{"id":10430,"date":"2023-09-29T17:14:32","date_gmt":"2023-09-29T21:14:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/?p=10430"},"modified":"2023-11-09T16:08:06","modified_gmt":"2023-11-09T21:08:06","slug":"toward-a-more-colorful-lineup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/issues\/fall-2023\/toward-a-more-colorful-lineup\/","title":{"rendered":"Changemakers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Toward a More Colorful Lineup<\/h1>\n\n\n
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Lauren Zane (left) and Juliet \u201cSatya\u201d Sullivan.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Graduate students and surfers Juliet \u201cSatya\u201d Sullivan and Lauren Zane want to see more women of color on the waves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lauren Zane watched the Matunuck, R.I., surf online from her home in California. It was pumping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was surfing within days of arriving in Rhode Island in the fall of 2021. That first day out was great\u2014a couple of guys were open to sharing their spot. It doesn\u2019t always go so smoothly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surfers share an understanding, a code: Respect each other and respect the ocean. But respect hasn\u2019t always extended to surfers of color. It\u2019s well documented that surfers of color have been targets of harassment and vandalism, friend and fellow surfer Juliet \u201cSatya\u201d Sullivan says. And newcomers to a lineup can face \u201csurf localism,\u201d a territorialism around surfing spots, adds Zane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHere in Rhode Island, you need someone to open the gate for you,\u201d Zane says. \u201cLocalism is real. Some guys think, \u2018They\u2019re gonna blow up my spot.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lauren Zane<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Zane is a Ph.D. student in the biological and environmental science program. She and Sullivan, a cinematographer pursuing her master\u2019s in marine affairs, are the co-founders of Colorful Lineup, an organization serving women-of-color surfers through online discussion, free surfing clinics, and gear redistribution. The organization\u2019s name reflects their vision of a future where, instead of being the only women of color in a lineup of surfers, they\u2019ll attract enough women to field a lineup of their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe wondered why we see certain people surfing, and why we don\u2019t see others. We talked about experiences we\u2019ve had in the water, and they were the same.\u201d
\u2013Lauren Zane<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea for Colorful Lineup grew out of a course Sullivan and Zane were in together\u2014MAF 500: Race, Gender, Colonialism, and Science\u2014taught by associate professor of marine affairs Amelia Moore. They were introduced to ideas about how imperialism and colonization influenced the development of science\u2014and how that\u2019s resulted in racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps in marine science, whose practitioners, historically, have been predominantly white.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The course got them thinking about the parallels between science and surfing. \u201cWe wondered why we see certain people surfing, and why we don\u2019t see others,\u201d Zane says. \u201cWe talked about experiences we\u2019ve had in the water, and they were the same.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve witnessed actual aggression,\u201d Sullivan adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pair started an Instagram account to celebrate women of color who surf and to talk about surfing in the context of income inequality, localism, coastal access, and structural racism. No one was talking about surfing in that context, Sullivan says. \u201cWe can show brown bodies in the water all we want but we want to offer a way for people to act.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  • \"\"
    Juliet “Satya” Sullivan<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li>
  • \"\"
    Satya Sullivan<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li>
  • \"\"
    Lauren Zane<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li>
  • \"\"
    Lauren Zane<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li>
  • \"\"
    Satya Sullivan<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
    <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
    The first and primary action is to get more women of color surfing, the pair says.<\/blockquote><\/div><\/section>\n\n\n

    Thus far, they\u2019ve started an Instagram series\u2014#WOCMakingWaves\u2014featuring fellow surfers such as Jessica Malia Vandenberg, Ph.D. \u201920, a postdoctoral research scholar at äçÐÄvlogÃâ·ÑBÕ¾ who is investigating how government solutions to plastic pollution perpetuate inequities and create new ones. And last spring, Colorful Lineup brought David Mesfin\u2019s multiple award-winning 2023 documentary Wade in the Water: A Journey into Black Surfing and Aquatic Culture<\/em>, to äçÐÄvlogÃâ·ÑBÕ¾\u2019s Narragansett Bay Campus. The film chronicles the 1,000-year-old tradition of Black surfing\u2014and the racism surfers of color have endured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Sullivan and Zane are optimistic and clear-eyed about the future of science and of surfing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cIt takes a long time to change a whole system,\u201d Zane says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u2014Marybeth Reilly-McGreen<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Photos: Top, Nora Lewis. All others, courtesy Lauren Zane and Satya Sullivan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Two grad students launched a nonprofit, Colorful Lineup, to bring more women of color to surfing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":10453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[322],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2023","architecture-changemakers","architecture-currents"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10430"}],"version-history":[{"count":63,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11553,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10430\/revisions\/11553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}