From the New York Times news section:
Blaxit: Tired of Racism, Black Americans Try Life in Africa
February 16, 2024 in News
Jes’ka Washington lives in a six-bedroom house on a hill with avocado trees and a spectacular view, not far from the rabbit farm she runs. For less than $50,000, Shoshana Kirya-Ziraba and her husband built a four-bedroom, two-bathroom house on family farmland with goats, turkeys and about a thousand chickens. Mark and Marlene Bradley now call themselves islanders and the owners of three homes cooled by ocean breezes.
All of them are Black Americans who found their new homes in Africa. They are enjoying the substantially lower cost of living and, more important, they said, the absence of the racism and discrimination they experienced in the United States.
The Covid pandemic and the racial reckoning in the wake of the murder of George Floyd led some Black Americans to seek a different way of life abroad, in a movement that some are calling Blaxit.
Those moving to Africa are also looking for an ancestral connection. Their migration is less about money and more about acceptance, a path that many intellectuals and artists have taken before.[More]
I strongly doubt if this will become a big thing. Still, as more African immigrants show up in the United States, more African-Americans will likely find themselves with a spouse who wants to move back home to Africa.
But I’d like to see more analytical/investigative articles about questions like:
Which type of African-Americans find happiness in Africa and which types give up and come back? I’m guessing the best prospects are pensioners who are fairly young, like 40-somethings newly retired from the military. And African-Americans who grew up on farms and like doing some farming and have a lot of do-it-yourself skills.
I doubt if your more “urban” black Americans are happy in Africa.
Which African countries work out best for African Americans? Botswana? Rwanda? Ghana? Kenya? Which are the most English-speaking? Which have reasonable levels of competence and not too much corruption and crime? And where can you be reasonably confident about the long term. E.g., Rwanda has had a talented dictator for the last 30 years, Paul Kagame. But he’s getting old. What happens next?
