Women Of Color Create A Place To Heal In Costa Rica

by Heather Cassell

Sometimes you just need a break. A break from work. A break from children. A break from school. A break from white people.

Yes, a break from white people. If you’re a woman of color, you need a space that is filled with every shade of brown skinned girls like you where you and they can just be away from pale skinned people.

A place where you don’t have to think about navigating your skin color, hair, fashion, way they speak, and in general who you are against leering looks and general perceptions white people have about people of color, especially black women.

Basically, black women, particularly those living in the United States or the Western World, need a Calgon moment when they can call out, “Calgon, take me away!” and be whisked off to a magical paradise that doesn’t have people with blonde hair, blue eyes, rosy cheeks, and milky white skin.

Granted all of the women featured in the 1980s commercials were white housewives or “Working Girl” corporate climbers, however in 2018, for black women, that Calgon moment is a retreat, the Women of Color Healing Retreat more specifically. The retreat was created just for them by a black woman like them in the middle of the Costa Rican jungle.

In 2014, health care facilitator Andrea X not only lost her job and had to get away, more specifically, the former Brooklynite needed to get away from white people. She needed to get away from the gentrification and racism and the constant “micro-aggressions” and “passive-aggressiveness,” that distracted her when she communicated with white people, she said.

She landed in Costa Rica for a vacation but ended up not leaving. She took all of her personal savings and founded the Women of Color Healing Retreat. The 10-day retreat offers black women or women of color yoga, vegan food, and political education seminars and a vacation experience where white people aren’t allowed in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica.

“I decided one day to just eliminate white people from my personal life, and ever since then my life has been way more breezy,” Andrea told Vice in the mini-documentary about the retreat that aired February 5.

Andrea said that the need to be separate didn’t have anything to do with white people, but about black women’s healing.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with [white people]. This is about us healing our community,” she said when challenged that her vision might be similar to the polar opposite of white people who want to live in all-white communities.

She’s not alone. The documentary notes a number of all-black travel companies offering black-only trips have emerged within recent years. Representatives of the five black-owned travel organizations that spoke with Vice said they have seen a spike in interest following President Donald Trump’s election.

Ironically, the retreat is currently hosted at a white-owned resort, but Andrea and an unnamed business partner invested $100,000 to build an exclusive black-only retreat, she told Vice while touring the site. The future retreat is 20-minutes from the current location.

Her ultimate vision is a “safe space” sans the oppression of white people, perhaps in a modern-day version of black neighborhoods that provided a space for black intellectuals and creativity, such as the Harlem Renaissance, and the Southern black towns of the past that proved protection from white society. These towns and neighborhoods were safe places for black people, but even with those safe spaces in those times of Jim Crow laws, lynching, and the Ku Klux Klan blacks had to escape the oppression of racism.

Josephine Baker and James Baldwin departed to France to focus on their art. Both spoke out about racism in the US. James spoke openly in interviews about leaving the US due to racism.

“We needed a safe space that was outside of the United States to hold certain conversations and just to heal. I don’t think that we can do that in the United States,” said Andrea. “I think we’re just suffering and suffocating and just dying every single day trying to survive there.”

However, when the reporter asked Andrea about how white people could reduce the harm they do to women of color, she didn’t have an answer. Perhaps it’s because people of color don’t have to educate white people, white people need to educate themselves about people of color.

“My tip to white people is to let us have our space, let us have our room, and go hang out with other white people,” said Andrea. “You’ve done enough damage.”

“I feel like white people shouldn’t even have passports,” she continued, laughing, espousing a black-separatist philosophy. “They need to stay in the United States.”

Black-lash

Some of Andrea’s comments in the mini-documentary sparked a backlash against the retreat, her guests and her.

The documentary set off a rash of Tweets and comments, many of which told Andrea and her guests to go back to Africa in one form or another, questioned if the retreat received federal money, and another that suggested the retreat was supported by welfare benefits, reported the Raw Story.

The most insidious and blatantly racist statement came from Nick Shredder, “My tip for you is to go hang yourself!”

A Place To Relax, Heal, Grow, Be

Tweets like Nick’s are one big reason black women need a space to call their own.

Retreat guests agreed with Andrea that allowing white people to join the retreat would “ruin” the experience.

One of the retreat guests, who didn’t reveal her name, told Vice that she knew “racism was around,” but “it’s a bit more in our face now.”

Other guests discussed unwanted advances by white people who wanted to touch their hair and dealing with stereotypes that black people don’t exercise. Clearly, whoever these people are they haven’t seen the well-toned Jada Pinkett Smith, Halle Berry, Beyonce or buffed Will Smith and Shemar Moore.

“We’re black,” she explained that she has to “pivot my interactions with people and people who actually support Trump.”

“I can’t trust you on friendship level, family level, any level if you actually are supporting someone who is completely racist,” she said.

Retreat guest Christine Donnelly from Chicago simply said the women were looking for “coping mechanisms” and “ways to take care of ourselves because we’re not on the agenda.”

Book your next all brown girl retreat with Girls That Roam Travel. Contact Heather Cassell at Girls That Roam Travel at 415-517-7239 or at .

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