Credit: Kyla McMillan
Have you ever been in another country and thought, “Wow! This place is spectacular. It’d be so much more amazing with 200 more Black people though?” As an avid traveler, I get giddy when I see a community of like-minded, Black people abroad.
I love the Black travel movement. In fact, I live it. I support all of the amazing efforts to promote people of color seeing the world. What I can’t support is travel being used as yet another divide in our community.
The beauty of the Black travel movement is that it’s built on the idea that the world is ours, too—not for some of us, for all of us. We benefit as a community when our people get out and see the world. We should be uplifting and supporting each other so that more of us can indulge in travel. If we’re committed to Black travel—and we should be—then we need to consider how to help make it possible for more of us, rather than aiming to form elitist groups.
Fronting on yacht trips you’ll spend the next two years paying off is not what Black travel is about. Black travel is about the opportunity to broaden your horizons, to step outside of your comfort zone and learn about yourself in ways you’re not afforded at home. Let’s shift our focus from showing off to sharing our resources so that we can grow the community of Black travelers. Instead of bragging about our own passport stamps, let’s empower others to begin their own journeys. The world is ours—that’s what the Black travel movement is about. Let’s not lose sight of that.
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