The “Go back to Africa” argument says that if black people do not like it in America, they should go back to Africa. Mostly it is not an argument about Africa but about the kindness of white people. It makes the point that White Americans have been nicer to black people than anyone else in the world, even nicer than black Africans would be.
Pat Buchanan loves this argument and makes it more directly. Here he is in 2008:
First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.
Where to begin?
First, it assumes that blacks are richer in America because White Americans have been kinder to them than Africans would be. Wrong: blacks are richer in America because America is richer.
The pie is so big in America that even when it is divided unjustly, as it is, it still leaves most people with more pie than any ordinary person would get in the Third World. Which is why people from the Third World come to America: poverty is worse than racism. But that does not excuse racism.
The argument also overlooks how Africa got to be so poor and screwed up. It turns a blind eye to the effect of the Atlantic slave trade on Africa and the effect of white rule, both direct (colonial empires) and indirect (banana republics).
And like the Arab trader argument it makes whites look good by comparing them to someone else.
But the worst thing about this argument is that it is such a huge lie.
Whites pretty much let blacks twist in the wind, like we saw on television right after Katrina. Blacks are like unwanted stepchildren in America. Whatever blacks have achieved has been in spite of whites for the most part. Most whites were quite fine with Jim Crow, if you remember. And even now most seem to be quite fine with failing black schools, black ghettos and high rates of black unemployment and crime (so long as it is not in their neighbourhood). Thus the kindness of white people.
And just so you know how morally broken this argument is, it goes back to slave days. Here is Robert E. Lee in 1856:
The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence.
Spoken like a true white person: it is not so bad and, besides, it is not our fault.