America needs Africa

We are just days removed from President Trump’s reference to Haiti and African nations as “s---holes.” The comment was made during a meeting with lawmakers as they discussed immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as part of a bipartisan immigration deal (according to people briefed on the meeting).

As a person of African descent married to a woman of African descent raising a son of African descent, I remain disgusted by the president’s comments. As someone who has devoted his career to teaching African history, I believe it is my moral duty to offer truths that fly in the face of Trump’s incendiary statement.

In July 2009, Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie delivered a Ted Talk at Oxford University. In it, she stated that “the single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story. … I’ve always felt that it is impossible to engage properly with a place or a person without engaging with all of the stories of that place and that person. The consequence of the single story is this: It robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our humanity difficult.”

Based on his comments, President Trump’s story of Africa and Haiti is clear. I wonder, however, if he is aware of other stories like the ones listed below:

• 1) Ethiopia was the world’s fastest growing economy in 2015 (World Economic Forum)
• 2) More than half of the world’s mobile money accounts are in Africa; 12 percent of African adults have access to one, compared to just 2 percent worldwide. (World Economic Forum)
• 3) In 2014, Malawi was ranked ninth in the world in Health Expenditure — ahead of Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada and Japan. (CIA World Factbook)
• 4) In 2008, Lesotho devoted 13 percent of its GDP to education — the highest percentage in the world. (CIA World Factbook)
• 5) Until the global recession, Botswana had one of the world’s highest economic growth rates since achieving independence in 1966. (CIA World Factbook)
• 6) African immigrants are more likely to have a bachelor’s degree or higher than any other immigrant group in America. (Migration Policy Institute)
• 7) By many measures, African immigrants are as far ahead of white Americans in educational achievement as white Americans are ahead of African-Americans. (Bloomberg)
• 8) The 2017 class of Rhodes Scholars from the United States includes Thamara Jean, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, and Tania Fabo, who was born to Cameroonian parents. (US News & World Report)
• 9) In 2016, Botswana had a Corruption Perceptions Index higher (and thus better) than 16 European countries. (Transparency International) Added to such statistics are hosts of other truths that fly in the face of Trump’s defamation. In 2013, US News & World Report published a piece by Stephen Hayes entitled “Why Africa is Essential to America’s Future.” Hayes, president and CEO of the Corporate Council of Africa, acknowledged harsh realities facing the continent but coupled this with a counter-narrative: Accra was a boomtown developing into a global city. Burkina Faso was becoming a regional development hub and trading center between Africa and Europe. “The promise of Africa,” Hayes wrote, “is recognized internationally by many nations. While we talk much about the Chinese in Africa, so too are the Indians, Malaysians, Japanese, the Arab nations … and of course the Europeans.”

Author James Baldwin once opined that “American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.” The same can be said about Africa. The poverty, violence, corruption and depression on the continent are terrible.

However, African history tells a multitude of other stories. From its contributions to the Greco-Roman world to its prominence in the Abrahamic faiths, from the intellectualism of Timbuktu to the wealth of Mansa Musa, from the bustling centers of the Swahili coast to the literature of Chinua Achebe, from the sprawling cities of Cairo and Cape Town to the architectural genius of Great Zimbabwe.

If America is to have a prosperous future — if it is to be made “great again” — it will be impossible without Africa and Africans. America needs African allies in the war on terror.

America needs African markets. America needs Africans here: African doctors, lawyers, professors, students and business leaders. It needs African ingenuity, African passion, African intellect, and African know-how. In a reality as timeless as the “s---thole” slurs, this much is true: America needs Africa.

This story was originally published January 21, 2018 at 10:27 PM with the headline "America needs Africa."