Gregory Lakhan, a Black TikToker, was ordered to return to Africa by a racist, but instead of becoming angry, he came up with a clever solution. The remark was transformed into a satirical challenge by Lakhan, who goes by @SirGregolas on TikTok: if people truly wanted him to move, they could pay for it.
He declared in a video, leaning into the concept with his tongue firmly in his cheek, “All right, people, you asked and you shall receive, so let’s fing make this shappen.”
Lakhan, a New Yorker who makes music videos and video essays, organized a $30,000 relocation fundraising, but there was a catch. He started it on GiveSendGo, a contentious crowdfunding platform frequently utilized by far-right organizations. The site faced criticism earlier this year for enabling a Minnesota lady who was caught on camera using the n-word to address a 5-year-old Black boy to receive more than $800,000 in donations, a large portion of which came from white nationalists and extremists.
This brother answered as follows to some bigots who urged him to return to Africa:pic.twitter.com/qUZj2Ash6b
July 22, 2025 Liii (@MsLoveLiii)
Lakhan shared a video outlining his strategy last month. Donations may be made to his cheekily named GiveSendGo page, “Help Me Return To Africa For Good,” if anyone truly wanted him back in Africa!
Please refrain from wasting your time and effort by leaving irate comments in my comment section. Do something about it, actually. In the video, he adds, “You can truly make a difference,” while lively music plays.
The punchline, however, is that Lakhan has no intention of leaving the United States. The money will be used to pay for his tuition at the New York film school.
He writes on the fundraising page that he playfully challenged bigots to pay for my fictitious one-way trip out of the United States. The internet went crazy, but even more shockingly, the send her back crowd refused to support their absurdity with any financial support.
Rather, he is transforming their squandered energy into something beneficial: my NYC Film MFA. I’ll use your assistance to transform their hate into art and their trolling into tuition.
The response was enormous. On TikTok, it received eight million views, and users showered it with acclaim. One individual remarked, “There are times when it’s not about what racism does TO you, but what racism can do FOR you.” This sarcasm is on par with God. Another person said, “Respect!” This was a master class in marketing, according to a third response.
Even if Lakhan’s relocation to Africa isn’t genuine, some people find the prospect of going back there to be more than a joke. The Year of the Return was started in 2019 by Ghana’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo, to commemorate 400 years since the first Africans were taken to English North America as slaves. In a unique homecoming ceremony that year, he awarded citizenship to over 100 African-Americans and Afro-Caribbeans.
Hatred is transformed into something legendary by that energy, which is pure gold.
July 23, 2025, efe (@efe206925896290)
Akufo-Addo has since called on world leaders to establish a Global Reparation Fund for enslaved people’s descendants. Since 2019, almost 1,500 Black Americans have relocated to Ghana, and over 500 of them—mostly Black Americans—were awarded citizenship last year alone.
African Americans have also been welcomed by other African countries, some of which have even granted citizenship based on ancestry. The history of Liberia is significantly more extensive. It became an independent nation in 1847 after being established in the early 1800s as a community for free and formerly enslaved Black people from the United States.
