Out Of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa (A New Republic Book) [Hardcover]

Keith Richburg (Author)

Book Description

Series: A New Republic Book | Publication Date: February 5, 1997

Keith B. Richburg was an experienced and respected reporter who had paid his dues covering urban neighborhoods in Washington D.C., and won praise for his coverage of Southeast Asia. But nothing prepared him for the personal odyssey that he would embark upon when he was assigned to cover Africa.In this powerful book, Richburg takes the reader on an extraordinary journey that sweeps from Somalia to Rwanda to Zaire and finally to South Africa. He shows how he came to terms with the divide within himself: between his African racial heritage and his American cultural identity.Are these really my people? Am I truly an African-American? The answer, Richburg finds, after much soul-searching, is that no, he is not an African, but an American first and foremost. To those who romanticize Mother Africa as a black Valhalla, where blacks can walk with dignity and pride, he regrets that this is not the reality. He has been there and witnessed the killings, the repression, the false promises, and the horror. “Thank God my nameless ancestor, brought across the ocean in chains and leg irons, made it out alive,” he concludes. “Thank God I am an American.”

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

From 1991 to 1994, Keith Richburg was based in Nairobi as the Africa bureau chief for the Washington Post. He traveled throughout Africa, from Rwanda to Zaire, witnessing and reporting on wars, famines, mass murders, and the complexity and corruption of African politics. Unlike many black Americans who romanticize Africa, Richburg looks back on his time there and concludes that he is simply an American, not an African American. This is a powerful, hard-hitting book, filled with anguished soul-searching as Richburg makes his way toward that uncomfortable conclusion.

Review

To his credit, Mr. Richburg lays out his own confusion and guilt about saying some of the things he does . . . he is candid about his gratitude that his ancestors made it to America. Mr. Richburg lambastes whites in the West who, for fear of appearing racist, hesitate to place responsibility for Africa's woes on African shoulders, and then he extends this criticism to white Americans who are allegedly afraid to hold black Americans responsible for their own woes. -- The New York Times Book Review, William Finnegan

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; 1st edition (February 5, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465001874
• ISBN-13: 978-0465001873
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (131 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,108,760 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

76 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the most honest books, regardless of stance!, February 9, 2004

By 

Kevin Currie-Knight "Education Grad Student" (Newark, Delaware) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa (Paperback)

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.

51 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Out of America is an adventure story, November 2, 2000

By 

Eros Faust (Jacksonville, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa (Paperback)

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.

60 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heart wrenching, December 17, 2002

By 

L. C. Robinson "-montana" (Fountain Valley, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa (Paperback)

"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.