I wish I could tell you about a stressful day in Boston’s Logan Airport. I wish I could tell you how grateful we were to get seats on a plane bound for the Azores in Portugal. I wish I could have given you snarky and sarcastic comments about some strange stew or curry they served us on the plane or some hilarious misunderstanding about the hotel transfer. Unfortunately, all I can do is wish. Because the reality of the world is far different right now.
As a result of Covid-19, Nicole and I had postponed our February trip to Scandinavia. Then we canceled our March trip to the Azores, and an April/May trip to the Middle East. We didn’t have any plans for the summer initially, but as June came around, we began to think that perhaps we might be able to travel again, so we eyed the Azores as a safe destination — one that required a negative Covid test within the previous 72 hours. If you weren’t able to get one, they would administer the test on arrival and would have a result in less than 12 hours. It all seemed reasonable enough, but the country I was attempting to depart was anything but.
So while Nicole and I were optimistic that we could travel responsibly in July, our hopes were crushed once again due to America’s inability to competently handle the virus, or in some cases even acknowledge its existence. Americans have officially been banned from setting foot in Europe (in addition to virtually everywhere else in the world). And to be honest, I can’t blame other countries for not wanting us. I think the EU could have made some stipulations for American visitors similar to what the Azores were doing with mandatory testing, but perhaps they just don’t even want to see Americans right now.
Since 2016, I have frequently ended my travels with a blog post with some theme of, “Americans need to get out more because they just assume that the American way is the best way.” I have edited videos with quotes like “Travel is fatal to prejudice.” This is not a coincidence. I have noticed Americans becoming increasingly ethnocentric and xenophobic. The “Build the Wall” and “America First” rhetoric of late do not go unnoticed by the rest of the world. America was one of the few countries that made wearing of masks (or lack thereof) a political statement, so I suppose we were doomed to fail. But beyond the masks and the politics, there’s a lot going on in America, and it’s not exactly flattering.
Let’s pretend there wasn’t even a pandemic. In the course of the last few months, we have seen (on tape) countless incidents of police brutality against people of color, acts of police brutality at protests against police brutality, attacks on the press, civilians pointing their guns (or on one occasion a bow and arrow) at peaceful protestors, racially-motivated vigilantism, and a seemingly bottomless pit of Karens and Kens losing their minds over things like Asians exercising in a park, black people owning homes, employees asking them to wear masks while in Trader Joe’s, or getting asked to put their dog on a leash in a park etc. etc.
If these same events occurred in China, Americans on all points of the political spectrum would not hesitate in saying that China is an evil police state with zero ability to run a competent government. They would say that China brutalizes its own citizens in the most tyrannical way, and is filled with a bunch of brainwashed morons. We would have enthusiastically backed those protesting against the police and heralded them as heroes of democracy. Except this didn’t happen in China. It was the United States of America, the country that used to at least pretend to believe in things like liberty and justice for all.
If we, as Americans, are ever allowed to travel abroad again, it will come with a greater sense of responsibility than ever before. In a country that now represents hate, unrest, arrogance, prejudice, greed, ignorance, and an overall lack of empathy, the burden now falls on America’s travelers to demonstrate otherwise. I paraphrase Megan Rapinoe speaking after America’s World Cup victory when I say we have to love more, hate less. Listen more, talk less. We have to be better than this, or pulling out that navy blue passport with the eagle on it will be with great shame. I hope that we as Americans can turn this around. Because right now we are America First – in the number of cases and deaths, and we have built a wall. Unfortunately, for the time being, it appears to be a wall that is protecting the rest of the world from us.
passports & pepto bismol 