GHexpat

I had known Natural Langdon almost my entire life.  His mom and my mom were colleagues and furthermore besties.  Due to that relationship, even though we weren't neighbors, we did spend a lot of time together.  I even stayed with his family for a couple of weeks back in my early teens but had pretty much lost contact with him throughout the entire 1990s and aughts. Then, circa 2013, Nat reached out to me on Facebook.  By then, both of our lives had changed significantly.  I was now living in Ghana.  And Natural, though still based in Brooklyn, had become a globetrotter.  Furthermore, he had also, surprisingly to me, transitioned into something like a Rastafarianism, though he didn't smoke trees or anything like that, nor was he overly religious. Nat expressed a desire to come and visit me in Ghana.  I was all for the idea, considering that encouraging other people to come and see the Gateway to Africa was one of my inspirations for expatriating....

The titular conflict is a good example of how what's relayed in the mainstream media between the two hemispheres - or let's say between the First World and the Third World - isn't always an accurate or holistic understanding of what's happening on the ground.  A blunter way of putting it, from the outside looking in, is that the American public tends to take a defensive, politically-correct stance when choosing sides in emotionally-charged, consequential debates.  And this is despite the fact that they may only have a cursory understanding of the matter at hand, without knowing or particularly caring for facts outside of their immediate observation. WHY DOES IT MATTER? No matter what part of the world you live in, people have opinions, and how we feel about certain subjects doesn't always agree.  But why it tends to matter more when it comes to Americans is due to the way they dominate the (international) media.  Furthermore, public opinion stateside can and sometim...

The ever-outspoken US President Donald Trump recently made statements - which I'm pissed off the likes of Afrocentrists and pan-Africanists - about American slavery.  Said statements were issued a coule of months ago, and basically, his argument is that slavery in the United States was not as detrimental or cruel to Blacks as it is usually presented.  That's a powerful sentiment for someone so prominent to express publicly, and you would expect some major backlash from the Black community.  But I have yet to come across news of any African-American celebrity,  besides Spike Lee , addressing the matter. WHAT WAS AMERICAN SLAVERY? My understanding of capitalism is that slavery always exists within such systems, even if not officially.  Ideally, regardless of what part of the world you're referring to or what type of socioeconomic system respectively extant, measures would be in place to ensure that workers are not ruthlessly exploited, and said measures woul...

Actually as I write this, I’m no longer in Tamale.  My trip was cut short by, most simply put, an employer stabbing me in the back.  The workforce in Ghana is dominated by small-scale scale entrepreneurs, which makes it more readily possible for workers to be treated unfairly as opposed to being employed in a corporate-like system.  But that’s a discussion for another day. For the most part, I enjoyed my time in Tamale though fell really sick upon departing, and it took me a good week to get over that illness.   The best thing about the city, as opposed to those in in the south of country (including Accra), is the low cost of living.   The caveat though is that Tamale is generally dirty, which logically would contribute to sickness if your body isn’t used to the environment.   And what it feels like is that I caught a case of malaria, very weakening though thankfully not completely debilitating. SOME VILLAGES CLEANER THAN THE CITY Some of the villages o...