We Expected Traveling During a Global Pandemic to Be Bad, Then it Got Much Worse
One of my favorite television shows is House Hunters International on HGTV. I love seeing people from various cities across North America relocating abroad to locations all over the globe. Families and individuals take a leap of faith to start over in other countries, and I find that fascinating.
But I also feel jealous watching HHI, particularly as a black woman.
Unlike a few of the intentional relocators featured on that show, I could never just give up my job, spin a globe, randomly pick a point and move there. I would have to do a ton of research on whether the country is friendly to people of color, particularly black people, and whether it would be safe for me and my multicultural family.
HHI is a guilty pleasure, but it is also a reminder that as a black woman, I do not have the privilege to live or even simply visit where I want without first considering racism, hate crimes, and race-based violence.
Plain and simple, even with a few black people on a couple of episodes, HHI is a testament to the inherent freedom of white privilege. White privilege is being able to move almost wherever you want without having to worry about race playing a role in your happiness or safety in a place. It is being able to travel wherever you want without worrying if someone will call you the n-word or if you will be the victim of a hate crime.
In 2019, nearly 25 million Americans traveled across the country in RVs during the spring and summer. And according to the RV Industry Association, that number is expected to rise due to COVID. Families are looking for safe “escapes” where they can get out, while also practicing social distancing. RVs have become an ideal escape in the new COVID normal, and it seemed like a great way to travel across the country for our big upcoming move.
I thought the threat of COVID would be the worst thing about traveling cross country in an RV with my family, but then George Floyd was murdered.
A Cross Country Trip Redefined by COVID and Race
After deciding to leave California to move back to the East Coast for my work, I put a lot of thought into finding a new home in a neighborhood that would be diverse and safe for my interracial family.
My husband and I settled on Montgomery County, Maryland which has a diverse population at 43% White, 19.9% Latino, 15.6% Asian, and 19.9% African American. Moreover, 3.4% of the population identifies as two or more races. Coming from Los Angeles County, where African Americans only account for about 9% of the county’s population, I was ecstatic!
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Then COVID happened. Thankfully moving companies and car transport companies were deemed essential making that part easy. The harder part was how to get us — my husband, two kids, a puppy, and myself — from SoCal to Maryland?
I am immune-compromised, so airplanes during COVID were a no go. After a bit of thought, we decided to drive. But then the question was, were there hotels open in all of the states we’d need to travel through and were those states sheltering in place, practicing social distancing, etc.?
These dilemmas led to our decision to buy a used travel trailer so we could eliminate the need for hotels and restaurants as well as minimize the need to use public restrooms. We confirmed the moving company, confirmed the car transport, listed our home in California, and scheduled to hit the road on Friday, May 29th.
And then the world turned upside down.
On May 25th, a day before my 43rd birthday, George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was murdered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after Derek Chauvin, a White police officer, knelt on his neck for eight minutes and forty-six seconds while Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on the street.
Sadly, he was not the first black man to die at the hands of the police or the first black life lost to structural racism and racist violence in this country. But his death would light a match to long-simmering rage. Rage at structural racism. Rage at police brutality. Rage at white supremacy. Rage at “while black” — running while black, traveling while black, etc. was real.
His death would ignite two weeks (and counting) of protests across the country. Protests took place in almost every major city, in many small towns, and even in other cities across the globe.
When we planned our cross country trip, we knew the global pandemic would be our backdrop. But we were completely unprepared for what would become protests nationwide in the wake of George Floyd’s death. And for the role it would inevitably play on our moods and psyche — especially mine — as we made our way from California to Maryland over five days.
I was filled with anxiety when my interracial family pulled out of our California driveway on Friday morning and headed toward our first stop in Arizona with our little travel trailer in tow.
I worried about the safety of black protestors, worried that they were battling visible foes like the police but also invisible foes — like the devaluing of black life and COVID. I was proud of protestors for taking to the street in masks, but I could not help but fret over how they were clearly not social distancing.
The drive to Arizona was picturesque, almost idyllic. I took photos throughout the journey. We saw double rainbows at one point, which my husband noted was a sign, from my recently deceased mother, that we were on the right path moving to Maryland. Sitting in the front passenger seat, I was truly blown away by how peaceful everything felt in our truck. Our puppy was asleep on the back seat between the kids who were completely engrossed in YouTube and video games. My husband and I were listening to the 90’s Station (our favorite one) on Sirius/XM Radio.
Whatever was happening outside in the world at that moment, we felt completely at peace — at least initially — in the bubble that was our truck.
But then through social media posts and texts from concerned friends, who knew we were traveling, the real world began to seep in. As we stopped at an Arizona for gas station and saw most people there not wearing masks nor practicing social distancing, my anxiety began to rise, and the peacefulness of the countryside began to feel false.
Were we really safe on this journey? In this country?
In 2019, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) tracked 940 hate groups across the United States. During our cross country journey, we planned to travel through nine states, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia, and Maryland.
Those states collectively accounted for more than 30% or 292 of the 940 hate groups tracked by SPLC nationwide.
Why do I know this?
Because as a black woman, as a black mother, and as one half of an interracial couple, I research every place we consider visiting beforehand. And it’s not your average tourism research like cool spots to visit and places to eat. I research the demographics. Specifically, how many black people there are and how many biracial people. I researched the number of organized hate groups, the number of hate crimes, the instances of police brutality, etc.
That research is how I decide if a place is safe for my family and me.
That the first 9-hour leg of our drive was spent listening to reports of protests on the radio. When we arrived at the Kampgrounds of America (KOA) campground in Holbrook, AZ, I immediately logged into the Wi-Fi and donated to four different organizations in Minnesota — Black Visions Collective, Minnesota Freedom Fund, Reclaim the Block and Women for Political Change Mutual Aid Fund.
I then began to debate with friends on Facebook about the validity of protests and riots as a mechanism for social change. I shared article after article across social media.
Then I hugged my kids tightly, especially my twelve-year-old son. He is only twelve, which still makes him a child. Yet because he is already taller than me and his voice has begun to change, some will view him as having crossed the threshold from cute to potentially dangerous.
In a hoodie, he may even be seen as ominous to those who view black males as dangerous animals who need to be gunned down or kept pinned with a knee to their neck.
By the time we packed the camper on Saturday morning, May 30th, to head toward Texas, my anxiety was in overdrive. I should say that I have never been to Texas, and though it may be a perfectly lovely state, one defining memory haunts my dreams.
My junior year of college, James Byrd Jr., a black man, was tied to a car and dragged for three miles to his death by three white men: Shawn Berry, Lawrence Brewer, and John King. His death is seared into my psyche and synonymous with Texas. A state where hate crimes have doubled between 2017 and 2018. So, I was already in discussions with my husband on how to minimize the kids and I having to get out of the car during any necessary stops for gas or snacks. We would send him in, the white guy, who would be protected by his privilege, while the rest of us remained safely in the truck.
Funny thing is, the drive from Arizona through New Mexico to Texas was even more beautiful than the day before. There were these amazing rock formations off in the distance and sprawling countryside that was the brightest of greens. So bright they seemed unreal. A false sense of reality provided by the peaceful countryside in an unpeaceful world.
Because the thing was, as we looked out the window at the serene countryside view, protestors were being teargassed across the country and another black man died at the hands of police.
It made me wonder if this is why people who live in settings like this all the time have trouble understanding or believing the stories of folks living in poverty and despair elsewhere in this country and around the world.
If all you see is beauty, how can you believe there is ugliness elsewhere?
In 2019, more than 1,000 people were killed by police. African Americans were 24% of those killed despite being only 13% of the population in the United States.
As we drove through the beautiful countryside, protests for George Floyd and Black Lives Matter were happening across the country. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets.
Many of those protests against police brutality were ironically met with a wave of police brutality. And much of it was caught on camera. The use of teargas, batons, pepper spray, fists, feet, and/or vehicles against protestors were all too common.
Hundreds of videos began appearing online showing police brutality against protestors and even the media covering the protests.
My Facebook timeline was a complete dialectic — vacillating back and forth between idyllic photos of the countryside and happy children on one hand and posts about police brutality, defending rioters, and raging about white fragility on the other.
I changed my profile cover to an image of Dr. King with his quote, “Riot is the language of the unheard,” and I changed my profile picture to a photo of my son with the frame, “#Because I have a Black Son.”
I posted article after article and engaged in debate after debate. By late Saturday, I found myself unfriending a lot of people, mostly white, who posted about not understanding the point of the riots — or worse trying to downplay George Floyd’s murder as police ineptitude. I also had to unfriend those who railed against the protests, lamenting storefronts more than lives. Also unfriended, those who supported the police unequivocally.
I am still trimming my social media tree to this day.
By the time we pulled into the KOA Campgrounds in Amarillo, Texas that night, my anxiety was running high. Between all of the hate on social media and after looking out the passenger side window for hours and only seeing a sea of white faces, I was honestly afraid for my family.
But then we were greeted by a young black man, a campground employee. And I felt comforted knowing that I would not be the only black person on-site.
But we still felt unsafe on-site where no one was wearing a mask and in fact, people were using the amenities like the pool and playgrounds. I tried to let my daughter play on the playground with her mask, but my anxiety went through the roof again when two little boys without masks approached her. We spent the rest of the evening in the trailer.
By the time we packed up to head to Little Rock, Arkansas the next morning, the anxiety felt like a sixth passenger in the truck along with my husband, two kids, puppy, and myself. Like the first two legs of our trip, the drive to Arkansas was tranquil. But the mood in the car on this third day had shifted and felt heavier.
My daughter, the nine-year-old, had done a paper this year on Ruby Bridges so we started the morning off talking about school integration. Then we moved on to police brutality. We talked about George Floyd and all the countless black lives lost before him like Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor, Philando Castile, and on and on.
We shared stories of disproportionate black death at the hands of police. And that morphed into talking about why they needed to comply with police if ever pulled over. Never give them a reason to harm you, we told our kids. Or to say that you were not complying, even if they’re the ones in the wrong. We told them that we would deal with any injustices on the backend, but their safety came first.
After that discussion, we shed a few tears collectively as a family and then tried to shift the mood to a lighter tone by playing the “I Spy” Game.
A friend from Smith College, my undergraduate alma mater, posted on my Facebook Timeline asking where we were in Arkansas. She noted that she grew up there, and given everything going on across the country, that she felt it was unsafe for us in many places. A screenshot of her exchange is below:
Okay….
My heart began to race, and my anxiety ran high again. As we pulled into the KOA Campgrounds in Little Rock, I told the kids that we would not be getting out of the car until I could assess the lay of the land.
My daughter asked why, and I simply replied, “Because I am black.”
We spent the night in the trailer in Little Rock and did not venture out to examine the grounds. Brian took care of walking the dog, as I wouldn’t even let the kids out of my sight.
That night I unfriended more people on FB and posted more articles trying to explain that protestors and looters were not synonymous.
I checked my work email, just for a change of pace, and was stunned to see that the CEO of my new organization had sent a powerful message around racism, police brutality, and injustice. I cried reading it and then read it to my husband, who also cried. We held each other tight as we went to bed that night.
Our fourth leg of the trip was to Sweetwater, TN. I was consumed with online images of police teargassing protestors and using batons on them. It often felt like I was watching a civil rights era movie with police using dogs and water hoses on protestors.
I also found myself raging over articles about white supremacy groups using the cover of the protests to incite looting and violence that could be blamed on black folks. My mind was spinning, so I stopped reading for several hours and logged off social media. Instead, I stared out the window and watched the extremely flat countryside whiz by my window.
When we pulled into the KOA Campgrounds in Sweetwater, I was happy to find that we had our own deck off the side of our campsite. We ordered pizza that night and sat outside enjoying the breeze and the freedom to sit outside on the deck unafraid because we were alone and therefore it felt safe. My husband, the kids, the puppy, and I were all thrilled.
Our fifth and final leg would take us through Tennessee and Virginia and into Maryland, our new home. By now my friend count on Facebook had dropped by more than thirty people. I’d also had a nasty exchange with my father in law’s college roommate before unfriending him.
I was tired, but surprisingly hopeful.
Even though the world felt like it was on fire with death, protests, hatred, rage, and divisiveness, I was also moved by all of the people who followed our journey and kept checking in on us to make sure we arrived safely. I was moved by all of the gestures from God /the Universe that had calmed my anxiety and eased my sadness and rage. The double rainbow in Arizona, the welcoming young black man in Texas, and the majestic countryside throughout the ride.
So Thankful for Random Acts of Kindness
When we arrived at our new home, we were equal parts excited and exhausted. We do not usually do this, but we prayed and thanked God / the Universe for our safe passage. We unloaded the trailer and cleaned out the truck. Then we decided to pick up some fast food.
On our way out we were greeted by one of our new neighbors, a white, elderly widower who lives across the street. He came by wearing a mask and made sure to be socially distant. At the same time, he welcomed us to the neighborhood with sweet apples (which he made sure to explain were bagged so they hadn’t been handled).
The next morning, we woke up to a bouquet of roses on the front porch from our new landlords. Brownies arrived a week later from another neighbor a few houses down. And on Saturday morning we joined about two hundred neighbors for a March for Equity, Inclusion & Justice at the local elementary school that my daughter will attend.
Afterward, I texted my best friend back in California: Walked in the march this morning too. Like 200 neighbors came, Montgomery County Police joined us….😊 Good 45 minute walk. Super proud of my new hood.
All these gestures were incredibly kind. And they felt like another sign from God / the Universe. Even amid the battle against structural racism and police brutality, the fight for black lives, and the war for equality, there is hope and goodness in the world.
I found myself watching HHI again this past weekend and dreaming of traveling free one day.
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