My understanding of the African Diaspora, is that this definition includes those of us in the states descended from the Atlantic slave trade. From what I've seen of the AUs discussions, this is so, but I keep seeing articles such as yours which seems to not include our numbers. I say this because if your definition included our numbers, your time frame would go back further. I have no illusions about Africa. It has extremely educated and capable artisans in every endeavor. Yet, the irony of what I see as your position is that Africa's children of the slave trade actually dominate the world media entirely. Thus the importance of our inclusion as defined by the AU. I don't see the issue as the Link is missing, I think it is overlooked. Some of us in the States don't feel connected to Africa. Yet there are many that do but we are neither sought out or apparently valued. I personally would love to invest in and work on behalf of Diaspora Media and anything else related to Africa. Yet my friends and I have yet to identify any vehicle which would allow us to with any reasonable confidence nor is there any single source of information from the Continent that even attempts to communicate a message broad enough to encompass us. I've always said since Africa has so many cultures and languages, there may be no single way that we can communicate, but we could at least have four or five channels world wide that could run all our content side by side. If the language changes so be it. Why not. I watch Korean soap operas and I believe that Africa's chidren understand each other well enough without the same language. Why not just get the diaspora to invest in the station and be shareholders. Honestly I have been frustrated because I have not seen a unified term whether Diaspora or otherwise to identify my business with or recognize other Diaspora business. That's what's missing more than anything else. Everything else will come, but those of us who identify with this desire and mindset need a way to identify ourselves and reach out to to others.

Some of the diaspora is a ridiculous waste of human resources .many good brains have been lost along the way in europe anyway due to the hardship of going through university and without 1 or 2 other disporia relatives supporting you on menial wages ( still sending home money to feed everyone back home too)the road to specialise after your doctorate is nigh impossible.i personally know a medical doctor who is specializing in old age instead of his real passion heart surgery and another who got the highest marks that year as an anisathist and couldnt get placed to get forward so will probably end up selling trinkets in the street.with the african young adult rate of heart disease due to diets of palm oil its really not good enough .someone else selling trinkets is qualified in 2 year but stoppped in biology/ agriculture and theres 2 doorman one second year in pharmacy and another dropped out of economics he got the highest marks from a main paris university because the choice was either let everyone not go to school and stave back home and carry on studying or get menial jobs for the rest of your life.thes guys were all best in their class and would of gone back home and earned more than what they do now if they had finished !!so if you want to reach out to africa talk to that male cleaner silent in hiss job he may be one of these guys with his visa run out !with an hour of internet equal to half a works day wage in most of poor africa your not going to get many comments on here also.as for going back to make investments ha! Apart from land grabs and micro finance, for a lower middle class investment of over 400 thou and under 1.5 mil dollers no bank will lend you for longer than 5 years, morgages seem to be a dirty word, unless you making so much money you dont bother thinking of going to the bank because the interest rate is too high! Its a complete risk when investing there due to the fact theres no safe way of borrowing unless your backed by complete outside money ,i hope it changes soon because real africa without outside interests is fantastic ,inoventive positive hopeful intelligent fun very well mannered humanistic and wise ive had the great opertunity of going to a pretty poor area of a typical african city and its a real eye opener on how happy and posative people are and i go on holiday there because it cheers you up so i presume if i was an americanafrican id get even more out of this experiance so get over there make the link and have fun ! As long as you have great respect for everyone you meet i dont see a problem always get a yellow fever jab for some areas though

Useful observations for tomorrow AFRICA.