How Netflix, Fetishism & Racism Ruined My Trip to Italy
Seun Shokunbi
Founder of not-for-profit digital media company focused on African/Black women in leadership.
Dear Black Women: Netflix lied to us.
Shows like “From Scratch” and reality TV series like “To Rome for Love” told us Italian men provide the love, protection, and self-worth we’re missing everywhere else.
Yet during my month in Italy, traveling north to south, I didn’t find one Lino, Enzo, or Riccardo with a romantic bone in their body.
Instead, I was propositioned as if I were a prostitute in Bologna. In Venice, I asked an Italian guy who approached me what his hobbies were, and he boldly replied “Sex” while laughing.
Not once did I feel men saw me and thought this is love at first sight.
What kind of Black woman should I have shown up as to avoid all this?
Where did the trope of Black women finding love abroad/in Italy come from, anyway?
And what’s the reason why this myth gets perpetuated when it's FAR from reality?
Read the full article here .
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Founder + Finance Attorney + Author | Creating a body of work for public consumption and use on LinkedIn about: finance + law + policy | blaxcellence + women | leadership + wellbeing.
4 个月The last time I was in Italy, I received two marriage proposals but from much older men. Actually 80% of my marriage proposals have been men old enough to be my parents’ father ??. Personally I’ve never gone abroad looking for love, but I’ve demonstrated love in how I treat people abroad whether Europe or elsewhere and that’s been enough for me. Eat Pray Love was one of those books movies that tricked white women too…I wonder is it the stories we read (real or true) or our own minds playing tricks on us?