The Search for Africana Rather than a land teeming with women desperate for African-American male attention, I found a country full of beautiful women who didn’t know much English, had jobs as lawyers, doctors and engineers, and weren’t all that interested in talking to a stranger who couldn’t speak their language. Once thought of as a third-world country, Brazil is now home to 2 of the top 15 most expensive cities in the world – Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. As Brazil’s economics have changed, so too have the draws for visitors, and Black men are no exception. The first African-American man in Brazil I met was Mark Travae, a Detroit native who has been living here since 2004. Travae came to Brazil to study the country’s rich African history after a chance trip to the Shrine of the Black Madonna bookstore in his hometown. “I [was] looking in this Africana encyclopedia, just page after page – Brazil, capoeira, candomble, acaraje, samba, choro, all of this stuff – and I’m like, ‘Wow,’” says Travae. That was Christmas Eve 1991. Before the end of 1992, Travae says he was on a plane, motivated by a desire to learn about Brazilian culture and Abidas do Nascimento, the Afro-Brazilian philosopher he calls “the closest thing to a Malcolm X” in Brazil. Source: newsone/3020009/black-american-men-brazil/?omcamp=sf_N1FB
Posted on: Wed, 18 Jun 2014 13:36:24 +0000
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