Dear Africans, Do NOT Leave Our Motherland. Dear Diasporans, Go Home Now!

Seems every time there is a crisis in some part of the world, Africans are left out in the cold. Literally. It is time for Africans, including those of us in the Diaspora, to stop hightailing it to other nations in search of opportunities and come together to create greater opportunities for ourselves in the Motherland. For those of us who didn’t hightail it out, but were dragged off in chains, it’s time for a return to our root and that root is Africa!

Besides an education or a job, I can’t imagine why anyone would trade the warmth and culture and beauty of Africa to go live in cold, grey Eastern Europe. And take young children, too? I just don’t see a freezing and majority White population being the best place to raise little people who were created to frolic in the sun.

Ditto for China and even the United States. What would make one voluntarily leave Africa for places so decidedly anti-Black? Only opportunity, right? I mean, it couldn’t be because these lands are intrinsically better. They’re not. China literally wants what Africa has, except for Black people, which is why Chinese immigrants have been flooding the Continent for years. They’ve tried to limit their own population growth, but China is still full to the brim with folk who need to eat. They’ve run out of arable land in their homeland and need the Continent with its plentiful space and rich soil in order to survive.

And the last time the United States wanted Africans on their soil, it was to enslave us and force us to work for 250 years for their gain.

Remember the Time

Yes, we built this country for free and without so much as a thank you. We built several other countries, too. We are owed a lot from so many different places. Ask Portugal, Spain, England, France, the U.S. and others where they’d be without Black bodies and the precious resources naturally produced in abundance on the Continent?

We all know — or should know — about Mansa Musa and his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 where he trekked over 3,000 miles with an entourage of about 60,000 people. While on the journey, he gave out something like 18 tons of gold just because he could. It was that show of wealth that historians believe caught the attention of others, especially poor little Portugal who began snuggling up to Africa to secure some of that gold for themselves which eventually helped them build up enough wealth to protect themselves from being conquered by Spain.

Having been so instrumental in the birth of Western Civilization, ask where the world would be without Africa’s contributions to the modern world through trade, agriculture, and, yes, our workforce which gave an estimated 2.5 billion hours of unpaid labor? Ask Google what they know about Africa’s algorithms and how that knowledge has been a game-changer for the Internet?

We are slowly beginning to learn our actual history because, of course, these things weren’t taught to us in school. Our parents and grandparents tried, but they were even more miseducated than we’ve been about Africa and the real history of the Western world. As we know better, however, we must do better.

Back To the Issue At Hand

I haven’t digressed from my main point, but let everything I’ve just said remind all of us of who we are, what we’ve done and what our Motherland means to the world. Keep this in mind as you watch what’s happening on the geopolitical stage as we speak. It’s not pretty and it’s turned even uglier for Africans stranded there.

Seeing actual video and hearing accounts of Africans banned from hotels and restaurants in China at the beginning of the pandemic set my soul on fire. A pandemic, by the way, that may have originated in China and that Africans had absolutely nothing to do with.

Now, just two years later, we have a new series of videos showing us that trains set aside for women and children fleeing war appear to be ‘Whites Only’ transportation. I’ve come to this conclusion as I’ve watched video clips of multiple conductors systematically denying African women and young children trying to board trains to Poland as they are literally running for their lives. I mean bombs are being dropped on the Ukraine and African women and children have to wait until all of the White women and mothers board first. If there’s no room left once Ukrainians are onboard, oh well, Africans are left SOL to figure it out.

Same Old Bull, Different Date

At some point, we have to learn our lessons. We keep being tested over and over again, yet we continue to leave our plentiful Motherland (or avoid going if we were stolen away) in search of greener pastures elsewhere. How many times must these scenarios repeat before we dig ourselves out of the desire to be elsewhere?

I get it. In times of peace, western countries offer plentiful opportunities that simply aren’t readily available or easily accessible on the Continent. But that’s our fault. With everything we’ve accomplished in history… with all of the ways our power has been harnessed and used for other people’s gain… with all of the resources at our disposal… and with all of the knowledge and wisdom we’ve gained from our mistakes and just from plain observation… we have to know better by now. We have to know that it’s better to build our own than to be stuck begging to be let in when a pandemic is raging or a city is waiting for the next bomb to be dropped.

We simply must figure this thing out. All CHOSSA, all Africans in the Diaspora and every African on the Continent — we owe it to ourselves and our Motherland to find ways to work together and build together. With all of the education and intelligence possessed by our people today, Africa should have several of the best universities in the world. With all of our strong, able-bodied young people, the Continent should have some of the most feared armies in the world. With all of the inventors and other creators we’ve produced, we should be at the forefront of technological innovation. With our political expertise, our spending power, our millionaires and billionaires, Africa should boast world-class infrastructure. If we could accomplish even half of these things there would be no reason for our brothers and sisters to seek better lives in China, the Ukraine and other places that don’t value Black people’s humanity.

What we’re seeing on the news now is up to all of us to change. And the answer is not in fighting other systems while trying to force them to accept us and treat us better, especially if we won’t accept each other and treat one another better. Charity begins at home and our home is Africa. Let’s stop running away from her and run to her, instead.

Everybody can’t pack up and move to a place where, even if it is our homeland, most don’t know a soul. But what we can do is visit often, invest brainpower and capital, pay attention to and center Africa in our dealings. While we’re busy ignoring Africa, everybody but us is benefitting from her existence as we go about seeking opportunities elsewhere. This kind of foolishness has to stop.

Leave a comment if you agree or disagree. Either way, we need to have a conversation.