well in the 2020’s, then nothing will.

Steven Rinella wasn’t going to be swayed by any email I would send explaining Peter Spencer’s murder as indicative of the racial hostility many Black hunters feel/experience, so why spend time worrying about convincing him or his homies?

And as I came to accept that fleeting and morally bankrupt sense of vindication, a deep sense of guilt set in. That sense of guilt has kept me from writing about Spencer’s murder for two and a half years. I didn’t want to feel like I was using his murder and the pain his family will always feel in a way that was disrespectful to his life or the way he died.

Quite frankly, I don’t know that this post is innocent of doing just that, but my thoughts on the context of Peter Spencers murder is something that I feel I need to share.

I don’t trust most people. Not immediately and not with my personal safety. I might get got, but I, like most people, work hard to avoid getting got because of misplaced trust in someone else.

So when it comes to hunting on private land, I have a thorough vetting process for the white people whose land I wish to hunt on. This process is proprietary (if you want to know, become a Patreon member and I might tell you), so I’m not going to share it here, but rest assured, my process is always at work.

There are simply too many ways for my race to be the reason I end up dead for me not to be aware of my surroundings at all times.

Another complicated feeling I have towards Peter Spencer is anger. I’m also not proud of this feeling, but it’s the kind of anger one has towards someone who suffers terrible consequences for a decision they could have easily avoided. That anger also comes from knowing you’ve probably made a similarly unwise choice without suffering mortal consequences.

We’ve all chosen to be around people we shouldn’t have been around, but most of the time it doesn’t end in us being shot to death.

“What were you thinking Peter?! Why would you trust this co-worker?! Why did you agree to go on this trip with people you didn’t know with no way to leave on your own, on land you weren’t familiar with?!”

There are likely reasonable answers to these questions I will never know, but given how things turned out, I’m just so sad to the point of rage that someone/thing didn’t intervene to change the outcome.

Also, I don’t believe one bit of the account of the people who were there, the people who killed Spencer. There is no incentive for any white person in America to admit they killed a Black person for any reason other than “I felt threatened and so I shot them”. And in a country where you’re more likely to win the lottery than to be prosecuted for a killing a Black person in “self-defense”, what better opportunity to kill a Black person than on a hunting trip with your buddies?

These white folks expect us to believe that a Black man brought magic mushrooms and an illegal AK-47 to his first hunting trip in rural western PA, where he was the only Black person around? And then he just went berserk, pointed his gun at the white folks, didn’t shoot at them, but was enough of threat that he had to be shot himself…three times in the buttocks and six other times including the face and back.

I have never, in my life, met a Black person that naive about white folks. 

As the old folks used to say, “I was born at night, not last night”.

Not. Ever. In. My. Life. And I’d be willing to bet none of you have either. Not even Candice Owens would do something like this.

I have, however, met several white people who I thought were capable of killing a Black person if they thought they could get away with it. And we all have witnessed dozens of examples of white people killing Black people and getting away with it. When was the last time you saw someone tripping off shrooms that needed to be shot?

To be a Black adult-onset hunter comes with an entire set of considerations that white hunters don’t have to deal with. Every hunter is required to take a hunter safety course, but for Black hunters I feel like there should be a FIREARMS AND WHITE PEOPLE safety course.

Then again, Philando Castile tried to do the right thing and ended up being executed in front of his girlfriend and daughter. It’s almost as if Black people are subject to a different set of rules that include any white person may use any means necessary to secure their sense of safety including killing a Black person who makes them feel threatened in any way.

But these mf-ers had the nerve to question the legitimacy of my concerns of being in mortal danger simply for being a Black firearm owner. I guess they never heard of John Crawford.

After I wrote the Hunting While Black article for Parts Unknown, I got a lot of invitations from white people to come hunting with them as a thanks for me helping to open their eyes to a different perspective.

Did I accept any of these gracious and most likely sincere invitations?

I was even offered free merch from a beard grooming company as a thanks for my article. The owner seemed nice and his company looked legit, but I never followed up on his offer because he wanted me to send him my home address.

Yeah, that’s a hell naw my white homie. You’re probably an okay guy, but I’m not about to make it easy for someone who really doesn’t like what I wrote to come find me and my family.

And this whole line of thinking, this exercise in not getting got, is something that just doesn’t enter the mind of the white hunter. I know because one of the most common responses I’ve gotten from my article, including every single person I’ve talked to from MeatEater is some version of, “wow, I never thought about hunting that way.”

Thank goodness for organizations like Hunters of Color who are creating spaces for Black, Indigenous, and other non-white folks to build safe community around the practice of hunting.

HOC has even taken on The MeatEater folks after a member of the later organization wrote an incredibly stupid article against the idea of broadening participation of hunters. That someone was Matt Rinella, Steven Rinella’s brother. Surprise!

When I started researching firearms and hunting equipment to learn more about the things I needed to become a hunter, the ads I was shown online changed. Suddenly I became a target for the NRA, concealed carry accessories, and right-wing 2nd amendment propaganda. I had very clearly stepped into a world explicitly governed by a culture of whiteness and white supremacy, and, like so many other spaces in this country, I felt unwelcome and unsafe.

Steven Rinella and his buddies love to talk about the need to create space for more types of people to get into hunting. They write about it and talk about it, or, at least they did when writing and talking about such things was safer. Of the hundreds of podcast episodes since 2021, they’ve not had one, not a single episode, where they bring in Black or Indigenous folks to talk explicitly about race.

In my follow up to the Hunting While Black article — Notes from an Angry Black Hunter — I talk about the responsibility white people have in understanding the landscape of hunting as racist. And if white people brand themselves as ambassadors of hunting culture — like the MeatEater folks do — then they must come to terms with whiteness while (and really before) they begin to effectively build community with hunters of color.

Is Hunting Too White?

Is water wet?

**

Peter Spencer was killed in a county less than 200 miles from where I used to live. In the nearly ten years I lived in Morgantown, WV and visited Pittsburgh, it’s not completely farfetched that his path crossed mine at some point. Some part of my feelings about his murder consists of a small measure of guilt for not doing more, in whatever butterfly effect way, to disrupt the path his life was on.

Those white folks killed that young man. He trusted them to take him hunting and they killed him. I’m a Black man who was curious about hunting, has had the privilege to learn in safe environments with good mentors and friends, who now writes about and is building a business around this practice.

Could I have done something, anything that would have impacted Peter Spencer’s consciousness such that he didn’t end up being shot to death by strangers, never to meet his child growing in his fiancee’s womb?

I know it’s irrational, but when you’re Black and someone dies because of their Blackness, doing something you do on a regular basis, this is the sort of thinking you do to cope with the insanity of racism. At least it’s something I do.

I know it’s not reasonable to feel personally responsible for Peter Spencer’s murder, but I do…a little. If I don’t use his death to do more to create safe spaces for Black hunters, who else is going to look out for future Peter Spencers?

The MeatEaters are done with this conversation. We’re all we’ve ever had or will have. Peter Spencer got got on my watch. I should have done more.

RIP good sir.

I wish I had known you well enough to invite you to go hunting with me.

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This isn’t a video from my channel, but an episode with Rue Mapp and one of the MeatEater crew. It’s dope because Rue is dope. Check it out.

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Here’s some levity after all this heavy and depressing stuff. For Patreon members, the first bonus video will be out this month. This is exclusive content for members, so if you’re interested in supporting my work and hearing some unfiltered thoughts on the MeatEater folk’s foray into race relations then sign up to be a member today!

Wild Food Update

Let’s get sh*t done!

Filled the back of the SUV with buckets of goat manure compost for this year’s garden. The work for a more robust harvest begins now!

Recommendation

Take yourself to pound town.

My wife asked for this handheld massager for Christmas after using the her sister had and swore by. It’s intense, but in the best way possible. Just the other day I had done a fair amount of walking and playing basketball in the driveway and my achilles and right calf were quite unhappy.

A good ten minutes with this baby and I was feeling so much better. My leg was loose and I no longer felt like my next step might result in a ruptured tendon. Seriously, one of my biggest injury fears is a torn achilles.

The Hypervolt Go 2 is a good buy. Sturdy, simple, compact, and powerful. Love this thing!

Business Update

My MacBook Air has reached its limit.

A few years ago, I bought one of the new MacBook Airs with Apples new M1 silicone chip. It was, and still is, a marvel of technology at an affordable price. I bought the base model and, until starting an online content business, have never wanted for anything more.

But more workflow has begun to seriously bog down to the point of extreme frustration. Final Cut Pro routinely stalls out or crashes, while simply tasks like exporting photos to other programs returns error messages do to the lack of memory.

I’m done.

And that makes me said, because this computer does everything I need it to, except smooth video editing. If my business consisted of this newsletter only, then I’d be set. If you’re in the market for a new everyday personal laptop, then the base model MacBook Air is a perfect buy no matter what M generation you choose.

I wouldn’t spec one up with more RAM or HD space. If you need more RAM chances are you need a computer for tasks that the air wasn’t meant to perform.

Anyways, I plan to purchase a base model Mac Mini M2 Pro this week and use this new computer as my primary business tool. I’ll be sad to trade in my MacBook Air, but I’ll put the trade in money to good use and buy a new action camera from DJI. Just in time for another epic fishing trip with my dad down in the Gulf of Mexico. We’re going out for red snapper and I can’t wait!

Thanks for reading this week’s newsletter!

-Jonathan