When Kanye West was ten years he old he spent a year in China due to his mother’s participation in an exchange program that enabled her to teach at Nanjing University. For a young person of colour from the inner city of Chicago one cannot being to fathom the effect that this trip had on the mind of a young Kanye West and how that exposure opened up his mind to how large the world is and conversely opened him up to the possibilities of who he could be.

As a social worker who has spent much of it working with youth from the US and now Australia, so much of young peoples potential is limited by their perspectives and for many, if not the vast majority of young black youth, that potential is limited by what they can see within their city or ten block radius. When we are exposed…