Today's Stamp: "Returning to the Motherland", NABS Summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt

NABS Portrait: Byron Small (location: the Red Sea)

I felt I was a bit of an anomaly as a ‘black traveler’ when I first set foot out of the States in 1990. There were (seemingly) NO black travelers to be found back in my early days of travel.  I know that isn’t entirely correct but it sure did seem that way. As the years have gone by, the percentage of African Americans in travel thankfully seems to have increased, yet we still have room for growth. There is even a well-known hashtag #Blacktravelmovement and several facebook and meetup groups with names such as Black and Abroad, Nomadness, Travel Noire and many more.

Though things are changing, what hasn’t changed that much is how African Americans tend to be perceived in the world.  Marketing, advertising, movies, TV shows have all played a very important part in the stereotype of any given group. In travel, this translates to what people expect when they see you, how they may react to you, how you may be received in any given area. It’s also translates to any role in life.  Much of my job as an image maker (maker of images both moving and still) is in advertising. When we shoot a  *casting, that is to say when we look to cast a role for an advertisement, the question is “What does a doctor look like”…”What does a surfer look like?”…”What does a scuba diver look like?”...”what does a basketball player look like?”.  I do not think I need to answer any of these for you.  You know what tends to be the first image in many minds. Is this or should this be accurate? No. We have not yet come to a place where the answers to those questions will be as diverse as our society.  We still live in a society of visual labels based on stereotypes.

NABS Portrait: Evita Pass (location: The Red Sea)

Over the years since my first trip abroad I’ve spent 10 months in South East Asia, a few weeks in Central & South America, Europe, the Caribbean and most recently one and a half weeks in Northern Africa. Even though the faces of travelers are slightly less homogeneous, the stereotypes still seem to remain. One, of many is that ‘black people don’t swim’.  I have a prior Brown Passport story about this, to view click here.

It was 2015, I had just taken beginner swim lessons, then obtained my *PADI open water scuba diving certification (in Hawai’i) 3 months to follow. Hawaii’I is great, although not sustainable without a certain level of financial backing. Indonesia, however, is a great place to spend enough time (affordably) working on my swim game all while continuing my *scuba training.  I did my Advanced, and Rescue diver courses in the waters of Komodo National Park, then my divemaster internship on the Gili islands in Lombok, finishing up just before a rash of major earthquakes ripped through.  I dove all over Bali, the Gilis and Komodo, all told about 180 dives in the area over the course of my time there (so far) and yet I can count on ONE hand how many divers I saw of the African Diaspora. 

2nd Day of diving with NABS 2019 Summit (location: North Red Sea)

I was very vocal about my quest to find more P.O.C. (people of color) scuba divers.  I will specify, I was seeking POC divers who did so as a recreation or choice of career, not divers who have fallen into scuba because it’s one of the better job opportunities locally. Because I was so openly speaking on this topic, often people would share with me whenever they saw a black diver on their boat, or heard of a black travelers in general.  I received a call from the dive shop where I did my open water training in Maui, sharing with me their boats were full of African American divers for a week! Mind you, they had ONE African American Instructor there at the time, who is the only black diver I had seen in the 5 months I spent there on and off the boat. Come to find out the group of black divers were members of the National Association of Black Scuba divers, aka NABS.

I heard some ‘pushback’ regarding the existence of a black scuba diver group. Some other (non POC) divers would state “why do you need a group for ‘black divers’ can you imagine if I had a group called ‘white divers’? I said, yes that is every dive group in the world basically which is EXACTLY why there is a need for NABS.  Let’s start with the numbers.

Are there large numbers of black divers in the Caribbean? Sure, although the work opportunities in most of those islands revolve around tourism and much of the tourism in the Caribbean is snorkeling and diving. Of course that makes sense there would be more black divers if those are the jobs available for locals. Where this theory does not apply, is in the cold, dark green water flooded rock quarry called Dutch springs, in Pennsylvania, where I found a high concentration of black divers. Perhaps that is because it’s only a 2 hour drive from both Philadelphia and New York (high population of African Americans). It’s easy to pass this off the low numbers of African Americans in diving as blacks are a minority so that’s to be expected. If that is the case, then why is it I don’t see this issue when it comes to basketball, football or many other sports, yet I found less representation of diversity in things like Surfing, Skiing and Scuba.

Lisa (location: North Red Sea)

Some may argue “scuba is expensive’, which is true for the most part, though not always, and if we are honest, not every white person who is scuba certified is rich, so that is not the answer. I believe one of the biggest reasons (among many others like money or access) is culture, especially the cultural experiences of African Americans from the USA. Some of what I’m about to mention I’ve already gone into detail within a prior story on Maui with diver Ron Redwell. For those of you who haven’t yet read it nor have seen the interview with Ron, click here

Swimming in the United States during the Jim crow era was often a sport prohibitive to blacks. Many segregated areas did not have pools for blacks to swim, and many beaches were inaccessible as well. That is not to say that in 2019, we don’t have black swimmers, but it is to state that approximately 64% of African Americans have low to no swim ability*, 45% of Hispanic American have low to now swim ability, as compared to 40% of whites in America having low to now swim ability. This number is better than it was, though we still have a long way to go.

I did specify these stats as being in the United States. Countries like Sweden and the U.K. require swimming in the school system so they don’t have those issues, and yet I STILL saw only ONE black person from the U.K. on our scuba boat, yet many Caucasians from the U.K over that same period of time. Recently I had a conversation with a black woman originally from the London now living the Philadelphia, whom I met at Dutch Springs. I asked her if she sees many black divers in or from the U.K. and as she laughed, she answered as staunch, “NO” as she shrugged her shoulders. Perhaps much of the populations of the African Diaspora go to the Caribbean, and that’s great, yet the percentage in which those of sub-Saharan African descent are represented in this sport does not even come close to representing their numbers in existence. (ref: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/01/sports/black-people-pools-racism.html ;  http://www.ymca.net/summer-buzz/highest-risk-for-drowning ; https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xbyax/most-black-kids-cant-swim-its-not-just-a-stereotype-its-history)

Ken (location: North Red Sea)

Knowing the facts regarding the lower numbers of African Americans in swimming, combined with knowing the lower number of blacks I see out on the travel circuit in general, it should come as no surprise the lack of blacks I saw at all the different dive shops and dive sites at some of the top dive destinations in world.

November 1st,  2019, after being a member of NABS for 3 years, I attended NABS annual summit in Sharm El-Sheikh Egypt.  At the bottom tip of the Sinai peninsula, at the northern end of the Red sea lies a dusty dessert full of rocky low-rise mountains, looking like NOTHING I had ever seen either in photos or in person before. Overlooking the landscape initially reminded me of the Bonneville salt flats (though a much darker yellow sand color. Watching the sunset behind these jagged hills, reminded me a bit of experiencing the sunset in the Black Rock desert of Nevada, though the mountains much more stunted. Sharm El-Sheikh, once only inhabited by Bedouin, is now becoming a mountain range of resorts. The Red sea is a top dive destination, with some of the healthiest coral reefs in the world, diverse wildlife and incredible shipwrecks.

Mosque in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt

On my Emirates flight from New York to Cairo, If I’m generous I will say I was among a small handful of people of the African Diaspora.  Once I boarded my Egypt Air flight from Cairo to Sharm, this demographic changed drastically.  I did not want to assume just because a fellow passenger was black, they were there for NABS, but low and behold as I hesitantly asked one person if they were there for the NABS summit, then every African American waiting to board that plane, came alive proclaiming the same. “I’m with NABS, ….I’m with NABS, where are you from? “…..

The next morning, first day of diving after what felt like 30 minutes of poor sleep, it was time to meet in the lobby with the rest of the 200 or so NABS summit attendees.  Looking at the sea of African Americans in the lobby reminded me of one of my family reunions. People hugging folks they either knew well or only met once, ear-to-ear smiles. The only difference from my family reunion was all the scuba gear in tow.  We had about three big tour buses outside ready to load everyone one and head to the docks for the 1st of several 3 tank dive days. Eat Sleep dive repeat, seemed to be the motto, and of course still have energy enough to change into your Wakanda attire for the Black Panther movie night, get together afterwards.

Once down at the docks, and the busses unloaded, Standing in line to walk through security I felt wet beads roll down my cheeks.  Even though the desert sun was blazing and already 25 Celsius at 08:00, it was not beads of sweat but tears of joy as I looked over at the near 200 African American lined up for the boats ready to go diving.  I just kept thinking, wow, I’m usually the only one, or only of two something like this, and here we have close to 200. I must have shed happy tears most of that first day.

One by one people got wind of this story I was doing on black divers and began to share their stories with me. In conversations with Ric Powell, founder of NABS, and Ron Denmon one of the organizers of the 2019 NABS summit a recurring experience kept creeping up. Prior to NABS or when not diving with NABS, they often find themselves the only African Americans on their dive trips, and if alone, when it comes to finding a dive buddy, often times they feel excluded by the other (white) divers which leads to one feeling it must be their race, why else would you keep picking the other divers as buddies and not want to be with me? Ric mentioned an ongoing stereotype about blacks not being able to float, or just not being built for swimming.  Many others (including myself) have experienced these comments. At times people asking you ‘Oh you are here to dive?..even though you are carrying all your scuba gear over your shoulder.  

Watch this Brown Passport short documentary video on my time with NABS for the 2020 Summit, and listen to what NABS Co-Founder Ric Powell, NABS members Ron Denmon, Cory Hipps, Courtandt Butts and myself have to say about our experiences both with NABS and diving as a minority in he sport.

I recall at the airport in transit from Sharm El-Sheikh back to Cairo, an Egyptian woman kept staring at all of us. A couple of the NABS travelers appeared to be offended by the stare, as if to have silently stated ‘What are you looking at’.  I stepped closer to the Egyptian woman in Hijab, and said ‘Marhabaan’, which means hello in Arabic.  I began to engage in conversation wit her via google translate. The Egyptian woman then asked me (using google translate) where are we all from and if we were all together. I used google translate to explain more in detail about NABS and the Summit in the Sinai peninsula. I came to find out she, the Egyptian woman, lives in Germany and speaks German so I then began to connect more in depth with her by communicating both in what little German I could remember from studying it in school, and by using google translate (English to Arabic). The woman then engaged in more deep conversation with me and her eyes lit up as she began to understand what NABS is and that we were all there together mostly for scuba diving and comradery. Then as we were parting ways to board our plane to Cairo, I saw the woman begin to engage in conversation as best she could with English to other members of NABS. I think only then did the NABS travelers realize the woman was not staring at them as to disapprove but staring out of joy for seeing all of us, as that is NOT a common sight to witness. I think often times African American travelers, not all of course but some, can be a bit on the defensive always thinking someone is looking at them in disapproval or looking down on them in some way. Yes, this comes from some experience whether it be an experience of their own or that of our elders. I think we could at times take a look at the bigger picture in the case of this Egyptian woman and understand that even though ‘we’ may see each other quite often in the states in larger numbers, if in fact we surround ourselves in a more POC environment, that generally speaking those numbers are quite low in the world of travel, and just because people are staring at you might not mean they are looking down upon you but instead in awe especially to see such a big group of us together.

The Sinai Peninsula, Egypt

Founded in 1991, NABS has about 900 members. It was founded by Ric Powell and Dr A. Jose Jones.   It was initially founded to bring together other Black scuba divers around the globe. Many people I interviewed during the summit in Egypt  kept saying how frustrating it can be to feel like an outcast and how NABS has changed that.  Ric Powell and many others I interviewed stated how NABS is trying actively to be seen, to change the visual when someone mentions a ‘scuba diver’ that it can look like any of us, not only ‘Chad’. Many are actively introducing scuba to other people of color to change the often homogeneous demographic in the sport of scuba diving. Kamau Sadiki, a board member of Diving with a purpose (DWP) shared with me (see video here) his profound experience with DWP in finding sunken slave ships, the sense of fulfillment and a promise to our ancestors that we have not forgotten about them, we are coming for them, to honor them.

Eat, sleep, dive, repeat, seemed to be the motto of the week. Diving into the crystal clear deep blue uber salinated waters of the Red Sea viewing it’s pristine coral reefs, and vibrant underwater life is an incredible experience on it’s own, and sharing that experience with some 200 other black scuba divers was a next level.

Yours Truly, Giza, Egypt

NOTE: As previously stated in earlier posts: none of my posts are lessons in history. I will include some references to articles pertaining to subject matter mentioned in these posts, though I welcome you to do your own research, dig deeper learn more. These posts are an account of experiences, both mine and of those whom I meet. I encourage you You, the reader, to contribute to your own experience/s. I also invite you to contribute your experience/s and opinions in the comments section below each post. Some of your comments may vary widely and opinions differ greatly. Many of the experiences and opinions expressed in these accounts are quite personal, and do not claim to be the same opinions or experiences of ALL. The commentary here is about observation and aimed at igniting conversation, not closing it. I am not here to tell anyone how to feel, or how to react to one's own experience.

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*casting: pre production process of selecting who is to play any given role in an advertisement, film, or stage production