I keep hearing the same thing about Italy

The only reason I had a sliver of good time in Rome is b/c my travel mate is white. And the bs started immediately. I remember the customs officer handing my friend’s passport back to her. He THREW my passport back at me. I haven’t forgotten all of the weird interactions.

During the Jim Crow era, the Green Book helped black people to navigate the roads of America, allowing safer travels and only interact with black businesses. So now we need a International Book for blacks traveling the world to be aware of situations as these. Ridiculous how to deeply seeded the construct and hate of White Supremacist and White Nationalists ideals are embedded into these places. These social racist structures affect black life at a huge disadvantage including their wellbeing; not able to enjoy the comfort and joys as other tourists excited about a new land is very telling where our humanity is.

Now it's even worse in Italy. They have elected openly white supremacist Karen.

My (non-POC) best friend moved to Milan about 5 years ago from NY. She literally WARNED me about the anti-blackness there, stating that emigrants from Africa are constantly accused of theft, therefore they treat everyone black as a nuisance. Told her I won't be going there! Lol ✌🏽 She still wants me too, stating that since I'm American I should be fine. NOPE.

I feel awful that this happened to sis. I’ve been to three times (Rome, Florence, and Venice) and each time I had a great experience. I got lucky with great hostesses

This is soooooo disappointing to hear ! I am so sorry she went thru this BS! ITALY do better ! I hadn't been there in almost 13 years an I been hearing things have been heading in that direction especially with their new leadership being a far right weirdo! UGHHHH sick of it

People will never understand the added stress of worrying about racism when you want to travel. Whenever I think of a place I want to visit, I Google the demographics and if it’s a safe place for black people. 💔

And her too

It’s interesting because I’ve been to Rome a few times and I found the people friendly and had a great time and it was beautiful. People loved to talk to me, the last time I went an old Italian lady was talking to us for 30 minutes about Beyoncé. I went to local gay bars, random places to eat, the only “tour” thing I do is breakfast at the Vatican. I’m wondering, from what I’m reading, if it’s specifically this towards black women, Which is fucked up. The way black men are treated abroad seems to differ from The way black women are treated. So unfortunate.

Tony Soprano let us know all about New Jersey Italians. 😳