'I'm leaving and I'm just not coming back': Fed up with racism, Black Americans head overseas

[Celerity]

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/06/26/blaxit-black-americans-leave-us-escape-racism-build-lives-abroad/3234129001/

Anthony Baggette knew the precise moment he had to get out: He was driving by a convenience store in Cincinnati when a police officer pulled him over. There had been a robbery. He fit the description given by the store's clerk: a Black man. Okunini Ọbádélé Kambon knew: He was arrested in Chicago and accused by police of concealing a loaded gun under a seat in his car. He did have a gun. But it was not loaded. He used it in his role teaching at an outdoor skills camp for inner-city kids. Kambon also had a license. The gun was kept safely in the car's trunk. Tiffanie Drayton knew: Her family kept getting priced out of gentrifying neighborhoods in New Jersey. She felt they were destined to be forever displaced in the USA. Then Trayvon Martin was shot and killed after buying a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea.

Baggette lives in Germany, Drayton in Trinidad and Tobago, Kambon in Ghana. All three are part of a small cultural cohort: Black emigres who, feeling cornered and powerless in the face of persistent racism, police brutality and economic struggles in the USA, have chosen to settle and pursue their American-born dreams abroad. No official statistics cover these international transplants. In Ghana, where Kambon is involved in a program that encourages descendants of the African diaspora to return to a nation where centuries earlier their ancestors were forced onto slave ships, he says he is one of "several thousand." Kambon rejects descriptors such as "Black American" or "African American" that identify him with the USA.

Tiffanie Drayton working on Pigeon Point beach, Trinidad and Tobago, in January 2020.

In Trinidad and Tobago, where Drayton now works in her home office with a view of the ocean and hummingbirds frolicking above the pool, there are at least four: Drayton, her mother, sister, and her sister's boyfriend. There are likely more. About 120,000 Americans live in Germany, which is home to an estimated 1 million people of African descent. But because for historical reasons Germany's census does not use race as a category it is not possible to calculate how many hail from the USA. "There's a lot of institutional racism in Germany," said Baggette, 68, who has lived in Berlin for more than 30 years. Years later, Baggette feels conflicted about his move. He described the fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1989, as a time when Neo-Nazis and skinheads would "throw Black people off of the S-Bahn," the city's subway system. "But I still felt, and feel, better off here – safer," he said.

'I don't have to think of myself as a Black woman'

In interviews with more than a dozen expatriate Black Americans spread out across the globe from the Caribbean to West Africa it became clear that, for some, the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis has provided fresh evidence that living outside the USA can be an exercise in self-preservation. A 2019 study by the National Academy of Sciences found Black men were around 2.5 times more likely than white men to be killed by police. A 2020 analysis of 100 million traffic stops conducted across the country determined that Black people were far more likely to be pulled over by police than whites, but that difference narrows significantly at night, when it is harder to see dark skin. Black Americans face a far higher risk of being arrested for petty crimes. They account for a third of the prison population but just 13% of the overall population, according to Pew Research, a non-partisan "fact tank."

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[no_hypocrisy]

1. Entertainer from the Twenties, Josephine Baker, did the same thing. She couldn't get bookings here,

North or South.

She became the Toast of the Town in Paris, especially with her banana costume. Nobody thought of her as "black". She was beautiful and exotic.

[betsuni]

4. I love her.

[Blue_true]

13. Then nazism consumed France. There is risk associated with every decision.

I was born on this continent, I will die here. I am ok with splitting into a Left Country and. Right Country, each with their own governments and cultures, but I won't physically leave the continent on which I was born.

[Wounded Bear]

6. Ms Baker was also quite the agent for the resistance against the Nazis...

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/siren-resistance-artistry-and-espionage-josephine-baker

While predominately remembered for her provocative dances, vaudeville routines, and appearances in films, Josephine Baker’s efforts to fight the tyranny of Fascism have received regrettably little attention. Throughout her life, the American expatriate turned French citizen fearlessly called out the racism she endured while in the United States. Her bravery again went on display after her adopted country of France fell to Nazi forces. Josephine turned to espionage, using her celebrity status to capture information for the French Resistance.

Yeah, this woman understood being oppressed and fought back.

[sfstaxprep]

2. I'm Not Even Black, And I've Considered It Too

The older I get, the less I see myself living my last years in the U.S.

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. I'd head to Canada, if I could.

[lark]

8. We tried to get into Canada when "it" stole the office, they said no.

We have good friends in NZ who promise us we can live there and even buy a house. They want us to come live there "where the government isn't trying to kill you"! We are old and not in great health and wouldn't be great in a revolution, so are considering what we will do if drumpf & SCOTUS destroy the country by either stopping or stealing the election. That's what this CV!9 play by drumpf is all about, (besides drumpf profiteering) - creating dire conditions where it could cost us our lives to vote in person and seeding his folks to create violence so he can declare martial law & stop the election.

[GreenPartyVoter]

11. We have family up there. Hoping that might help. Distant future now, anyway.

[Fiendish Thingy]

12. If you have family in Canada, that could definitely facilitate your emigration

Depending on how they are related, they could sponsor you, and even if they can’t, it still gives you points towards eligibility.

But don’t wait too long to apply - you lose points after age 50, and have to take a physical. You can be rejected for Certain chronic health issues that could be a burden on the health system.

[Laffy Kat]

10. Me, too.

My sister and BIL also want to leave, as do both my adult sons. We are white, just fed up with racism, the health care system, etc.

[dalton99a]

3. Kick

"Our racism isn't as lethal as yours," said Gary Younge, a professor of sociology at Manchester University, in England. Younge, 51, who is Black, previously spent more than a decade as The Guardian newspaper's U.S. correspondent.

"In Britain I don't generally walk around thinking I might get killed, whereas in America in some places that's not always the case," he said.

In response to a question about whether Black people should feel a duty to get involved in confronting racism at home, rather than leave, he said:

"Why shouldn't they just live? If a white person leaves America and goes somewhere for work or better opportunities no one would say to them they need to stay and fight for racial equality," he said. "Black people have a double burden of being discriminated against and having to stick around."

[fierywoman]

7. I lived abroad for twelve years (Mexico and Italy). It's not as easy as

just moving to another state. There are prejudices everywhere. Not that I blame people now for thinking they'd like to escape life in the US right now!

[Arthur_Frain]

14. I was going to bring this up.

The burns my butt part of it is that if we could just get a handle on a few things that should be obvious to all, this is still a fantastic country. Truthfully, the next year will decide things for a good many years to come.

[Loki Liesmith]

9. I wish them well.

[Arthur_Frain]

15. I have visited T&T.

Lovely place. I felt like I was the only white guy on the island at several points during my visit. Never felt threatened though, and I know if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time almost anywhere you can be in danger.

Richard Pryor had a routine about black people not liking psychiatrists, and that he couldn’t figure it out because black people, as a group, probably were in need of more psychiatric care than most people. I think he made the point that any other race would have reared up and stabbed us in the heart by now. I think he was right. As a whole black folks must just be more charitable and forgiving that any other folks on the face of this planet. ‘Cuz I think they’ve been treated just about the worst of all. We