Black Americans Find a Racism Respite Through ‘Blaxit’

by Madison Gray, The Emancipator

Twanna Hines watched her television in shock on Jan. 6, 2021, from her Washington, D.C., home as hundreds of people who believed the lie that Donald Trump had won the 2020 election stormed the U.S. Capitol.  

Then she made a decision: It’s time to leave.

“That’s when I thought this has boiled over,” Hines said. “This is a fever pitch. I remember thinking they were there to hang Mike Pence, a straight White, conservative, married, Christian man. After that, I said ‘no one is saving this country.’”

After researching several countries, she settled in Portugal and moved to Lisbon later that year.

She’s not alone. For an increasing number of Black Americans, the Jan. 6 insurrection was a menacing prelude to our current political climate. It foreshadowed when far-right fundamentalists will have a seemingly blank check to execute an extremist agenda. A growing number of Black Americans, seeking a respite from racism and toxic anti-Black American policies, are expatriating in a social movement known as “Blaxit.”

It is difficult to track specific figures on the numbers of Black American expatriates. However, more broadly, an estimated 5.5 million Americans live abroad, according to figures from the Association of Americans Resident Overseas.

A Monmouth University poll released last year shows a sharp uptick in the number of Americans who wish to make an exit over the past 50 years. The population of American expatriates was pretty low in the decades just after World War II. In 1974, roughly 10% of Americans expressed the desire to live abroad. However, over the next four decades that number steadily increased, according to analysts. In 2024, that number jumped to 34%. 

Some Black expatriates face racism and discrimination when they move abroad – especially in such places as Asia, with nations that tend to be more racially homogenous, and Europe, which is in the throes of its own political and cultural conservative retraction.

These facts aside, experts who track living abroad trends, say they notice a spike in Black Americans in expatriating. Jennifer Stevens, executive editor at International Living, a global lifestyle magazine, said that at a recent conference, she heard many attendees say they believe it’s time to pull the trigger.

“We are definitely seeing a trend of more people of color wanting to get themselves together and get their ducks in a row,” Stevens said. “They speak to the idea that the current climate [politically in the U.S.] is a motivator for them going abroad.”

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