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Calling Blacks in the Diaspora to rebuild the Motherland

By Jehron Muhammad | Last updated: Dec 17, 2019 - 11:33:26 AM

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The unity of the African Diaspora, defined by Dr. Arikana Chihombori-Quao, the former permanent African Union ambassador to the United States, as all people who can claim African heritage, is the missing ingredient in Africa’s development.

That unity is far from being realized. Dr. Tahiya Nyahuma, along with her husband, professor Mujahid Nyahuma, was a principal organizer of a recent Philadelphia visit by Dr. Chihombori-Quao. African immigrants living in the United States and the sons and daughters of enslaved Africans brought to America must learn to appreciate one another and the contributions both bring to the table, said Dr. Nyahuma.

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Professor Mujahid Nyahuma with his wife, Dr. Tahiya Nyahuma.

Moving from Kenya, East Africa to New York and eventually settling in Baltimore, Mkawasi Mcharo Hall in a 2018 essay, “Fortress ‘Black in America:’ Closed to Africans?” discussed her struggle to find bonds with Black Americans.

“Many Africans in America find little value in identifying with Blackhood. They resist being identified with blacks once they become aware of the American caste system that puts melanin-rich humans at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Africans in America have this false hope that being an immigrant saves them from classification on that totem pole. They check the box ‘Other.’ When they make it, most buy homes outside the city, as if American cities and their inner-city component haunts them with a certain stigma of failure,” she wrote.

Historically Black Americans looked at Africans from a Pan African perspective, said Dr. Anthony Monteiro, a scholar, longtime activist and the creator of Philadelphia’s influential “Saturday Free School.”

“Most African Americans or those that represent some kind of political conscientiousness have historically looked upon our African sisters and brothers from a Pan Africanist (viewpoint). By this I mean a radical or revolutionary Pan Africanist perspective, and therefore sought solidarity. Those issues that are important to Africans we will support, as we did in the anti-colonial and anti-apartheid movement, and they would reciprocate by supporting us,” Dr. Monteiro said to Africa Watch during a phone interview from his North Philly home.

But, he stressed, that relationship of solidarity, once symbolized by Black clasped hands across the globe on the cover of the Nation of Islam’s historic weekly Muhammad Speaks newspaper, has waned.

“This is not the case today, especially with the upper class and elite Africans, many who marry African Americans, but will attempt to define the African Americans, not from the standpoint of Black Americans, but reconfigure or redefine them and especially their children as part of Africa rather than Black America,” the former Temple University professor said.

The stereotyping goes both ways. As far back as 2003, a Journal of Black Studies article titled “Black versus Black: The Relationships among African, African American, and African Caribbean Persons,” surveys a serious “need for more Afrocentric education in the curriculum (from elementary school to college) as a means of reeducating people to have a better perspective of the African diaspora and to dispel myths and negative stereotypes about African people.”

Last year’s Pew Research Center’s survey on “Key facts about Black immigrants in the U.S.” reported: “Much of the recent growth in the foreign-born Black population has been fueled by African migration. Between 2000 and 2016, the Black African immigrant population more than doubled, from 574,000 to 1.6 million. Africans now make up 39% of the overall foreign-born Black population, up from 24% in 2000.”

Africans, especially the well to do, can not only be disconnected from their Black American brothers and sisters, but often that disconnect includes Africa. Some years ago while this author was traveling in Zimbabwe, a front page newspaper story headline read, “African Brain Drain.” The article talked about how African immigrants are satisfied with living the American Dream and sending remittances back to their home countries as opposed to living or building on the continent.

Umar Yacuba, director general of Nigeria’s Counter Fraud Center, in opinion piece in the Premium Times, cited World Bank estimates that remittances sent to relatives and loved ones from Nigerians living abroad equaled over $22 billion in 2017, making it the highest remittance rate in Africa and the fifth highest in the world. This was followed by Egypt with $20 billion, and Senegal and Ghana with $2.2 billion each. Global remittances grew from $573 billion to $613 billion in 2017.

In the U.S. there are over 25,000 medical practitioners of Nigerian descent and over 5,000 skilled Nigerians living in the United Kingdom. Nigeria has over 80,000 registered doctors with more than 50,000 of these reported by the Nigerian Medical Association practicing abroad. Yocuba said similar statistics can be found among economists, statisticians, engineers and general academics working outside of Nigeria.

“How many associations of Nigerians in the Diaspora have contributed to the building of hospitals, equipping them and taking two weeks off each year to come down and render health services?” asked Yocuba. “How many Diasporans have gone back to rebuild their dilapidated primary or secondary schools?”

During a search online of websites of Diaspora associations, he said he didn’t find a single site that included Nigerians living abroad supporting “mini-projects that are done in Nigeria.” He wrote, “Most building projects are personal mansions meant to impress local communities of how they have ‘made it’ abroad. Otherwise, it’s usually about dinners and networking or how to come back to Nigeria for lucrative government contracts, or political appointments.”

Though some of Umar Yocuba’s commentary may be true, he’ll probably get some pushback from Nigerians living abroad.

In a June 7, 2018 piece titled “The Most Successful Ethnic Group In The U.S. May Surprise You,” published on ozy.com, the incredible progress of Nigerians living in the U.S. is highlighted.

Some Nigerian American doctors have organized regular medical mission trips to the West African nation.

“Remittances to loved ones are good, but they are not development,” Yocuba argued. He believes using money to create jobs and transform society are what matters.

“It is time for Nigerians in the Diaspora to organize and be responsible,” he said. And, instead of displaying social events on social media platforms, post visual evidence of contributions being made to the construction of schools, advancements in technology, renovating clinics and the overall infrastructure development in the country, he advised.

But this sense of responsibility and commitment requires a level of consciousness raising among Africans living in America and Black Americans. Dr. Chihombori- Quao, as she travels the length and breadth of America, speaking to the African Diaspora, should institutionalize a kind of national free school similar to Dr. Monteiro’s’ conscious raising Free School in Philadelphia, which focuses on teaching things like Black identity and Pan African partnerships.

Follow @jehronmuhammad on Twitter.