Rae La Soul

I went skydiving over the weekend and had tons and tons of fun. I couldn’t find anyone at the time to accompany me that wasn’t scared to death, so I decided to embark on the adventure solo. It was definitely one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life and I couldn’t wait to share it with people to provide some type of inspiration to conquer your fear and/or to live your life to the fullest by doing things that may scare you.

And I was successful with a lot of people. With others, I received some pretty ignorant remarks.

It saddened me that in 2016, some African Americans feel that certain adventures and experiences are only appropriate for other races. In particular, today, I was told that my skydiving experience was for white people and my black card was questioned. I can’t say that I didn’t expect this type of response from some people. I guess what puzzles me is their logic. I used to try to get it — thinking maybe it was due to a lack of exposure, opportunity, or the means to finance such activities. But that’s letting them off too easy.

The fact that labels are even put on the type of adventures a black person can have is absurd. And as an adult, how are you even allowing the constant cycle of generational conditioning to still affect the capacity of which your life can be lived? Why is it that, as a black person, I’m not allowed to try anything outside of “the norm” to be bold and just to experience something new?

I had to snap back into reality and face the obvious fact — IRDGAF if my adventures and experiences are deemed non-black activities or that my adventures are fine for me to experience because my fellow black people approve it. For God sakes, there are soooo many groups and organizations that have broken so many barriers in regards to black people getting all types of experiences through travel. But I guess Travel Noire, Black Travelista, Black Adventuristas, Travel is the New Club, etc. are all unheard of. Sigh.

I understand that some people really don’t care if they’ll ever travel or not. More importantly, Some people are completely content with their normalcy, repetition, and redundancy. And that’s absolutely fine with me. But if that’s what you’ve settled with, respect the fact that I’d prefer to do otherwise while just happening to be a beautiful black woman. It’s really not that damn hard.

My true hope is that perhaps with my courage to step outside of my comfort zone and to experience other things on the outside of the box that my people expect me to stay within, I’ll be an encouragement. I’ll be some sort of inspiration. Or proof that you don’t have to pass on doing something because you haven’t seen anyone of your same race experience it. Be the first. Break that mold. Let the world know that we go too.