Home travels and ethnic imbalance

One thing I was reminded of while traveling is that it’s important to see your own country. In the last few weeks I’ve seen amazing places. From Connecticut to Massachusetts and from South Dakota (The Badlands pictured here) to Wyoming, I was fortunate to see some amazing sights. This country has so much diversity. It’s a real privilege to have the opportunity to live here and discover these wonders.
While in South Africa earlier this year I came across travelers from all around the world. I also came across many locals wandering around their own country. To them it made more sense discovering their own backyard than traveling abroad. More than the fact that the South African rand doesn’t get one as far as the American dollar, they are truly interested in getting to know their own heritage, one that has been disputed since the first European settlers disembarked on the southern shores of the African continent. As much as I agree with their philosophy, I do think it’s just as important to see what else this world has to offer, provided you’re fortunate enough to do so. I’m finding out that traveling abroad has made me that much more sensitive to the great things I’m discovering here in the United States.

South Africa has a lot in common with the US but what stands out is an incredible diversity in landscapes and ethnicities. This is a land that has seen much ethnic inequality and injustice. After the end of apartheid the world saw something extraordinary happen in Nelson Mandela becoming the first “man of color” elected to the presidency. An era of oppression had finally come to an end. But the antagonism between blacks and whites did not end there. I found that even if this country has come a long way in less than twenty years, it will be many more decades before any resentment is forgotten and a sense of equality settles in.
In the US we just took a big step in electing a non-white to the presidency for the first time. A wave of hope swept through the world showing how important this election was to more than just the American people. But as we all know the wounds of the past are not quite healed and we still have a long way to go before a real sense of mutual respect sets in. Having experienced this election in a very republican part of the country, I am that much more aware of it. It didn’t take more than a couple days before I started hearing some highly distasteful racial “jokes” on Obama. A lot of people here still use the “n” word and talk about blacks as savages. The civil rights act is more than four decades old yet around here it sometimes feels like that notion is inexistent. As much excitement I get from looking forward to january 20th, I realize that we have a very long way to go, not just to fix the economy but to reach a true sense of equality.