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Travel is about creating conversations, about looking beyond one’s self, about freely moving out of one’s comfort level with a spirit of curiosity, and about the willingness to connect with people from different cultures.
As travelers, we are global citizens and the history we learn while traveling is more impactful than the lessons we remember from history books.
I don’t believe in bringing politics into my business. However, today I’m sharing this message with you because it is not a political issue, it’s a human rights issue.
Until yesterday, I’ve been quiet about the current situation taking place across the USA. To be honest, I’ve been absolutely heartbroken to see someone lose their life, beg for their life, leaving spectators both horrified and ultimately helpless – watching with the inability to stop it.
I feel stunned. Hurt. Speechless. Above everything else, I feel absolutely and utterly helpless.
And despite the angst I’ve felt and the tears I’ve shed, my feelings can never compare to those who’ve experienced injustice and pain time and time again, with nowhere to turn to for help.
Who do we turn to when the people that are supposed to be helping us aren’t stopping something so terribly wrong. How can they stand there and watch? Perhaps they’re just as stunned as everyone else, also feeling helpless. However, we look to them in our time of need and count on them for help.
But, what do we do when they don’t help? Who do we turn to, more importantly, who do people of color, turn to for help?
I’m reminded of my parent’s downstairs neighbor in Los Angeles.
My parents are subjected to his racist remarks on a daily basis. Interactions with him are so terrifying that I can’t even visit my parents because it’s so difficult to experience his intense hatred. Even my white British ex-husband was so pained by his wrath towards my family, that he couldn’t bear to walk upstairs to their apartment, as he experienced true racism for the first, and possibly only, time in his life.
We called the police on this man several times and at one point he even followed me to my van and peered inside the windows. I hid from him in the back of the van, not being able to leave in fear of what he might do to me.
Whenever I called the police, they did nothing to help. The man is mentally ill, they said. Just crazy. “He’s harmless.”
I now can’t help but wonder how things may have been different if he was black, not white.
Would they have arrested him? Would they have stood on his neck and suffocated him, because he was a menace to society?
But nothing was done and the man continues to threaten and harass my parents to no avail from management or law enforcement. Our leaders, our law enforcement, our military – we look to them to lead the people of this country, we look to them to unite us.
So many fight for constitutional rights, but what happened to the actual purpose of the constitution?
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
When it comes to people of color, where is that union? Where is that justice?
It seems that we are becoming more hateful towards one another. There is no unity, it seems as if the goal is to break us apart versus mend us together.
This isn’t about politics. In reality, this is a human rights violation.
And while I DO NOT condone looting or violence as a valid form of protest, whether from so-called gun-toting “good people” or from advantageous opportunist “thugs”, I do understand the why and how we go to this point. I cannot accept the gruesome murder of a fellow human being. Not just one time. An occurrence that takes place every single day towards people of color in America.
This is the boiling point in our country.
This is a moment where all Americans, of all skin colors, are finally coming together to say no. We can’t allow this to happen anymore. We can’t turn away and ignore the problem any longer. We refuse and are standing together to call full and complete attention to the problem until change happens.
This is a defining moment in history where change is being called, it’s being begged for. Here we are again, Ms. Rosa Parks. Here we are again, Dr. Martin Luther King. And hopefully, we never have to see this day again, Mr. George Floyd.
Murder is not okay in any situation. Human beings of any color, gender, background, shape, age and those of differing religious or political affiliations should not be mistreated, and most definitely not murdered in cold blood, not by police, not by civilians, not by each other.
Because I hate the injustice placed upon ALL people, locally and globally, a few years ago I made the mistake to say “All Lives Matter”.
I didn’t realize why that was wrong.
It was an innocent statement that I made in support of all human beings. It’s my belief that no one should be hurt, marginalized, or discriminated against, and I thought I was being fair to all by making that statement. Maybe I have the naive outlook that people should live happily and peacefully, without war. How silly of me. I guess that’s not realistic or encouraged in our great society.
While no one called me out on my statement, I now understand how incorrect I was with my words. I am ashamed to admit how hurtful I may have been with these words.
In reality, all lives do matter, but unfortunately, there are some lives that seem to have lesser value than others: black lives.
Why is it that when someone of color experiences injustice, it can be overlooked? Why is it that there is a very negative picture portrayed of a community that has been oppressed as long as America has existed.
The reason I’ve been quiet and I waited so long to make a statement is because I don’t want to just stand there in solidarity. I don’t want to repeat words that may be forgotten in a month’s time.
I wanted to find the right words to express that I genuinely feel just a particle of the gut-wrenching pain you must be feeling right now.
I hate that 4 years ago the fight was against Mexicans. In 2020 we “blame the Chinese”. But for centuries, it’s been a relentless neverending history of discrimination against the black community.
How do I plan to stand with you? What pledge can I make that will possibly make a long-lasting difference?
I commit to educating myself and those around me in order to truly understand the scope of the situation so that I can be a part of the change I want to see in the world.
I’m sending you a virtual hug ?
alex
