It’s like MTV cribs, but a great deal more gratifying – as it were.

 

While the story of most Blacks in America is a proverbial rat-race of chasing an all too elusive American dream: a house, a life mate, 2.5 kids, the story of 7 African Americans in the film Blacks Without Borders is an entirely different tale of rich, full lives set in stunning South Africa.

 

“We noticed this trend of African-Americans leaving the U.S. and heading to South Africa to achieve what they couldn’t here,” said Stafford Bailey, filmmaker. “After Nigeria, South Africa is home to the largest number of African-Americans living outside of the U.S...we wanted to explore why that was.”

 

Amid the lush green flora, gentle rolling hills and gorgeous multi-story homes decked out with swimming pools carved from coral stone, wine cellars and city-light views of downtown Johannesburg, we begin to understand a person’s case for the move.

 

Take Cora Vaughn. She left her career as a high-powered Chicago attorney where she was raking in about a mil a year and re-located to South Africa to manage a guesthouse – the preferred form of lodging for tourists visiting the country.

 

“Besides my kids, there is nothing for me to go back to in America,” said Cora Vaughn, who recalls designing and overseeing the renovations of her 30,000-square-foot guesthouse for the documentarians in the film. “People could never afford a home like this in the U.S. …I know I couldn’t.”

 

And, in America’s depressed economic state, she couldn’t be more right. Unemployment rates in the U.S. are 6.1 percent and 11.2 percent for Blacks, American retirement plans have lost $2 trillion and foreclosures are out of control. Financial security is hardly a concept that lives.

 

And, in South Africa, someone like Charles Henderson who grew up in Harlem’s housing projects knew that he would have to exercise the kind of business savvy that would help him carve out a life of stability unattainable for him in the States.

 

“I figure if I’m gonna live in Africa, I ain’t gonna live in the projects, “ said Henderson, who moved to South Africa 15 years ago and is now the managing director and co-owner of Henderson, Harper & Associates, a company that provides services in leadership, emotional intelligence and customer service.

 

While the documentary paints the luxurious, highly successful lives of the ex-patriates, it barely scratches the surface as it pertains to the dominant social views on Black repatriation.

 

“We don’t see where any of the characters highlighted actually went there to trace their roots back to the motherland,” said Ifeanyi Aguoji, an audience member at the Schomburg Center screening of the film in February in Harlem, NY.

 

The concept of Black Repatriation - the idea that African Americans should return to Africa to reclaim their cultural heritage and identity – was popularized in the 1960s by Marcus Garvey, the Jamaican-born author and activist.

 

As much as repatriation proponents would like to paint the characters of the film as having moved for the purpose of re-joining their roots, most every character viewed South Africa as fertile soil for a lucrative capitalist venture.

Blacks Without Borders was picked up by Showtime, but this racy network was not the first on the producers’ list of outlets for the film. Unfortunately, other networks shunned the concept of Blacks repatriating to Africa and living well, say without the stereotypical iconography of clay huts, diseased children and unfit drinking water.

 

“Other popular networks that shall remain unnamed thought Blacks in the U.S. did not want to see Blacks outside the U.S. living like that and doing things like that in Africa,” said Judy Bailey, co-producer of the film.

 

Things like establishing a preparatory school for children in Soweto, building the fastest growing satellite company in the country, and developing a successful comedy promotions business in Johannesburg were all attainable for these African Americans.

 

Could it have been possible in the U.S.? The documentary answers this question ten times over. Not a chance in hell.