I had my own Girls Trip

Sadly, Tiffany Haddish was not present.

Over the fourth of July weekend, I made a trip down south. No, not Mexico, I went to THE SOUTH. Just a few years back, I would half-joke about never wanting to go to the South because that was where all the racist (and gun carrying) people were. Yet, here I was, in New Orleans, on a five day long girl’s trip with some friends from university. We have been planning this of almost a year. After graduation, we scattered all across the United States. We saw the movie “Girl’s Trip” separately, but we knew we wanted to replicate the experience the women had in the movie for ourselves.

I didn’t fully realize there were parts of blackness (specifically, blackness in America) I have never been exposed to before. There are somethings in South that don’t exist in the Midwest and no, racism is not one of them. As racist as the South is branded to be, the Midwest is pretty racist too. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Watch this.

If I watched this video five years ago, I would have been surprised. Granted, I would still be in high school and in the era of pre-woke Twitter — but still! It’s severely problematic that I thought the South was worse than the Midwest/North in terms of racism, when in reality they just have different styles of delivering it. There is no running away from racism, its a nation wide problem, heck, its a world wide problem.

In New Orleans, I was surrounded by so many black people people and I almost experienced some sort of culture shock. The fact that I was in the majority felt weird to me (weird, in a good way) is tragic. Why was I, a black person, continuously in awe of how many other black people were around me? Actually, I can answer that. It’s because I am accustomed to being in predominately white spaces. My whole life has consisted of white faces being the ultra majority at school, church, the grocery store — everywhere. There is nothing inherently bad about being surrounded by a sea of white people; I just never considered how refreshing it would be to be engulfed in a sea of black people. I was no longer hyper-aware of my place in the room. I wasn’t scoping the room for my fellow black people. I was just me. Another black person in a sea of many. I blended in and had to make a conscious effort to stand out. It’s be nice to not have people notice you.

I first got a preview of what its like to be surrounded by lots of black people when I took a trip to Atlanta earlier this Summer over Memorial Day weekend. In Atlanta, it was more subtle. There was simply a noticeable increase in the amount of Black people I was seeing in my day-to-day. When I’m at home in the Midwest, if I gave it some thought, I could probably keep count of how many Black people I saw in a day (excluding friends and family). Little did I know, in a couple months, Essence Fest in New Orleans would be Atlanta times a million. I have never seen so many different shades and definitions of blackness in one place. So many groups under the African diaspora were represented. It was amazing, to say the least. I can’t wait to experience Essence Fest in New Orleans again in the future.