For years, I have described myself as a Globalist.
To me, being a Globalist has never been about collecting passport stamps or speaking multiple languages. It is about living with cultural curiosity, questioning my own assumptions, understanding my privilege and positionality, and believing that every human being has something to teach me. It is why I travel alone. It is why I teach. It is why I stand on stages speaking about belonging. It is why I train organizations to think differently about culture and human connection.
For a long time, I believed I had built this framework through my own experiences
I was wrong.
The framework I have spent years building was never mine alone.
This is not an essay about placing Black women on a pedestal. Nor is it an attempt to speak on behalf of experiences that are not mine. It is an acknowledgment of an intellectual debt; one that has shaped not only my career, but my understanding of what it truly means to be a global citizen.
My Deepest Lessons Came From A Black Woman
As an immigrant, educator, organizational trainer, public speaker, and professor, I have spent years collaborating with Black women through friendships, higher education, community work, mentorship, and professional partnerships. Along the way, I realized that some of my deepest lessons about liberation, leadership, identity, and belonging did not originate with me.
They came from listening. They came from being challenged. They came from collaboration.
They came from Black women.
Reading the work of scholars like Kimberlé Crenshaw and Angela Davis fundamentally changed how I understood power, intersectionality, justice, and the ways our identities shape how we move through the world. But it wasn’t scholarship alone that transformed me. It was conversations. It was friendships. It was women who cared enough to tell me when I was wrong, who trusted me enough to push my thinking further, and who invited me into conversations that required humility before certainty.
One moment remains etched in my memory.
Years ago, my friend Janis Middleton looked at me and said, “Jad-Évangelo, you are THE global inclusion specialist. Nobody will have that expertise like you do.”
At the time, I didn’t fully believe her.
I had spent years doing the work but hadn’t yet found the language to describe what I was building. Sometimes it takes someone else to recognize your calling before you have the courage to name it yourself.
A Black woman did that for me.
Another moment came through one of my closest friends, Kadiatou*. We fell into a long conversation about braids, cultural appropriation, identity, and how I navigate the world as a fair/light-skinned, masculine-presenting man. We laughed. We challenged each other. We disagreed (kind of). We learned.
When the conversation ended, I realized I respected her even more than I already had.
Not because of our moments of concurrence. Because she cared enough to challenge me.
I discovered something about myself that day. Some people experience difficult conversations as rejection. I experience them as generosity. When someone challenges my thinking with care, they’re telling me that my growth matters to them.
Few gifts are more meaningful than that.
*Kadiatou read the draft of this article before it was published. After having our emotional moment together over the phone, both of us in tears, I remember telling her:
”Imagine how a Palestinian man from Lebanon (with Haitian connection) and a Black woman (of Guinean/Liberian background) from Brooklyn came together to have this conversation. Look at what we have produced. I am so proud of us. This is beyond revolutionary. This is the result of Global Citizenship.”
Reciprocity, Not Recognition
When conversations about diversity or social justice emerge, we often talk about representation.
I think we should spend more time talking about reciprocity.
Black women have spent generations contributing intellectual, emotional, educational, political, and cultural labor to movements that extend far beyond themselves. Their scholarship has reshaped law. Their organizing has transformed democracy. Their leadership has strengthened classrooms, workplaces, nonprofits, and communities. Their imagination has expanded what liberation can look like for all of us.
Yet too often, society celebrates that labor while quietly expecting it.
We quote Black women. We invite them onto panels. We expect them to lead conversations about justice.
But how often do we ask ourselves what we owe in return?
Gratitude alone is passive. Reciprocity requires action.
If my understanding of global citizenship has been enriched by Black women, then my responsibility cannot end with admiration. It must continue through collaboration, advocacy, shared leadership, and creating opportunities for Black women to flourish without constantly carrying the burden of educating everyone else.
The World Through Black Women’s Eyes
One of the greatest lessons I have learned about global citizenship did not come from an airport or a textbook.
It came from admiring dark-skinned Black women traveling the world solo.
I follow many content creators, but I keep returning to Black women documenting their journeys across continents.
Not because they recommend the best beaches or cafés. Because they reveal something much deeper.
When a dark-skinned Black woman reviews a country, she is documenting more than a destination. She is documenting how humanity behaves when confronted with one of the world’s most historically marginalized identities.
She shows us how hospitality changes. How safety changes. How beauty standards shift. How strangers respond. How institutions function. How prejudice appears. How kindness appears.
Every destination becomes a reflection of itself. Their content isn’t simply travel advice.
It is one of the most profound forms of global education available today.
Global citizenship is not measured by how many countries we visit. It is measured by how honestly we ask who gets to experience those countries with dignity, safety, and freedom.
