Last Updated on June 11, 2020
Ghana’s Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture has cordially extended an invitation to all African Americans to migrant to Ghana should they feel unwanted in the United States in light of the recent Black Lives Matter protests following the killing of suspected fraudster George Floyd while in police custody.
The West African country made the offer to any African-American who may “feel unwelcome in the USA.”
According to My State Line, Ghana’s Minister of of Tourism, Arts, and Culture, Barbara Oteng-Gyasi, said: “We continue to open our arms and invite all our brothers and sisters home. Ghana is your home. Africa is your home.
“We have our arms wide open ready to welcome you home. Please take advantage, come home build a life in Ghana, you do not have to stay where you are not wanted forever, you have a choice and Africa is waiting for you.”
The invitation comes as thousands of Black Lives Matter protesters around the world express their discontent for accusations of institutional and systemic racism in Western countries.
At a memorial for George Floyd, Oteng-Gyasi said: “Racism in America continues to be a deadly pandemic, for which for more than 400 years now, our brothers and sisters in the United States of America have yearned for a cure…We gather in solidarity with brothers and sisters to change the status quo. Racism must end. We pray and hope that George Floyd’s death will not be in vain but will bring an end to prejudice and racial discrimination across the world.”
Last year, The BBC wrote a piece about an African American who relocated to Ghana “to escape US racism.”
Dr Obadele Kambon made the daring move to West Africa after what he believed was a racially-motivated arrest.
Kambon was put on trial in 2007 after being wrongly arrested in Chicago after police accused him of having a loaded firearm under his car seat–when it, in fact, was revealed that his licensed firearm was unloaded and in the truck of his car.
He said, “Never again will I allow myself to be in a jurisdiction where corrupt white police officers and a judge will take me away from my family, wife and kids just on a whim.”
After making the move, Kambon states that he has not been a victim of racial profiling. Kambon remarked, “Wow, this is what it must feel like to be a white person in America, just to be able to live without worrying that something is going to happen to you.”
Protesters continue to decry the injustices of an allegedly racist Western society, despite millions of people from third world countries vying to resettle in the West.