Educating ourselves to the ways of the world — and the knowledge that the rest of the world isn’t all the same as America when it comes to racism — is a major reason why black Americans need to travel.
This Sunday, I have Trayvon Martin on my mind.
To a lot of people, the death of this young man, and the acquittal of his killer under Florida’s “stand your ground” law, is cause for outrage, yet another pointed reminder that Breathing While Black is seen in some quarters as a crime, punishable by death.
For me, it’s yet another reminder of why black Americans need to travel.
One of the more thoughtful and readable black American travel bloggers is Ernest White II, aka Fly Brother. His most recent writing states out loud what more than a few of “us” have been thinking:
“No matter how many languages I speak, how many countries I’ve been to, how many degrees I have, how many classes I’ve taught, how many non-black friends I have, I am part of the same pariah class as you, demonized because of my skin color and feared because of my potential – for violence as well as greatness.”
You can read the rest of his post at fly-brother.com…and you should.
It’s said that we live today in the Information Age. The reality for black Americans is that we have been continually living in a Misinformation Age, a Disinformation Age, and most of all, an Information Deprivation Age. We know little of our own history, and even less about the world around us.
In a world and an age in which knowledge more than ever equals power, these gaps in our learning amount of a cavernous abyss. The way out of that abyss is education, but we can’t rely on mainstream schools — public, private or charter — to do that job.
Whether we like it or not, we have to educate both ourselves and our offspring. Luckily, we have two powerful tools for that.
The first is the one you’re using right now, the Internet. The other is travel. A combination of the two could well be the most powerful educational device ever created.
There’s no academic subject on Earth that can’t be studied, practiced, tutored and mastered via the Web.
The second is travel. What you can’t learn from reading, listening to lectures or watching videos, you can learn through your own observations and interacting with other people in other cultures.
Through travel, you can see for yourself what the rest of the world is like, how you are perceived in that world and how those perceptions came to be.
You will see that you are not automatically perceived and treated in the same way in other countries as you are in the United States.
You could learn that in many ways, the US is not the world’s be-all and end-all.
You also could learn that, for all its many and egregious flaws, there is much in this country that we can and should appreciate, that a lot of the things we take for granted here would be considered blessings elsewhere.
At the same time, it could give you something to think about when you consider where you want to spend your retirement or bring up your children.
It’s a question that, for many of us, never quite goes away. And with every Amadou Diallo, every Oscar Grant, every Michael Donald, James Byrd and Trayvon Martin, that question reverberates a little louder in the back of the mind.
We think about it. We talk about it. We wonder. But we don’t know what’s possible. And if you never travel, there’s really no way you can know.
The United States may be the only world you know, but it’s not the whole world, not even close. It’s not even all there is to America.
You’ll notice that throughout this post, I haven’t once referred to the US as “America.” Americans of all shades habitually talk about “America” as if the United States were the only “America” there is.
But just as Africa is not a country, neither is America. It’s not even one continent. It’s two, and it doesn’t all belong to the US.
By rights, the song “America the Beautiful” could apply just as readily to Brazil or Colombia or Panama.
We’re not even the only “United States” in America. The full official title of Mexico is “los Estados Unidos Mexicanos.” The United Mexican States.
One of many little pieces of information that all my K-12 teachers — and probably all of yours — somehow neglected to pass on.
This world that our children will inherit is more globally inter-connected, inter-dependent and globally competitive than any in history. To have a chance to compete in that world, to find their rightful place in it, and to better enable them to shape their own destinies, they need to become full-fledged citizens of that world.
The more you know and understand about what’s out there, the less likely you are to feel “stuck” here.
Cross-posted from I’m Black and I Travel
Photos via shutterstock.com