BlackEconomics.org®
In a BlackEconomics.org’s March 28, 2025 release, “An,” we discussed the accelerated pace of world developments—domestically and internationally. However, Black Americans (Afrodescendants) should not be so vulnerable and unmoored as to permit tsunami-like domestic and global political and economic waves to carry us in their wake as a rudderless People.
Worse yet, we should not reach out and grasp for passing lifeboats. We may find that the only reason the lifeboats are afloat is because they are constructed of lightweight, flimsy materials and are bottomless and lack substance. If we grasp these lifeboats and attempt to board, we may sink through their missing bottoms; thereby, creating an even worse situation for ourselves. We should continue our pursuit of a strategic plan that we can all accept and then work to implement it in “steady eddy” fashion. What Black America needs most now is a long-hard look in the mirror at how and why we permitted conditions to devolve as they have since about 1970. In addition, we need to continue our ongoing awakening and a resurrection of our Afrikan-centered mind, which should enable us to love ourselves and each other again, reclaim our worthiness, and re-instill a conquering mentality and spirit that re-establishes our confidence that a “people who invented everything” (Afrikans) can achieve whatever we desire.
Now let us dispense with allegories and confront brass tacks. Let us recall that in 2024 leading up to the November Presidential elections and even before, Black Americans were pushing hard on Reparations and there were international spillover effects concerning this topic. Add in that former Organization of Afrikan Unity (OAU) Ambassador to the US, Ambassador Arikana Chihombori-Quao, began speaking out loudly and firmly demanding the unification of Afrika and the so-called Sixth Region; meaning that the OAU should include and benefit from the Afrikan Diaspora all over the world, but especially from the Western Hemisphere, which includes Black Americans. And then toward the end of 2024 President Ibrahim Traoré of Burkina Fosu burst onto the scene as a shooting star as the world learned about his exceptional and effective national agenda, which moved quickly and powerfully toward greater self-determination and against his nation’s former colonizer France.
At the same time, although no official US statistics are available on the volume of Black American (Afrodescendant) emigres whose destination is Afrika, all indications are that the number continues to rise. The evidence is reflected over the past few years in the rising number of Internet websites developed by Black Americans in Afrika concerning their new businesses and or their frank and open revelations about their new lives on the Continent.
All these developments have sparked an intense interest among Black Americans in returning to Afrika to reclaim our brotherhood/sisterhood with our People and/or to assist in their development while simultaneously reaping our own financial benefits. Within the last few months, a considerable volume of propaganda about Burkina Faso’s economic development has bombarded social media; including pushing back on the French, using the nation’s gold resources to operationalize immensely helpful programs for its population, and manufacturing an electric car. This news about Burkina Faso has fanned a small and warm flame of interest into a roaring fire of a desire to invest, and even go (as did John C. Robinson, who went to help the Ethiopians fight Mussolini during the WWII period) to Burkina Faso to help defend President Traoré, who is reported to have already avoided numerous assassination attempts.
This sounds and is exciting, especially because of the Ukraine-Russian war, the ongoing battles in the Middle East between Israel and Arab People in Palestine and elsewhere, and now there are intense skirmishes between India and Pakistan. We are in the 2020s, not 1920s, but these developments parallel in certain ways the slow, but widening expansion of conflict that was like winds that blew the globe into WWII.
During our lifetime, we have visited, lived, and worked on the Afrikan Continent—mainly in East Afrika. Yet we claim no particular expertise in that regard. However, there is a simple fact about life to which we may all be able to attest: “Haste can make waste.” Also, the saying, “the grass always seems greener on the other side” has not survived the ages because it holds no truth. The point being that Black Americans (Afrodescendants), who turn eastward and leap into the ocean for a trans-Atlantic swim—and along the way collect the souls of our ancestors, who willingly or unwilling went to the depths—to make their way back to Afrika physically or with resources, we urge caution and careful and patient observation of outcome to identify reasons to trust that our return and our assistance will be rewarding and rewarded.
Final comments about the foregoing will follow this crucial point. As we consider our positions (political, philosophical, and economic) on the idea of returning to Afrika and make decisions about how to proceed, it is important to emphasize that we have already earned the U.S. and that with proper and successful development, adoption, and implementation of a high-quality strategic plan, Black Americans can fulfill our desires right here. Also, we should contemplate economic outcomes that are likely to ensue if a sizeable Black American population off-loads assets before departing for Afrika. Please do not misconstrue these comments to infer that we oppose decisions to return home to Afrika.
However, we repeat here our call for caution and careful and patient observation of outcomes that help identify trust.(i) We believe that such caution is well warranted because most Black Americans (Afrodescendants) have very limited familiarity with Afrika and Afrikans. As already noted, Black Americans should work to ensure that future engagements with Afrikans on the Continent are rewarding and properly rewarded, we believe that answers to the following questions and points can serve as sound information that can guide excellent decision-making about a return of Diaspora populations.
- Is it most beneficial for Black Americans to return to the Continent en masse or individually (solos and families)?
- Is there a West-of-the-Atlantic plan for migration, and can optimal results be achieved without a plan?
- It is true that certain Afrikan nations have made solid overtures to Black Americans, but there are many nations that have not vocalized or shown physically an open arms posture toward Black Americans arriving to remain permanently.
- Does the OAU’s hesitancy about opening doors widely to all Afrikan Diaspora members (Sixth Region residents) signal significant opposition to Black Americans emigrating to Afrika?
- Has potential Afrikan receiving nations begun to plan to accommodate Diaspora emigres?
- What plan is available to match Black American emigres to Afrikan nations that might be most appropriate based on genetic information about tribal affiliations.
- What do experts predict about the most probable outcome for Black Americans on a variety of fronts, who emigrate to the Continent?
While the time of action (emigrating to Afrika) can and may choose Black Americans (Afrodescendants), logic infers that choosing our own time for emigrating to the Continent may produce the best results. There are many pressures at this important juncture of great uncertainty and potential upheaval that could produce the types of conditions that the world has never witnessed. Black Americans should take care and be attentive and awake enough to choose strategic actions that benefit us most—especially, when our actions do not affect significantly other racial/ ethnic groups.
©B Robinson
050925
Endnote
i The reference to trust is not the touchy-feely idea that is banded about in a wide range of contexts. By trust we mean that sense of assuredness that results when differing parties come to an agreement and commit to producing certain outcomes. They willingly open themselves to observation of processes that are used to produce stated outcomes. They permit full analysis of processes for verification purposes. And, if commitments are violated (for whatever reason, but preferably not willful nonperformance of commitments), they rush to explain, apologize, and recalibrate processes to return them to their schedule of producing outcomes to which they agreed initially.