I wish I had a dollar for every time I started describing a recent trip of mine and got this question in response:
“Did you see any black folks there?”
After awhile, you almost start feeling like a guest on some sort of ethnocentric version of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom:
[NARRATOR, whispering]: “While Marlin waits upstream, Greg ventures out of his hotel in search of the rare and elusive Dark-Skinned North American Humanoid—”
This is fear, the dread that wells up in folks who’ve yet to venture outside their cultural comfort zones.
There are travel agencies, trip organizers and Internet travel groups who appeal to that very trait in the trips they organize for folks, getting them out and about while keeping them psychologically secure at the same time.
The roots of all that fear are understandable. When you’ve been conditioned by life to view the world in a certain way, it makes you wary of stepping outside the box, even if the air inside is sometimes dank with things like racism, intolerance, condescension.
There is something in us human beings that makes us cling to the familiar over the unknown, no matter how ugly the familiar may be.
It’s what leads folks so often to look upon explorers, adventurers and free thinkers as being at least mildly insane.
I may understand that fear and sympathize with those who have it, but I don’t share it. For me, seeing places and meeting people who don’t look, talk, think or act like me is one of the reasons I travel — and love travel — in the first place.
Nothing, including the human spirit, grows well inside a box. As my friend Shay Olivarria is fond of saying, “The world is bigger than your block!”
The reality is is simple: “We” are everywhere. Have been for a long time.
How long? Long enough for there to have been black mariachis in Mexico and black samurai in feudal Japan.
So when I travel, I’m not looking for touchstones from the “old country,” human or otherwise. If I wanted everything and everyone to be just like home, I’d stay home.
I mean, why would you shell out painful airfares and suffer the ravages of jet lag to fly halfway around the world, only to end up going to McDonald’s for lunch?
Wait a minute…I’ve done that. Never mind!
(Actually, it wasn’t a McDonald’s. It was a mini-market at a Shell gas station in the 6th arrondissement in Paris. It was close, I was hungry, and where else in the world will you find a gas station with quiche to die for?)
But as I said, for those new, hesitant would-be travelers out there, there are touring support systems available. I’ve listed a few of them below. A fuller search of the Web will yield many more. I’ve never used and don’t endorse any of them, but if you’re curious, check them out for yourself and see what you think.
If you’re inclined to actually use one, check them out thoroughly before you shell out any money — references, the Better Business Bureau, the works. Ask questions, lots of questions, and don’t commit yourself until you’re satisfied with the answers. This goes for any travel service you use, online or off, black-owned or not.
It’s your trip and your money.
Anyway, here’s the list:
Black Cruise Week
First came across this on AOL Black Voices. It’s actually part of a black travel newsletter that includes multiple categories of travel. We’ll talk more about cruises in a latter episode.
Black Refer.com
And it’s “refer,” NOT “reefer,” so don’t even go there! They have an extensive list of black travel sites, music and cultural festivals, and online travel guides oriented for the African-American traveler. One of those sites is—
Soul of America
An online guide for African-American travel inside and outside the United States, with information everything from beach trips and heritage tours to black towns.
Whether you go as an independent traveler as I would, or hook up with a group, the point is to go. It’s your world. Shouldn’t you have a look at it?
See you upstream.