I’m Guilherme Soares Dias, journalist, entrepreneur and traveler. I’ll be here on Tuesdays in June to talk about black people in the world of travel. Let’s take advantage of this moment when the world is discussing racism to address the peculiarities that black travelers go through.
When I decided to go backpacking and went traveling around the world for a year, I realized that the number of people taking a sabbatical was very large. But I met very few black travelers along the way.
I also felt firsthand that being a black traveler has challenges that white people can’t even imagine. During the trip, I was approached by police officers on the streets of Venice and Jerusalem. At different borders where I passed, I was also searched and questioned a lot. Every time I went from one country to another I feared the processes I would go through.
I began to realize how peculiar it was to be a black person traveling. In Australia, I was ‘randomly’ chosen for a bomb test. These experiences were memorable on the trip. I realized how ‘different’ my presence was in some places. In more touristy restaurants, in hotels, in some monuments, there are only white people around.
One of the most terrible aspects of racism is that it puts us black people in bad statistics: a greater number of unemployed people, in prisons, on the streets, among others. And take us away from the positive statistics, such as people with degrees, in management positions and even traveling.
It may be difficult for non-black people to understand or capture all the subjectivities in this story, but it is important to understand that this happens and impacts black travelers in many ways.
In addition to the difficulties of overcoming statistics, we black people can and should dream of being travelers, digital nomads, tourists and visitors to places that can and should also be ours.
In fact, traveling with other black people and discovering more about our black history and culture is one of the ways we have found to carry out tourism that has to do with us and that values and includes us.
But this talk about ethnic tourism or afrotourism is on the agenda for next week.
Follow the projects:
• Guia Negro – the website
• Black Guide – Instagram
• Black Bird Viagens – agency website
• Black Bird Viagens – Instagram
