Black Lives Matter: The Year to Wake Up

This is a difficult week (ahem…month…year?)… It’s been rife with strong emotions. I’ll be honest with you, there hasn’t been a day in the past three weeks that I haven’t cried about something.

There’s the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This is keeping travel-bloggers and adventurers like myself homebound. We’re having to refocus our writing, our time, our goals. Along with the rest of the world, we’ve been forced into a deep soul-search. And, I don’t know that I was really ready for it. I don’t know that any of us were really ready for it.

Then, there’s the personal fact that two years ago this week within a matter of five days, I lost three of the top idols and inspirations in my life. Kate Spade….Anthony Bourdain….then, worst of all, my father.

I probably would’ve spent this week broken with those thoughts to process by themselves. However, 2020 is pushing all of us to face more than we ever thought imaginable. The brutal death with such raw footage of George Floyd aired for all of us. The flood of emotions hit like a tsunami.

Were we asleep before COVID-19?

Without the pressure of the pandemic…

Without the extra time not pursuing the daily commute…

Without the emotional grind we have all been dealing with for nearly three months…

Would we have listened?

I’ll be the first to say that there are many days that I’ve often felt “too busy” to be bothered by what’s in the news. I have been deaf and blind many times… Sadly, I didn’t notice.

But, I’m noticing now. And, you are too.

Wake Up!

One of the most impressive aspects to come out of this tragedy is the way the world has come together. Protests have erupted in support of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and sadly so many others in Germany, Italy, Sweden, Spain, France, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Armenia, China, India, Israel, Japan, Turkey, Australia, New Zealand, The Bahamas, Jamaica, Canada, Mexico, and more.

Racism cannot be ignored any longer. We have to relearn the history and educate ourselves on the systems that have created a brutal, unjust, and violent culture. Last week, I created this video as a project to educate myself (and maybe a few others along the way).

Now, let’s all take a moment to hear from those who deserve a platform.

It’s time that many of us stop…. Stop the chatter…. Stop the defense…. Stop trying to excuse ourselves…. Stop.

You know one thing I love about travel? The food… You know what helps make food so powerful? For a moment it time, we are forced to NOT talk. All we can do is listen. And, when traveling, you can often learn something wonderful: something that helps prove we are all more alike than we are different.

Maybe we need to do a bit more chewing these days…. Let’s just stop and listen.