We Were Never Enemies — We Were Both Surviving

We Were Never Enemies — We Were Both Surviving

There is a painful question that sometimes surfaces in conversations between Africans and African Americans:

“Why didn’t you come for us?”

It is not a question rooted in hatred. It is a question rooted in historical trauma.

For many Black Americans whose ancestors endured slavery, segregation, and systemic oppression, the wound is deep. Generations were torn from their homelands. Names were erased. Languages were lost. Culture was fragmented. So when they look toward Africa, sometimes they look with love — and sometimes with unanswered questions.

But here is the truth many of us must confront together:

Africa did not escape suffering either.

While millions were taken across the Atlantic, the continent itself was later carved up, colonised, exploited, and destabilised. Entire kingdoms were dismantled. Borders were drawn without consent. Resources were extracted. Economies were structured to serve foreign powers. Education systems were reshaped. Political systems were manipulated.

We were not sitting free while you suffered.

We were fighting to survive too.

The tragedy of slavery and colonisation is that both were part of the same global system of exploitation. One scattered our people. The other weakened the land they came from. It divided us physically, culturally, and psychologically.

But division was never our natural state.

Today, something powerful is happening. Across the diaspora, there is a renewed interest in reconnection. African Americans are tracing ancestry, visiting Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Kenya, and beyond. Africans are embracing diaspora voices in media, business, music, and politics. There is curiosity. There is pride. There is shared identity.

The conversation should not be about blame.

It should be about return, collaboration, and rebuilding.

Africa today is not the Africa of colonisation. It is rising — economically, culturally, technologically. The diaspora is powerful — politically influential, economically strong, globally connected.

Imagine what happens when we stop asking, “Why didn’t you come for us?” and start asking, “How do we build together now?”

The future of Africa will not be built by Africans alone. It will be built by the global African family — on the continent and across the diaspora.

Home is not just geography.

Home is shared blood, shared history, and shared destiny.

The past separated us.

The future can unite us.

There is a painful question that sometimes surfaces in conversations between Africans and African Americans:

“Why didn’t you come for us?”

It is not a question rooted in hatred. It is a question rooted in historical trauma.

For many Black Americans whose ancestors endured slavery, segregation, and systemic oppression, the wound is deep. Generations were torn from their homelands. Names were erased. Languages were lost. Culture was fragmented. So when they look toward Africa, sometimes they look with love — and sometimes with unanswered questions.

But here is the truth many of us must confront together:

Africa did not escape suffering either.

While millions were taken across the Atlantic, the continent itself was later carved up, colonised, exploited, and destabilised. Entire kingdoms were dismantled. Borders were drawn without consent. Resources were extracted. Economies were structured to serve foreign powers. Education systems were reshaped. Political systems were manipulated.

We were not sitting free while you suffered.

We were fighting to survive too.

The tragedy of slavery and colonisation is that both were part of the same global system of exploitation. One scattered our people. The other weakened the land they came from. It divided us physically, culturally, and psychologically.

But division was never our natural state.

Today, something powerful is happening. Across the diaspora, there is a renewed interest in reconnection. African Americans are tracing ancestry, visiting Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Kenya, and beyond. Africans are embracing diaspora voices in media, business, music, and politics. There is curiosity. There is pride. There is shared identity.

The conversation should not be about blame.

It should be about return, collaboration, and rebuilding.

Africa today is not the Africa of colonisation. It is rising — economically, culturally, technologically. The diaspora is powerful — politically influential, economically strong, globally connected.

Imagine what happens when we stop asking, “Why didn’t you come for us?” and start asking, “How do we build together now?”

The future of Africa will not be built by Africans alone. It will be built by the global African family — on the continent and across the diaspora.

Home is not just geography.

Home is shared blood, shared history, and shared destiny.

The past separated us.

The future can unite us.