Looking at this from a purely objective economic stand point, Spanish is by far the most useful foreign language to learn for African-Americans, because of:
1. The sheer number of native speakers in the world(2nd largest)
2. The number of native speakers in the US(again, 2nd largest)
3. Our proximity to Spanish speaking nations, as it is by far the most spoken language in the Americas.
French would probably come 3rd or 4th in terms of usefulness after Mandarian and Arabic. then maybe Russian at 5th. French is one of the 6 UN official languages, so it's pretty important globally.
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mbewane
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Since moving to the DC area, I’ve met many French speakers, all but one who are black
I myself am still learning Spanish but I want to start with French as well.
I want reiterate that the point of this thread is not that french should replace any indigenous language (if you’re reading that from my posts then you’re projecting). English, French and Swahili are essentially global black lingua franca
The advantage also with romance languages is that once you learn one of them you'll fin a lot of similarities with the other ones.
As a french-speaker myself, I agree that for American brehs Spanish makes more sense. French would make more sense only if you specifically want to connect with Africa and the diaspora. Historically, english and french are the two languages of the African diaspora, more so than Spanish. Otherwise yeah economically Spanish makes more sense for Americans indeed.
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mbewane
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How so?
never heard of this one, West Africans speak their own languages and not haitian creole 
now there are local creole languages (pidgin, nouchi...) but not at the level of swahili, if I'm not mistakenSecure Da Bag
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How so?
I've met a few from Senegal and Cote d'Ivoire. They spoke fluent haitian creole when i was in college. Plus, if you think about it, Haitians are originally from many african countries. And yet they speak one common language. So we know it can happen elsewhere in Africa.
Idk about this breh. I'm from Nigeria and you will find way more people that speak Fench over Haitian Creole. I don't think you will ever find someone that speaks Haitian Creole to be honest. You'd find more in New Orleans than in West Africa. There might be some people that speak it due to exposure to Haitians plus prior knowledge of French, but native mother tounge speakers I would imagine is very very rare, except for small pockets here and there. Definitely not at a level that could be easily scalable.
The argument for Swahili is valid, especially in Eastern Africa as the language has been well standardized. But in Western Africa, you're really just better off with English and French, there are too many natice languages within that region so English and French are the most "neutral" languages to pick from. Within Nigeria alone you have over 150 native languages. Picking one as an official language over the other would cause serious social tension. Hence you pick English as a go between within the formal society and let people speak their mother tounge within their communites. I imagine a similar case in Francophone West Africa.
They don’t speak Kreyol in Africa...they likely can understand it as it’s based on French
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Whether a 100 of them speak it or a million of them, the fact is it is still spoken there. And since we already have a successful case study (ie. haiti), other african countries could adopt it as well if they wanted to.
The question only was "what language they speak in africa". The conversation is about unifying languages in africa. The counterpoint is languages that can unify that are not from the oppressor. I provided two languages that meet the criteria of all 3 issues.
Are you being serious?
mbewane
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The fact you've met a couple people from Senegal and CI who speak "fluent haitian creole" doesn't prove anything, because I've been to Senegal a couple of times, know various people from there (including people who lived there), have read about the linguistic situation there and not once has anyone mentionned anything about haitian creole, which makes sense since it's HAITIAN creole. Those people you met must have some sort of link to Haiti to speak the language. I've met various Senegalese people who speak Italian, because they lived there at some point. Has no impact whatsoever on Italian being spoken in Senegal
Also in my understanding creole is a mix of french, indigenous languages whatever remains from african languages. So yeah I can understand some creole since I speak french, but that's about it. Prob the same can be said about random people in Africa.
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Haitian Creole
So you're right, it's not widely spoken in Senegal. Then again, I never said it was. And that was never my point in the first place.
The fact that you've been a place of couple of times and met a couple of people doesn't make you an expert. Someone who's been to NY a couple of times isn't an expert on the United States or its people. Even if they did read about it. Or could even speak on it with any sort of definitive authority. But you have your experiences and I have mine.
But back to my original point, Haitian Creole is spoken on the continent. It can be easily adapted/learned. It's not of the oppressor. And therefore, it can be a candidate for a unifying language.
So you're right, it's not widely spoken in Senegal. Then again, I never said it was. And that was never my point in the first place.
The fact that you've been a place of couple of times and met a couple of people doesn't make you an expert. Someone who's been to NY a couple of times isn't an expert on the United States or its people. Even if they did read about it. Or could even speak on it with any sort of definitive authority. But you have your experiences and I have mine.
But back to my original point, Haitian Creole is spoken on the continent. It can be easily adapted/learned. It's not of the oppressor. And therefore, it can be a candidate for a unifying language.
mbewane
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So how many of these Senegalese and Ivorian people have you met who speak Haitian Creole? And how many Africans speak it on the continent? Just to see what's your basing your authority to speak on it as a unifying language