Apparently, Black people are leaving the United States.

At least, that is the Los Angeles Times’ story and they are sticking to it.

She isn’t wrong. We don’t deserve to be exposed to her nonsense. pic.twitter.com/HeeomrgcZ3

— 𝐆𝐫𝐞𝐠 (@HarmfulOpinion) October 11, 2023

They call the move “Blaxit,” combining Black and “exit,” and according to the (mostly wealthy and successful) people who are leaving the country, it is driven by their desire to escape what they call an abusive relationship.

One has to wonder what percentage of them would have had the same opportunity to become wealthy in the countries they moved to, and how many of them still derive all or part of their income from the United States.

Just sayin’.

PUERTO VIEJO, Costa Rica — Filmmaker Jameelah Nuriddin was locked down in Los Angeles during the pandemic, watching as the nation convulsed in protest over the murder of George Floyd, when she had an epiphany: “America does not deserve me.”
As a Black woman, Nuriddin always tried to work twice as hard as those around her, thinking: “If I’m smart enough, pretty enough, successful enough … then finally people will treat me as a human being.”

But as she grieved yet another unarmed Black man killed by police, she decided she was done trying to prove herself to a society that she felt would never really love her back.

So Nuriddin, 39, packed her bags and left.

She ended up in Costa Rica, in an idyllic beach town on the Caribbean coast that has become a hub for hundreds of Black expatriates fed up with life in the United States.

She now spends her days working for U.S. clients from chic cafes, leading healing ceremonies at a local waterfall and trying to figure out who she is, exactly, outside of an American context.

“It’s like leaving an abusive relationship,” she said of exiting the United States.

The expats forging new lives in Puerto Viejo are part of a wider exodus of Black Americans from the U.S. in recent years, with many leaving for reasons that are explicitly political.

I am tempted to discover what a healing ceremony is at a waterfall. Sounds relaxing, although I also wonder whether I would be welcome to join in.

The Blaxit movement has apparently spawned a thriving industry, proving that no matter how much one disdains capitalism, capitalism won’t disdain you if you have money. Lenin famously said, “The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.” Why not? If you gotta die, die rich.

Of course, the exit of a few hundred or thousand Black malcontents will hardly lead to the mass hanging of capitalists, and I frankly don’t resent the snub we Americans are suffering by their leaving. It’s not like people don’t leave and come back to America all the time, and if these expats feel more comfortable elsewhere then it is their prerogative to move.

The irony, of course, is that if they cared to look they would find that there isn’t a corner of the world where some social problem or another plagues the population. It’s not like Mexico, one of the preferred destinations, isn’t plagued by social discord that far exceeds our own, although if you have enough money you can ignore it and live well.

Just don’t pretend you are moving from a place of hideous injustice to one of peace and plenty.

“It gave people time to question,” said Chrishan Wright, who launched a podcast in 2020 that documented her move to Lisbon. She now works as a relocation consultant and is helping about a dozen families restart in Portugal. They are mostly Black professionals with children, she said, in search of “a better quality of life without the emotional and psychological strain.”

Many of those who are leaving are trying to escape their American-ness — yet are also having to confront the power of their dollars and what Wright calls “passport privilege.”

Wright, 49, a former marketing executive who spent most of her life in New York and New Jersey, left in part because she couldn’t bear the thought of living through another American presidential election.

Yeah, well, I get tired of elections too, even though I don’t quite share the outrage over the overdose death of a meth and fentanyl addict in Minneapolis. I would hate to tell these emigres that police violence against unarmed black men in the US is actually very low–about 10 a year, and few if any of these “victims” weren’t resisting arrest. But then again, if I believed the MSM I would have a different impression as well.

Where are the Black émigré hubs? “Mexico City or Bangkok for those who want a faster pace; Cartagena, Colombia, or Tulum, Mexico, for lovers of the beach; Accra, Ghana, for those hoping to connect with their African roots.” Ghana, by the way, is not a healthy place for members of the alphabet community, so the concern for human rights among the Blaxit crowd is, shall we say, focused more on the rights of Blacks than of all people. It is also a hub for cartels smuggling drugs from South America, and it is notable that Cartagena, Columbia is another hotspot for the Blaxit movement. Tulum is also deep in the heart of cartel areas, and cartel violence has hit the area in recent years.

Coincidence? Perhaps, perhaps not. At the very least I would think that Lisbon would be a nicer place to be if one wants safety from violence.

What struck me about this piece was not that some people have decided to leave the US for places they find to be more suitable for their lifestyles and attitudes. That has been happening here and elsewhere forever.

Rather, it is the casual assumption that these people were driven out by a hostile, racist culture here in the US. That, to me, is a sense created by stories like this, not reality on the ground.

The greatest danger to Black people in this country comes from other Black people, not Whites. At least own up to that. There are plenty of racist Whites, but Black culture and violence is a far greater problem for the Black population in America than what amounts to a small rump group of White Supremacists.

I don’t blame these particular people for failing to fix the problem–it’s not like a few ex-pats could have made a difference. But they shouldn’t pat themselves on the back for escaping White terror, either.