Community Profiles: Demiesha Dennis
We’re excited to launch our series of profiles from the fly fishing community, starting with a heart and mind dear to us, and a voice we all need to spend more time listening to: Miesha Dennis, founder of Brown Girl Outdoor World. Let’s get right to it:
Miesha: My mind has been resting for a bit so being in action mode is right, this is where I need to be and want to be right now. Let’s go.
Q: tell us a little bit about yourself and the identities you hold?
M: I am Miesha, a black woman identifying with she/her/hers pronouns and consider myself a voice in the outdoor community that has long been underrepresented and underheard. The conversation hasn’t been loud enough around it — so I’m here to take up space and hold it.
Q: what brought you to fly fishing?
M: Having interest in the sport itself and seeing TV shows and it looking like an art form, wondering why I wasn’t seeing myself or people that looked like me in this sport. Then realizing that fly fishing was super elite and exclusive.
Q: can you talk more about where that feeling comes from?
M: There’s a lot of elitist imagery: I was looking at the actual Trout Unlimited page a while back and again, love seeing strides and groups stepping forward, but there was a picture of a group of fly fishers going on a trip and it was just a bus full of white men, older white men, and that picture actively jarred me, caused me to pause and ask myself where that emotion came from. That picture showed what the fly fishing community was thought of, and who belonged in it..
Q: what do you get from being on the water to keep you fighting?
M: Besides the bite at the end of my line?!
One of biggest inspirations is my daughter; I want her to see there is space there for her as well and I’m holding the space until she is ready to get out there. Right now, her angling is towards bass, and she’s agreed to get out there for trout this June when the season opens up, and I’m getting her a fly rod for her birthday. I’m so excited.
I want to create the representation I wasn’t seeing, and I knew by actively engaging and being seen, I’d get opportunities to have these conversations and have people hear me. I’m no longer hiding behind the sport itself. Being on the water reminds me of what possibilities exist for her outside of what society tries to tell her.
Q: what word would you use to describe how you feel you fall within the fly fishing community?
M: I’m gonna go back to representation. That is the biggest piece I can offer right now, represent what I want fly fishing to look like and where I want conversation to start going around the need for others to see themselves reflected in it.
Q: in what ways do you hold privilege/power? And in what ways have you experienced oppression and or marginalization?
M: I’ll speak to privilege first: I feel like I hold privilege in actually being able to afford the sport of fly fishing, afford to purchase equipment, waders, materials to tie flies. Even just being able to afford the sport itself and what it entails is a privilege.
I hold the privilege of having found a community to help me enjoy the sport more; some people don't even know there’s a community of women to grow with and learn from, to support each other in this work. It’s a huge benefit.
Speaking to oppression/marginalization and my experience through my journey into fly fishing: if I’m being honest, I wouldn’t say I haven’t experienced this in just fly fishing. I experienced it as a Black woman in various settings. I’ll speak to an incident last week when I went into a Canadian outdoor store and just as everything was starting to happen in the US, there were two customers and two sales associates talking. The conversations were around the protests and protesters and criticizing them. The sales associates saw me enter the store, and continued the conversation without pause, no acknowledgment and still had to wait for them to finish their conversation to receive, reluctant service.
The lack of acknowledgement as a woman, as being a Black woman, being a person who can tie and engage in fly fishing, was hurtful.
Q: what keeps you going/what refills your energy?
M: Just being able to take a break from what is my normal and getting out on the river. That has been an amazing blessing to me since COVID started, and living within proximity to a river — I can walk to the river within 4min from my home — being able to pick up my fly rod and go is incredible.
It also helps me draw attention to these kinds of places being accessible in the city of Toronto. And to have people ask me questions, how they can too get into fly fishing. I love having kids come up and be curious.
Q: what are some things you’re tired of saying, but find yourself repeating?
M: That I belong. That this is for us as well.
It’s tiring to constantly advocate for yourself to be in a space, to be heard and seen in that space. I understand this conversation is new in fly fishing, and I do want to have conversations around a change of space instead of just a conversation about the space.
Q: what’s your call in to our community right now?
M: Move to action: we’ve talked about it long enough. I’ll use TU as an example of that: there was a massive callout last year, based on imagery around their Diversity Initiative using one white woman as imagery of the work. Based just on this imagery, it was a total show of disrespect. Who are you talking to? Where are the conversations going that you’re having?
It’s like a bird flying in a circle: if you keep doing the same thing and never move beyond it you’ll get nowhere and you’ll die. And what a limited view to only see perspective from your circle.
Q: I love you. Thank you for taking the time to repeat yourself, use your voice, and be the leadership-by-action we all need in fly fishing. Is there anything else you’d like to share?
M: just to say that the white voice carries the conversation forward; it needs to be used to repeat our message. Yes we are listening to and seeing the call to action from allies, seeing a greater call for alliship, a call for alliship in boardroom meetings, in leadership — in every sector, we need to see ourselves represented. And it requires white people to talk about it.
And just another call to allyship from nonblack and other POC communities — show that you too do care and want to carry that conversation.
Please follow Demiesha’s leadership and work on her Instagram and Facebook pages for Brown Girl Outdoor world, and tune in for She Said What She Said, hosted on Instagram Live every Monday.
With the reflection and learning this piece may offer, consider donating to the many black and POC-led organizations working towards inclusive outdoor spaces.
If you’d like to directly support Miesha and Brown Girl Outdoor World, contribute here.
Community Profiles will be an ongoing series of interviews, stories, and resources from the greater Confluence Collective and fly fishing community. We will focus on themes of Conservation + Science, Community, and Education, and explore these through the voice and perspective of those featured.
We encourage readers to view these pieces as a means of inspiring curiosity, reflection, perspective shifting and understanding in light of the Black Lives Matter social justice movement, and will be celebrating the joy and healing power of fly fishing that must be available to everyone. Join us here to continue dialogue, and hold yourself accountable to action in your life and community.
If you have a story to tell and would like support getting it out there, please be in touch: us@confluencecollective.org