With each passing year, it’s only natural for me to look back at my life and appreciate the many great experiences that I’ve enjoyed. I recently entered my 69th year of existence and concluded that there is no better time than now than to make the effort to complete the items on my “Bucket List.”
About 10 years ago, I constructed what I thought were 15 achievable goals and would do my best to complete them before I left this earth. The list included writing a novel, which I did, but it also included travel destinations. Given the current state of the world, I made certain changes. For now, I’m no longer interested in traveling to China, Eastern Europe or South America. However, my most regretful deletion was a cross country road trip.
I’ve traveled extensively domestically and some internationally, mostly by air. With the exception of business trips to larger cities, I’ve mostly avoided “Flyover Country” for what I think to be good reasons. I grew up in a state, (West Virginia) where I got to see up close and personal, the cultural schisms and inherent racism that exist not only there, but in much of America as a whole.
As a kid, my family didn’t do a lot of road trips in a car. Since many of my relatives resided in Washington, DC, Houston, Texas and Orlando, Florida (Pre-Disney), we either took the train or bus. Even then, I experienced food concessions and rest rooms that were designated for Black travelers along the way, which is why we always journeyed with food.
Having come of age in the 60s and 70s, optimism abounded that the promise of America would ultimately be attained and the lives of all of its citizens would be vastly improved. In retrospect, many of us were naïve to think that would be the case and it can be argued that the U.S. today is equally as intolerant as the nation I grew up in decades ago.
As for my road trip, I believe we currently live in another Green Book era, where if you’re African-American and more specifically a Black man, you need to have premeditated discernments as to routes one would take and the hotels and restaurants that would hopefully offer comfort and security if patronized. There’s also the fear of being stopped by the police and having what could be a fateful encounter without lawful justification.
According to a 2020 Police Violence Report by Campaign Zero, 1,127 people were killed by police in that year. Of the killings that involved unarmed victims, 35 percent were Black, 20 percent were Latino, 41 percent were classified as other and just four percent were White. Moreover, 58 percent of these deaths were traffic stops or mental health and non-threatening situations. And those are just the ones that were reported.
I understand the sentiment of some of my younger brethren who passionately proclaim that America is their country and they’re not going to let anyone take it away from them and therefore will continue to travel the nation’s roads. However, it’s my view that the U.S. is not now, nor has it ever been our country, we just live here. And as long as overt acts of bigotry and institutional racism continue to permeate this society and negatively impact our lives, it never will be.
So, I will pass on the chance to see the Hoover Dam, Mt. Rushmore and other red state tourist venues and will satisfy my wanderlust elsewhere for safety’s sake. At my age, the last thing I need is a police confrontation or a random engagement with a gun toting right wing zealot that could quickly escalate and result in tragic consequences for me.
There’s an Allstate insurance commercial that seems to air incessantly. It features a Black man in a convertible driving though the western range singing “Let’s Make a Lot of Money by the Pet Shop Boys. Given America’s current environment and the territory in which he’s “driving while Black,” I always wonder at the end of the ad if the Brother made it to his destination intact.