Black Tourists on the Continent Where can melanin walk freely, unburdened by the weight of watching eyes? Not judged. Not measured. Not scanned. Just being. Some may say New York— but only if they’ve never felt its cold stare from behind tinted windows or beneath flashing lights. But the Motherland… Africa lets you breathe. From the Sahel’s dusty whispers to the southern winds that kiss your skin, you walk not as a minority, or just part of a community, but as a rhythm in the drumbeat of the land. You are not a spectacle. You are the sky, the soil, the story. Freedom tastes like mangoes in the morning, like laughter without translation, like nature that doesn’t charge admission. But beware— freedom is fragile when you carry Western bonds in your suitcase, trying to live a borrowed life on ancestral soil. Life is beautiful— until your tongue stumbles. A taxi driver asks, and your silence speaks volumes. Suddenly, you’re “white man,” “foreigner,” as if language alone can bleach your skin or erase your roots. I speak the tongues of my mothers, the dialects of my fathers, with words untouched by colonial hands. But even if I didn’t— even if my voice was foreign to your ear— I am no less African. No less Black. If you charge more for visitors, say so. Let the price be honest and upfront, not hidden behind smiles. Don’t preach Pan-Africanism while picking our pockets. Love us loud. Love us clear. Don’t stab us like the colonizer or slave master and call it tradition.
