Touring is a luxurious that not many individuals historically have gotten to bask in. Nevertheless, it’s a extra accessible exercise in at present’s world for households to partake in. Introducing younger minds to alternatives like attempting new meals or visiting a brand new place leaves lasting impressions that they may carry by maturity. Sibling duo Fred Whitaker and Courtney Whitaker have skilled firsthand how new experiences positively affect the lives of younger youngsters. It was these alternatives that they strived to share with Fred’s daughter Journee and their niece Briley, and concurrently sparked the creation of two books—Come on a Journee With Me to DC and Come on a Journee With Me to NYC.
The dynamic brother-sister duo caught up with EBONY to debate the significance of sharing the present of journey with youngsters and the way having a robust household unit influenced their lives:
We’re at present in an area the place Black people have extra entry to touring and having distinctive experiences, particularly with their youngsters. Are you able to converse to the significance of getting these alternatives and the affect that touring has had in your private lives?
Courtney Whitaker: Our dad used to take us on street journeys backwards and forwards between New York and North Carolina to go to our grandmother each different weekend. These journeys actually impressed me as a result of being an inner-city child from New York going to North Carolina and seeing these enormous fields and homes was the precise reverse of our brownstones and skyscrapers in New York Metropolis. It opened up my creativeness. I used to be so impressed that after I was graduating from highschool, I didn’t apply to a single college in New York. I selected to attend a college out of state as a result of I knew that I needed to journey and see the world from these street journeys.
Fred Whitaker: I agree! Even after I journey with Journee and Briley now, I really feel prefer it helps broaden their younger minds and their creativeness. We at all times have the dialog of sharing similarities with someone who might be from a special geographic location, but additionally have a special mindset due to the respective setting that they grew up in. Much like how our dad at all times had us touring, typically on the again of bikes, I’m placing the ladies on airplanes. There’s nothing extra thrilling than getting on an airplane and touchdown in a brand new metropolis. What we’re additionally educating the youngsters is that in the event that they need to go to a brand new metropolis, they should do analysis on it and discover actions that they’d love to do. Permitting them to do that exposes them to every metropolis’s totally different tradition whereas connecting them to the huge nature of Black tradition throughout the nation and globally. It actually does broaden their minds.
EBONY: How do you guarantee that you’re elevating well-rounded younger Black youngsters whereas looking for holistic illustration in at present’s world?
FW: We began this endeavor after visiting bookstore upon bookstore and nonetheless not discovering characters that appeared like my daughter or my niece. We needed them to really feel inspired by the fabric round them which is why Courtney and I created Come on a Journee With Me. Moreover, the youngsters have saved us sincere about ensuring we hold these tales going so we all know now we have an obligation to do that.
CW: As a toddler, I personally liked tales about seeing a child go on an journey. It means that you can escape. In doing analysis for this venture, I additionally channeled myself as a toddler and remembered how cool it will have been to see a younger Black lady exploring the world, studying about historical past, and studying about new cities. There wasn’t something in that panorama for me, and there may be nonetheless that downside at present. Creating this for my nieces and different younger Black and Brown youngsters exposes them to the idea of touring, whether or not to DC or New York, and that it’s potential to go to totally different locations and study tradition.
Lastly, why do you consider it will be important for youngsters to see robust examples of household as they develop up?
FW: For us, household is all the pieces. That saying “It takes a village to boost a toddler” was so true for us rising up in New York. Our household did an excellent job guaranteeing that we had been at all times related to our cousins and acquired to expertise issues with them. We attempt to instill this similar mentality with the youthful era we’re elevating. With the Come on a Journee With Me sequence, the ladies not solely get to journey however are capable of perceive the ingredient of sharing experiences with household. There are occasions when relations don’t see eye to eye however it’s necessary to have that help. Equally, I don’t assume Courtney and I might have been capable of make it so far as now we have with out the help of our household.
CW: I additionally assume it’s necessary to speak about the truth that households look totally different. There are loads of non-traditional households that we haven’t essentially seen within the media. With Come on a Journee With Me, we encourage individuals to create their very own sense of household in the event that they don’t really feel like they’ve the standard help system that they want. Household doesn’t simply need to be the individuals that you’re blood associated to. It may be anybody who’s there for you, believes in you, and pushes you onward.