The Vim Views & Versions - Blogs of a MIghTy African

My brothers and sisters in Ghana and across the continent, Once again, distressing images have flooded our timelines: Ghanaians evacuated from South Africa , shops attacked, harassment in townships, and the painful label of “xenophobia.” As I sit in Accra reflecting on my own experiences in Mzansi , my heart feels heavy. This piece, co-written with my South African alter-ego Siyabonga Mthimkhulu , draws from candid conversations I initiated with several South Africans , my personal travels, and realities many outsiders miss. We need understanding and #MoreVim , not just outrage. My connection to South Africa goes back to November 2011. I visited both Joburg and Cape Town while there for Google work. And then in May 2013, I was in Cape Town for the World Economic Forum on Africa — #shapeafrica . Wearing my GhanaThink Foundation , badge proudly, I immersed myself in sessions, networking, and cultural exchanges. The city greeted me with Table Mountain watching over everything, th...

I met Kobina Aidoo at some point during my MIT days. At the time, he was a graduate student at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Kobina is a man of many interests and as a hobby, he took up making a documentary a few years ago. The result's been ' Neo-African-Americans ', a documentary about how rapid immigration from Africa and the Caribbean is transforming the "African American" narrative. I finally got the chance to watch this documentary sometime last week after missing three separate screenings organized at Stanford University. In the documentary, Kobina interviews different people about their identity. He takes a particular interest in children of African and Carribean immigrants in America as well as immigrants themselves. Most of them seem to have different views on whether they are "African-American" and seem to identify themselves in different ways. Afro-Latino-American. Ghanaian-American. African. True African-American. Haitian-Ameri...