Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa

Out of America is a black man's journey back to Africa as a newspaper reporter. Within the book, a myiad of political and social issues are delved into and the answers - not THE answers, to be sure, but answers as good as any other - are disturbing. While Mr. Richburgh makes clear towards the beginning of the book that he never felt his 'blackness' was his defining characteristic, his journey in the book sours him on Africa and wipes many preconceptions out of the window. Before anyone can help Africa, he concludes, Africans need to help Africa. The descriptions of tribalism, dictatorship, factionization, and senseless murder seemingly as a way of life, are disturbing and graphic. Richburgh pulls no puches. The irony is that in the process of reading a book where the author ultimately concludes that Africa may be less 'salvagable' than we thought, it is obvious that he is not callous about this judgment, that he remains all-the-while sympathetic, and that this conclusion is one of the hardest ones the author has ever had to make (he tells us THAT much).Many who've read Out of America denounce Richburg as an out-and-out "uncle Tom". He is a black man who realizes that he is an "american" before he's an "african-american" (as if I'm 'european-american' instead of just plain 'white'). The irony is that those who are shocked that Richburg, a black man, would DARE criticize Africa seems to prove RIchburgs ancillary point. Black leaders, intellectuals, and arm-chair diplomats have pussyfooted around Africa, ignoring abuses of 'human rights', ignoring the deadly tribalism and murder, so as to keep the image of "Africa - the glorious motherland" alive. We may, of course, criticize Europe ("the hegemonic western world") but dare we ever criticize atrocities in Zaire?! How dare we! So it is ironic that the authors point - that we must be realistic instead of untopion when dealing with Africa - is played into perfectly by those so willing to call Richburg an 'uncle tom" or a 'sellout'. So as not to rant anymore, this book is somewhere between a personal biography, a corageous political statement, and an insider glimpse at the sheer hell international journalists go through to get the story and the shot. Don't miss it.

"Out of America' is a tough read. Mr. Richburg's book has brought wails of protest from all over, in Africa certainly but from many other countries and nations as well and not the least America.Mr. Richburg is a reporter; his book is a report of what he saw while on assignment in Africa. What he saw was appalling, the author does not sugar coat it and it rings with an awful truth. The truth is that today in Africa, black Africans are slaughtering other black Africans at a rate that is incalculable. An ongoing slaughter that is largely unreported in the mainstream media. What makes the book so controversial is Mr. Richburg's refusal to blame the past for Africa's murderous appetites of today. What makes the book so controversial is Mr. Richburg's courage in laying bloody Africa at the feet of today's African leaders. He makes no excuses for black leaders that treat their people like charnel. It is this "no excuses" approach that infuriates Mr. Richburg's detractors. It is much easier to blame King Leopold, slavery, the colonialism of the British, or the Belgians than it is to look at the simple truth. What happened yesterday does not give license for the atrocities of today.

I'm intrigued by the reviews that used phrases like "waste of paper" and "dangerous," which seem to reveal more about the reviewer than the book. Is it too hard to see that pointing out the terrible problems in Africa does not mean a belief in Africans' inferiority, or white superiority? The greatest atrocities in history have been accomplished by leaders unrestrained by the rule of law. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, in the words of Lord Acton. It's not the Africanness or the blackness of African leaders that's the problem. It's their corruption, which flourishes in places without the legal institutions necessary to safeguard a free society, without the rule of law. Unfortunately, and all too often, leaders with unlimited power and access to riches (especially those not of their own creation) are prone to abuse the rights of the people at large. Is it because they're black? Of course not. Because they're African? Don't be ridiculous. Does the existence of such dictators mean there is nothing and no one good in their nation and continent? Certainly not. To those of you who reacted defensively to this book, please understand that most people out there, and certainly most who would be inclined to read such a book, are deeply concerned about the problems in Africa (and elsewhere, including at home whether the US or another country) and are genuinely seeking to understand. I think I can speak for many when I say I wish I knew how to help. Surely taking a close look at problems is the first step to finding solutions.

As a white South African journalist reading Keith Richburg's book, I was completely overwhelmed that a mere three years in Africa could have produced a book of this nature. Hats off the Richburg for being honest - and for having the courage to know that on both sides of the moral spectrum - liberal African Americans to white neo-Nazi fascists, he would invoke responses to his book that he would probably find distasteful in the extreme. For Black Americans, I can only assume many viewed his book as a betrayal, while for white racists it was an opportunity to crow in glee, with that familiar, I-told-you-so approach. As a South African first and foremost, and white second, it is with sadness, not joy, that I concur with many of his findings, particularly regarding the recent developments in Zimbabwe. If only the liberal black community in America would realise that in that country, and others, it is not the whites that suffer, Most generally have sufficient money to shield them from the worst or leave if they have to. But, as Richburg so vividly portrays in his book, the half billion black people in southern Africa are forever confined to peasantry, disease, ignorance, and abuse by leaders who show scant interest in democracy. Richburg was right - and I applaud him for saying so - that the mere fact that many countries in Africa have overthrown their colonial masters does not and can never give them carte blanche to persecute their own people - nor does it excuse the black leadership in America and elsewhere from its primary responsibility - the preservation of human rights and the freedoms held so dear by the American consitution. There is nothing worse than those who perpetuate crimes on their own people. The black leaders of America are accomplices to the atrocities committed by the Mobutus and Mugabes of Africa if they do not take a stand against their crimes against humanity. If they raise a unified voice against what is happening, it will have the same affect on American foreign policy as every other major lobbying group in the US. Keith Richburg, I salute you as a journalist, for having the guts to write what must have personally been a very difficult book to produce, knowing the consequences which would ensue. He lives up to the pure goal of journalism, to be informative without prejudice.

Has anyone, besides me, actually read this book? I've looked at review after review and thought to myself "Did I read the same book?" Take away the politically incorrect premise, that an African-American journalist was horrified by what he saw in Sub-Sahara Africa and is grateful to be an American, a premise which is merely in the controversial 5 1/2 page Prelude, and what you have in the remaining 259 pages is one of the most intriguing, exciting, and even breathtaking adventure stories told in modern times. This stuff makes war reporting from WWI and WWII seem like nursery rhymes. If Hemingway and Churchill wanted to see and write about battles up close, they needed to go where Richburg's been. The Spanish Civil War and Boer War were tame by comparison. Want to know what it was like in Mogadishu during the American and United Nations occupation of Somalia? It's here. Why were the corpses of American soldiers dragged through the streets? He'll tell you. Want to know what it was like to stand on a bridge at Rusomo Falls and watch countless Tutsi bodies drift by after being massacred in Rwanda? It's here. What's it like to be a Belgian soldier who is told to put down his weapons to avoid a Hutu riot in Rwanda, and then to die for following that order? Want to know what its like to be in the middle of a cholera epidemic in Zaire? It's here too. Are you interested in the "Whys"? For instance, why do the Hutus hate the Tutsis? How does it relate to the black experience in America? It's discussed here in frank and clear terms. If you've ever wanted to be a foreign correspondent, or a CIA case worker, or to travel to "hot spots" around the world this is the book to read. Richburg gets a bad rap. He gets a bad rap from reviewers and then he gets a bad rap from people who opine on the book after only reading the reviews. This is a wonderful book---a page turner---one that won't let you go to bed at night. Read it.