The phrase "Go back to Africa" is one that has long been used to promote hate and racism toward African Americans, but one travel and lifestyle company is looking to change that.
Called Black & Abroad, the platform is taking the derogatory phrase, "Go Back to Africa," and using it as the title of a new pan-African tourism campaign.
According to NetBase's social listening platform, "Go Back to Africa" is used over 4,500 times a month online, so Black & Abroad partnered with FCB/SIX and IPG's Initiative Media to create a campaign that combats this racist phrase and showcases African American travelers visiting one of Africa's 54 countries.
The campaign involves paid ads on Twitter, Youtube and OOH "that blacks out hate-fueled Twitter posts and reframes them into positive tourism messages showing the beauty and diversity of Africa's 54 countries."
"One of the campaign's goals is to effectively strip the perceived power away from those who use the phrase 'Go back to Africa' with derogatory intent," says Eric Martin, co-founder of Black & Abroad. "If we can strip the expression of its impact by showing more diverse pictures of this beautiful continent, then we can debunk the age-old narrative that Africa is a desolate, disease-ridden wasteland undeserving of our time and travels."
Additionally, the campaign is using Google Vision's image recognition technology to find photos of African American travelers traveling through Africa. After locating the photos, determining their quality and gaining permission to use them, those pictures are shared on Black & Abroad's social channels and website in an effort to inspire black travelers to visit Africa.
As it says on Black & Abroad's website: "It's a pan-African tourism campaign-for every country in Africa-designed to reframe the story. It's also designed to flood the Internet with positive images of and ideas about African Americans traveling in Africa. So we can see ourselves there. And maybe get inspired to go there. Not because someone told us to. But because at its core, going back to Africa can be an amazing experience."
At the same time, the campaign highlights the lack of diverse travelers in travel images, whether its in ads or commercials or among stock images.
"Do a quick Google image or stock image search of the word 'travel' and you'll immediately see how biased the industry is toward Caucasians," says Ian Mackenzie, Executive Director of FCB/SIX. "GoBackToAfrica.com is a place where African American travelers can see themselves represented with positive images set in each one of Africa's 54 countries."
African American travelers who have photos of themselves traveling through Africa can use the hashtag #GoBacktoAfrica to be found and featured on Black & Abroad.
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