Members of the US Congress in Ghana on July 30, 2019. Image by Office of Congresswoman Karen Bass on Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).

By Mariama Dumbuya

For many Black Americans tired of enduring racism and violence in the United States, returning to the African continent provides hope of a better life. But some are forgetting to unpack one thing once they settle into their new lives — their Western privilege.

For Black Americans fed up with institutional racism, discrimination, and racially motivated violence in the United States, moving to the African continent provides a perceived sense of hope and safety from a country that has always viewed us as second-class citizens. With the recent attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and the targeting of key provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, to name a few of the Trump administration’s anti-Black actions, the US is rapidly unmasking its true persona as the land of the somewhat free.

But while Black Americans lack the racial privilege of our white and white-passing counterparts, we do benefit from the privilege of living in one of the wealthiest and most powerful countries in the world. While it may not feel like we carry this Western privilege when we are in the US, it does present itself when we travel or move abroad, especially to lower-income countries and countries that rely heavily on tourism. 

Ghana’s year of return: A double-edged sword

In one of the most notable cases demonstrating this phenomenon, Ghana’s Year of Return and Beyond the Return campaigns, launched in 2019, welcomed Black diasporans to reclaim their African roots by setting up new lives in Ghana. These initiatives, while recognizing Ghana “as a beacon of hope for African people living on the continent and in the Diaspora,” quickly revealed the negative impact of Black Western privilege.

In one example, a paramount chief of a farming town in Ghana offered Black diasporans free plots of farmland to build homes on. But the “plots” had been owned by local farmers for generations, and the chief was ordered by the local court to stop construction on the land. When the original owners showed the diasporans the court injunction, the owners were arrested — not the diasporans. When the owners returned after being released, they were threatened with guns by the diasporans. If the owners came back, the diasporans stated they would be shot. 

While the paramount chief carries part of the blame in this debacle, the diasporans’ blatant display of Western privilege undermined the rule of law by ignoring the injunction. By threatening the owners, they placed what they believed was their right to the land over the lives of the farmland’s owners. This privilege is grounded in US and Western hegemony, with parallels seen in the US’s ongoing relationship with its own Indigenous population.

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Through the lens of Western privilege, land is something to be seized from those viewed with less power and then protected from trespassers at any cost, even if those “trespassers” were the land’s rightful owners who were unfairly stripped of what was originally theirs.

In another example from Ghana, the influx of diasporans has gentrified the capital of Accra and surrounding towns. The cost of land has risen in response to this influx, driving Ghanaians to move to suburban communities, and there has been a sharp reduction of green spaces due to the booming real estate sector. Ghanaians must now pay to access local beaches because much of the land has been sold to foreigners. Additionally, while the Ghanaian cedi, the country’s currency, has recently strengthened against the dollar, the country has previously struggled with inflation due to the dollar’s dominance.

While this example is more indirect than the dispute over land ownership, the impact on Ghanaians is the same. Many Black Americans have historically been affected by gentrification from white people moving into majority Black neighborhoods and can understand this impact on an institutional level. But this effect of wealthier individuals moving to neighborhoods where residents have less wealth does not disappear due to a change in the racial dynamics. 

Families having to leave their homes and communities can be a disruptive and traumatic experience, one made even more unfair through the actions of privileged individuals. And even if families can afford to stay, the cultural fabric of the community is changed, and not often to the benefit of longtime residents, whom newcomers may come to see as outsiders or as nuisances to newcomers’ privileged sense of security.

While the Year of Return has eagerly welcomed Black Americans and other diasporans to live in Ghana, it’s still important to understand how their presence can upend the lives of Ghanaians and Africans in other countries, who were born and have lived in their countries their entire lives. Some questions to consider before making a move: What jobs are likely to be lost, and who will be displaced by the presence of diasporans? How will diasporans’ presence impact the economy in the short- and long-term? Will moving abroad truly address all race-related issues, and is moving the right choice? And, most importantly, what can be done as a newcomer to mitigate this impact?

The bigger picture

Regardless of which country Black Americans and other Western diasporans want to relocate to, due diligence must be done to learn more about a country’s laws, social dynamics, culture, economy, politics, and history. What has happened in Ghana can happen in any country. If Black Americans continue to move to the continent en masse without critical reflection, we run the risk of committing the same human rights violations that have been committed against us. 

The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which protects the human and peoples’ rights of African member states, pledges to “eradicate all forms of colonialism from Africa” and to “promote international cooperation,” and takes into consideration that “the enjoyment of rights and freedoms also implies the performance of duties on the part of everyone.”

Black Americans and other Western diasporans must play a part in combating colonialism and other violations by adjusting our behavior and attitudes toward the continent to contribute to the freedoms of all African peoples. Learning about this critical document is an important first step, much like we are taught to learn about our history and our rights to protect ourselves from racism and violence in the US. 

Africa is not an escape for diasporans looking to live a life free of racism and hardship — it is a multicultural and dynamic continent of people who, at the end of the day, are living their lives and trying to get by. Africans face the same issues Black Americans face, including racism, classism, corruption, and lack of economic opportunity. If we intend to find a better life in our ancestral homeland, we must avoid reproducing the same racial power dynamics of the US and other Western countries and becoming the oppressors we are trying to escape.