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Some Black Americans Are Fed Up And Ghosting America For Other Countries

Some Black Americans Are Fed Up And Ghosting America For Other Countries

Black Americans
Some Black Americans Are Fed Up And Ghosting America For Other Countries. Photo by Gustavo Fring from Pexels

Some Black Americans are throwing up their deuces and ghosting the United States to live in other countries. While leaving America for better opportunities is not a new trend for Black citizens, the tumultuous year of 2020 has made it a more widespread one.

Devon Kitzo-Creed, 28, and her husband are among those making an exodus. The Wilmington, Delaware resident is moving to Ecuador. Though living abroad was always in their plans, Kitzo-Creed felt now was the right time to implement it,

“The way things have gone this year, the political climate of our country, and just the way that I do not feel valued at all in this country,” Kitzo-Creed told the HuffPost.

A grand jury’s failure to indict any officers for the death of Breonna Taylor – who was shot and killed by police in her own apartment – was the final straw for Kitzo-Creed.

“It’s like the Black woman really is the most disrespected, disregarded person in America. So, I’m leaving,” Kitzo-Creed said, invoking the famous Malcolm X quote.

Sienna Brown, also 28, made the move before the Creeds. She moved to Spain six years ago and started an online company to help women interested in moving abroad, according to HuffPost. She’s seen an uptick in the women who want to make a permanent move.

“The shift really came this year with the pandemic,” Brown said.

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Another Black professional, 45, told HuffPost she was also leaving her home in Washington D.C. and moving to Cape Verde. She declined to be identified to avoid prematurely alerting her employer she was leaving.

“Just between the racism and everything that happened as a result of the pandemic, I really don’t want to be here anymore,” she said. “This year was the final turning point for me. There’s something about this country that feels like a weight on me.”

Terry Williams, 32, understands how the women feel. He’s been living abroad since 2016, teaching online and has traveled to 26 countries.

“For me, as a Black man, and I tell this to everybody I speak to, I feel more safe in other countries. Every other country I’ve been to, more than my own,” Williams told HuffPsot. “Being abroad is the first time I have felt some kind of privilege, if that makes sense. I’m not looked at as a Black person.”

Chrishan Wright – who echoed Williams’ experiences of being treated as a persona broad – started a group called Blaxit Global to help other Black Americans who desire to leave. Her timeline is 3 to 5 years to be gone.

“Blaxit doesn’t necessarily mean that you are expected to leave the U.S. and go to the continent of Africa,” Wright said. “It’s to show that members of the African diaspora, our spores, are sprinkled all over this world and we have the opportunity to create an existence that’s unapologetic and unbothered.”

Zora editor Morgan Jenkins said Blacks’ exodus are spurred by a yearning for true liberty and justice and a separation from communal gathering due to the pandemic.

“Black people, African Americans, are always going to be searching for another kind of freedom. A bigger kind of freedom,” Jenkins told HuffPost. “When you don’t have that community, that does something to you.”