lux10023
I completely agree that seeing Black people traveling internationally in large numbers does help break stereotypes. We were in Tahiti some years ago and some of the locals thought DH was an NBA player. He's 5'10" and had on a Lakers jersey (Bryant 8). DH does not look like Kobe at all and he's not NBA tall but they saw a Black man (only Black man I saw for 3 weeks) and they presumed he was rich and famous. That happened to us in St. Barths, and Bangkok, locals presuming we were famous. DH posed for photos in Bangkok and South Africa even after telling the people he wasn't famous. After a crowd of gathered to take DH's photo in South Africa, a few people with our tour group in South Africa started taking photos of us too, as if they felt we were lying to them about being famous. I'm convinced that photo event was all about his hair though, locs down to his waist, since the little boy who started it all didn't speak English but was staring at DH's hair and then touched it.
This is why all these dreadful reality shows irritate me. Not only does the US export goods, but we export television programs. Some of this crap makes it out to the rest of the world so they really think Black people are all like Nene and those bad behaving chicks from Bad Girls club.
erplexed