Friday, September 24, 2010

"Can we please be accountable to the way in which Blacks travel the world as...

 
 

Sent to you by moya via Google Reader:

 
 

via maia medicine on 9/23/10

"Can we please be accountable to the way in which Blacks travel the world as tourists with the same or similar kinds of destructive manners/patterns as rich white people? Tourism in third world countries is another form of colonization. Beautiful portions of the country are often off limits to people indigenous to that country in order for hotels and resorts to be made available for tourists and the tourism economy. Traveling to someone else's home in search of peace of mind, relaxation or a deeper sense of self is the most colonial bullshit on the planet. Black Americans do this in Africa and the Caribbean, looking for a rugged, vacation lover to help them forget the woes of their lives. Please, please read Jamaica Kincaid's A Small Place for an amazing analysis of what tourism has done to Antigua. I don't travel to other people's countries to get free. I would never be so arrogant or disgustingly first world. I go home. Or I travel because I want to partner to make art and/or partake in activism that is led by those indigenous to the place I'm traveling to. Any Black person with the privilege and resources to travel to another country to find themselves, and who does this, is feeding into a racist and violent tourist economy."

- a dyke of a certain caliber: THE NAIJA ESSAY: Rhapsodizing on Black Americans' Cultural Appropriation of Nigerian & African Cultures

 
 

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