Gandhi Was A Racist.

Haha. . . I knew you'll think that, you have strong feminist tendencies, thank God you weren't born in the 60's.

I think of malleable as being able to absorb pressure and stress without breaking.

You ought to read these articles for some reality check 

inventing Africa:
[url]http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1155[/url]

How AIDS was overstated.

[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/05/AR2006040502517.html[/url]

The first one is more shocking. And I no longer blame ignorant Americans for thinking Africa is some place filled with backward lazy thiefing savages.
These stuff affect how Africa is being portrayed today.

Reminds me of a story my Geo. teacher was telling us the other day. His professor boldly stated in class that African can sleep with their mothers/father's wives without negative connotations. As a TA he went to confront the prof. as to where he got this information from, the prof. claimed it was from a book that was written in 1963. Why a professor will make such a statement in class without adequate information is dumbfounding to say the least.

Apparently most of these guys have never visited Africa, they do not know what goes on but feel informed enough to write about it anyway. It's like coming to America, watching Nancy Grace on CNN Headline News and concluding that Americans sleep with kids on a daily basis.

I can't go pointing fingers at anybody when our leaders are not helping matters. If some issues were overstated or overestimated, how does it detract from the fact that Africa has serious issues. That to me is not racism , that to me is the reality. There was a time when China was portrayed as hungry nation. Now if that was just borne out of mischief or racism, then they would still be seen in that light today. They took what everybody believed was a kink in their armour and turned it to t6hier greates weapon. As far as Africa continues to have visionless leaders then we will be giving the media a lot to report on and there is no guarantee that some news item will not be blown out of proportion.

As nationalism swept across Africa in the early '60s, the New York Times sent Homer Bigart, the famous two-time Pulitzer-winning reporter, to cover the transition. In Ghana, Bigart wasn't impressed by independence hero Kwame Nkrumah, as a letter he sent to foreign editor Emanuel Freedman in January 1960 reveals:

"I'm afraid I cannot work up any enthusiasm for the emerging republics. The politicians are either crooks or mystics. Dr. Nkrumah is a Henry Wallace in burnt cork. I vastly prefer the primitive bush people. After all, cannibalism may be the logical antidote to this population explosion everyone talks about."


In a letter from Nigeria dated June 5, 1967, Garrison complained bitterly that "tribal" scenarios had been inserted into the edited version of his story, which had been published on May 31, 1967 in the newspaper: "The reference to 'small pagan tribes dressed in leaves' is slightly misleading and could, because of its startling quality, give the reader the impression there are a lot of tribes running around half naked," Garrison wrote to the foreign desk. He protested the numerous uses of the derogative term "tribes" in his story, and added: "Tribesmen connote the grass-leaves image. Plus tribes equals primitive, which in a country like Nigeria just doesn't fit, and is offensive to African readers who know damn well what unwashed American and European readers think when they stumble on the word." Garrison noted that the insertion "invites the image of savages dancing around the fire."

Editorial insertions of stereotypes and fabrications into a Times reporter's copy extended at least into the 1980s. Consider the case of Lelyveld, who completed two tours as a correspondent in South Africa. In the '60s he was expelled by Pretoria for suspected socialist leanings; he returned as the Times' correspondent during the 1980s.


even one of the guys who went to Africa to do the reporting complained that the Newspaper twisted his words.
The first reporter was a blatant racist as you can read.


That's why you need to take most of those books with a grain of salt. And those are the books people use and follow like Donzman said.
I even read a review for a recent book in Amazon. And i can't belief that the author still managed to fabricate stuff in the new millenium about Africa.

That to me is cosmetic when U compare it to the problems Africa is facing. Y am I concerned about the way we r described when I have more serious problems

Also about the issue of corrupt leaders,
If an head of state like let's say IBB or Abacha can deposit huge sums of money in foreign/ european accounts, do you think these countries do not have a clue that this stuff is going on?
I read somewhere that some former president's account was bigger than all the money Britain donated to Nigeria in a year!!!
Okay, now so Britain doesn't know that the president keeps this sort of account??? of course they do!!!

so why do they keep donating money to us if they don't know it's going to end up back as deposits in their banks.

I still consider our presidents as western puppets. That's my opinion for now.

Would Nigerian banks ask questions if officials from Niger Republic wanted to deposit money with them

look at the big picture.

Jim crow wasn't all about segregated water fountains, segregated bus seats and lynchings.
The big picture is: dominate African Americans and keep them subservient to us as inferior beings without power in any area of the American life.
Isn't this what the picture still looked like until present day America (now we're having likes of Obama) but we're not there yet.
segregated buses, fountains disappeared a long time ago but the real major reason for Jim Crow is still hasn't diappeared.

so look at the big picture.

That might be ur picture Wes, but that is definitely not mine and also not for the millions of people living in drudgery in Africa, drudgery manufactured for them by their incompetent and greedy leaders.That to us is our own big picture and until the trend is reversed we might not be able to see that picture of urs

I see where you're coming from.
But i still have my opinion

Like my people will say, deal with the problems you have at home before you worry about the ones outsiders bring. If the home is strong, outside influence will be weakened.

That I can relate to and that always been my stand in these kind of discourse. Given the West are this and that, but that is because we allowed them. The west can not afford to toy with countries like China or even India because those countries has given them a reason not to. I challenge Nigeria nay Africa to give the west a reason to take them serious

true.
I think part of it is that we consider ourselves inferior to them and also consider ourselves at their mercy instead of realizing that they're not helping but rather making the problem worse in their own way.
They're making themselves richer at our expense

Yeah. I think the reason USA works is mainly because of the Unity (even though they like to pretend diversity)
Nigeria on the other hand, sometimes, can't be called a real country. some group of ethnicities fighting to be the next one in line to enjoy corruption? not sure if that's what it is.

That's why I made that comment about westernizing being a good thing to an extent. It'll make us unified
even though "fat" wouldn't be seen as favorable anymore. lol j/k

We have been westernized enough to think that way, Wes. Moreover, it should be more of a health thing than a western thing now