What Africa owes to the entire black race across the world

Sometimes one sees a black man humiliated on the streets of the western world, or even killed senselessly, in an environment where the senseless loss of life is extremely uncommon for other races.

One may note social distress in Haiti, and realize that the country is unsettled, seeking answers and getting suggestions of them outside of itself, in packages that may threaten more distress. On African home soil, things are not any different. The black man may as well suffer racial-driven humiliation at home, inflicted by visitors.

However, the focus of this commentary is to highlight the plight of the entire black race beyond Africa, the cradle of the black race, herself; the kind of plight for which the solution lies with the status of Africa. All humiliation and undesirable circumstances suffered by the black race, the world over, sit on one throne – Africa’s reproach. As long as Africa’s situation remains one that attracts scorn, all black peoples of the world will be underlooked.

This is regardless of the few flickers of light to the contrary. Some outlier situations will manifest black people breaking through the ceiling to accumulate acclaim and praiseworthy achievement. However, silent disdain will still follow even these few breakthrough cases in subtle and sometimes crude ways.

This happens because Africa’s reputation is imprinted on the entire black race. This applies even when the affected black people may not be aware. Many of them have no current or direct linkages with Africa, but the rest of the world views them through an African lens. The rest of the world views black people as African people or their “representatives”.

Due to the above, the actual emancipation of the black race, so that their status anywhere in the world becomes one they admire for themselves, cannot be realized without the transformation of Africa. As long as Africa is not self-reliant and depends on foreign support to run her own affairs, blacks in the Caribbean are bound to be underlooked along with the African natives.

The same fate applies to an accomplished black professional seated in a position of privilege in an office in the new world. While Africa remains undeveloped and struggling, it represents scorn to the rest of the world. The rest of the world resultantly scorns the entire black race.

Africa should be the centre of gravity for all black people of the world. When the centre is weak, the weakness follows its own everywhere they go. Even when a black person does not subscribe to being identified as African, or is indeed not African by birth and other citizenship ascription means, that person is African by scorn.

Needless to say, if Africa exchanged scorn for admiration and respect, the new identity of the continent would follow every black person all over the world.

In earlier years, a number of prominent black personalities such as slavery abolitionists in the western world encouraged the return of former slaves to Africa. It is possible that these individuals perceived that the real emancipation of former slaves was necessarily linked to Africa.

Their “back to Africa” movement may not have performed as its advocates envisaged, but if it had, the advocates hoped that Africa would be able to receive its own and offer them what was necessary for their healing, full social acceptance and other desirable outcomes.

That did not turn out as planned since there was no massive return of formerly enslaved black people to Africa, out of the former slave communities in the western world.

However, Africa still remains the answer to some of the deepest needs of those people. These needs, accruing from the perceptions that other races hold of blacks and how other races, therefore, treat them, can be answered without these people ever coming to Africa, or even recognizing the value that Africa’s status plays in their position as a people.

Africa’s socio-economic transformation is therefore not only important to the natives of the continent but to the entire black peoples of the world. With this transformation, all black people in the world will be respected. Without it, the status quo will continue.

Africa owes the duty of socio-economic transformation to her own people, but as well to every black person wherever that person stays in the world.

Raymond is a Chartered Risk Analyst and risk management consultant

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