A recent essay published by The Washington Post suggests that black Americans who have grown “tired” of America’s supposed hostility against them should consider relocating to Ghana — stating, “Sometimes, leaving is the most powerful form of resistance.”
In her piece, titled “For African Americans tired of U.S. hostility, Ghana is still calling,” columnist Karen Attiah points to the famous black activist W.E.B. DuBois, who moved to Ghana in 1961.
“In 1961, 93-year-old Black scholar and historian W.E.B. Du Bois moved to Ghana, and soon after he was granted Ghanaian citizenship. He had endured Jim Crow racism, FBI surveillance and the confiscation of his passport by the United States, and decided it was enough,” Attiah relates.
“Nearly 60 years after Du Bois’s death, America is still trying to perfume itself to the world as a haven of freedom and progress. But the past weekend has been a reminder that America is all too content to tolerate the stench of Black death.”
The WAPO columnist then recounts the recent killing of 10 black Americans by white 18-year-old Payton S. Gendron in Buffalo, New York.
Attiah echoes the mainstream railing against Fox News and Tucker Carlson for allegedly spreading racism. But she also has stern words for white liberals:
But when it comes to white supremacy, White liberals have long held on to dangerously naive replacement theories of their own — that increasing populations of nonwhites will automatically dent anti-Blackness, for instance, and that younger generations are automatically less racist than their forebears. If President Biden’s reactions are anything to go by, the temptation is to believe that the salve for America’s racist spasms is a good ol’ dose of national unity. This liberal complacency puts us all at risk.
The columnist goes on to cite famous blacks such as Maya Angelou and James Baldwin as examples of individuals who “all left America for Europe and Africa to feel mentally and spiritually free from White America’s psychic violence. Sometimes, leaving is the most powerful form of resistance.”
Notably, Ghana has deliberately attempted to capitalize on the racial tensions in America.
“You do not have to stay where you are not wanted forever,” said Ghana’s tourism minister, Barbara Oteng Gyasi, in 2020, at a ceremony in Accra marking George Floyd’s murder. “You have a choice, and Africa is waiting for you.”
Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo launched the “Year of Return” initiative to encourage more people, including blacks, to visit Ghana.
In 2019, Akufo-Addo gave Ghanian citizenship to 126 foreign nationals who had spent years living in the country. According to some reports, 5,000 American blacks have relocated to Ghana since 2020. Even Stevie Wonder plans to relocate to the African country.
Attiah acknowledges that it won’t be all sunshine and roses for American blacks who choose to move to Ghana:
As open racism becomes more mainstream in major Western countries, will “Blaxit” become a bigger movement? It’s … complicated. The feeling of having to leave home for a better life comes with grief, guilt and moving costs. Cultural differences, and ignorance on both sides about African and African American history and culture, are not easy to overcome. Black people from the Americas will be confronted with the ugly truth that Africans participated in selling captured Africans to the Europeans. And immigration brings a fear of increased gentrification, and that investment and tourism dollars will not benefit average Ghanaians.
She does not mention the corruption, violence, crime, and lower quality of life that anyone who chooses to move to Africa will have to get used to. But for Attiah, it’s all worth it in the end.
“Still, the truth remains that Black people in the diaspora no longer have to be chained to countries that jail them, kill them and subject them to horrific hate crimes,” she writes.
Will she be among the first to leave? WAPO shouldn’t have any problem letting her continue her writing from Ghana. She can even document her experiences in a new column that explores whether liberation from America’s “psychic violence” is worth the lack of clean water and working indoor plumbing.
Perhaps conservatives would do well not to criticize the absurdity of Blaxit (leftists had to add an “a” since Blexit was already claimed by the Right.)
Rather, why not encourage it so that all the America-hating BLM-types leave for good? Just make sure they lose U.S. citizenship so they can’t come running back when they realize the mistake they’ve made.
As the ancient saying goes: “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!”
