From the Director

The work on this documentary began ever since I arrived in the United States over fifteen years ago. After few years of observations while attending college, I knew that one day I will need to learn more about relationship between Africans and African Americans; I didn’t know how or when I will do that…that is until now. If you are an African in America chances are you do not associate yourself with African Americans. If you do then it is because of work, church or you are in some other organized social event and nothing more outside that setting. If you are an African American, chances are you do not associate with Africans except from a distance in a class, work or maybe church.

There is a fair amount of exceptions where Africans and African Americans have intermarried in this country, but that does not help the state of affairs between the two groups. Both sides hold certain beliefs about the other side. This is an opportunity to determine what is real and what is fiction.
 
So why is this? Why aren’t the Africans close to the African Americans? Should they be close? What causes the rift? Who is at fault? How can the situation be improved? Is it all real?

If you an African American you may argue that you know few Africans but upon close scrutiny you will find that most of these relationships are not very deep, meaning that people really don’t socialize beyond work or classroom environments.

Some have argued that the relationship between Africans and African Americans in America is no different from the relationships between Kenyans, Nigerians or Tanzanians in America. This may be true to some extent but as a rule, Africans in America have a different attitude towards one another compared to their attitude towards African Americans as a group. On the other hand, African Americans have similar attitudes towards all Africans regardless of the country of origin.

The paradox of our investigation is that even though Africans admire and emulate African Americans, they are always apprehensive about taking the steps to really know the African Americans. There is almost an opposite dynamic from the African Americans attitudes towards Africans. They rarely emulate Africans and sometimes go out of their way to tell Africans that they really have nothing to do with Africa since they were born here and this is the only place they know. They are Americans.

In a broader sense, African American organizations in this country have done a lot to connect to Africa. There are well established organizations that promote economic, educational, social and cultural exchanges and initiatives to and from Africa. In making this documentary we have even met African Americans who lived in Africa for sometime in support of such cultural and social exchanges. This is a very good thing and perhaps a state where all “Africans” regardless of their nationalities want to see blossom.

There is no denying that there is room to explore the relationships of all Africans. There are ample documented evidences of the negative impacts of colonial legacy, the cultural conflicts, political and economic injustices done against the “Africans” in the world. This documentary adds another dimension to explore to what extent those past and present evils influence the relationship of the two groups.
 
In the meantime we are set to explore and maybe debunk the long held beliefs between the two “Africas” in America. We hope that the documentary will create some value to some social scholars studying human relationships in general and more specifically African people relationships. The project will take us through various states in America and will cover people from all levels of society. Finally, the documentary will take us back to Africa to explore the attitudes of Africans towards African Americans before they set foot in America.

Ultimately we hope that this documentary will ease some of the real or perceived tensions between the Africans and their American cousins…because as it is we are all “children from the same family”.

If you have an opinion to share towards this topic or want to be part of the documentary, please contact us at info@kibirafilms.com with your contact information.