Recent Posts

Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 10
1
General Discussion / Feminism and Polygamy Part 2
« Last post by festus on February 01, 2009, 05:25:23 PM »
Feminism and Polygamy Part 2: MSNBC Interview with Elizabeth Joseph.

Due to “popular demand” and given the responses I have received, I decided to post a part 2 of the Elizabeth Joseph story. Some of the respondents accused me of “promoting polygamy” but I am only doing what I have always done – give some attention to marginalized views because the mainstream and “main-street” is filled with “well dressed up” lies and disguise. I am simply “expanding” the realm of options for people to MAKE UP THEIR OWN MINDS THEMSELVES.

The Situation - Guest: Elizabeth Joseph
February 28, 2006 - Tucker Carlson, MSNBC
Guests: Elizabeth Joseph

Tonight, the new HBO series “Big Love” already is generating controversy before it even hits the air.  The shows stars an otherwise regular guy who happens to be married to three women.  Does that show glorify polygamy?  In a minute, we‘ll talk to a practicing polygamist who says her plural marriage was the ultimate expression of feminism.  Ponder that for a minute.
Well the latest series from HBO is stirring up controversy even before it hits the air.  “Big Love” is a comedy about the joys of polygamy, featuring a suburban husband and his three wives.  It‘s already gotten some more Mormons hot and bothered, since the church officially banned polygamy more than 100 years ago, though it does persist in parts of Utah without the church‘s blessing.
My next guest says that‘s missing the point.  She calls polygamy, quote, “the ultimate feminist lifestyle,” and she ought to know.  Elizabeth Joseph was married for more than 24 years to a man who had seven other wives.  She was widowed in 1998 and is now a radio station news director in Page, Arizona.  She joins us live tonight.
Elizabeth Joseph, thanks for coming on.

ELIZABETH JOSEPH:  You‘re welcome.

CARLSON:  I think most men who hear polygamy described as the ideal feminist arrangement sort of chuckle to themselves, because they think of polygamy as the idea man‘s arrangement.  You‘ve got all these women there for your pleasure, maybe a couple of them at once.  I mean, it‘s kind of—it‘s like porn in the eyes of your average man.  How is this a feminist ideal?
JOSEPH:  Well, let me just first say that Wilt Chamberlain said he slept with 25,000 women, and I don‘t think he took responsibility for them or their children.
CARLSON:  Yes.
JOSEPH:  So there‘s easier ways for a man to get as much sex as he wants.
CARLSON:  Well, that‘s a good point.
JOSEPH:  As this lifestyle.  But from the feminism thing, I have friends who sacrificed their dreams of career and children—or excuse me, family and children for their career and then the other stripe, too.
CARLSON:  Yes.  You have friends, in other words, who sacrificed their careers for their children and their—or their children for their careers.  But what does polygamy have to do with that?
JOSEPH:  Well, I was able to fully embrace my career, because I had children.  But when I went to work, they were at home with Dad and with other women who loved them very much.

And the other thing is, come home at night, I don‘t feel like making dinner every night.  But I was raised that way.  I was raised that my husband should have clean shorts in his drawer.  I didn‘t have time for that, but there were women in the family who did.

CARLSON:  Yes.  Well, that seems like a pretty good deal for your husband, certainly, and I guess a good deal for you to some extent.  But isn‘t polygamy itself organized around the desires of a man?  You never see polygamy in which one woman has a number of husbands.  I‘m not sure that‘s ever existed in history, at least in large numbers.  Why is it always the man who‘s the center of all these women orbiting around him?
JOSEPH:  Well, because I think men are built that way.  I think the sex drives are different.  I think men are vertical in their relationships, where women are horizontal and affiliative.

Women like to hang out together.

CARLSON:  Yes.
JOSEPH:  And it was a huge advantage that I really liked and respected his seven other wives.  And his relationship with Margaret, for example, that enriched him.  He brought that enrichment back to our relationship.  I was happy for Margaret and happy for him.
CARLSON:  Well, you seem a very tolerant woman and good for you.  I wonder, though, how common that could be.  I mean, for those of us not in polygamist marriages, it‘s hard to believe your wives getting along with one another.  How common is that?
JOSEPH:  I‘m not that familiar with other practitioners.  We were a very, very unique family in that the women were career oriented.  But my husband, Alex, liked to say how would you like eight women working your inventory 24 hours a day?  That was one of his favorite expressions.
CARLSON:  What does that mean, working your inventory?
JOSEPH:  We gave him a hard time.
CARLSON:  Yes.
JOSEPH:  He had to be on his toes all the time.  I picked a challenging career.  I wanted a challenging marriage.  I wanted to march marry the best man I could find, regardless of his marital status.  That he had five wives when I did, didn‘t keep me from marrying him.  If all—if all the women married the good guys, then the batterers would be bachelors, and that‘s what they need to be.
CARLSON:  Yes.  I think you‘re absolutely right in that regard, though it is also true that some women are attracted to men who are unstable and violent.  I mean, that‘s just a fact, unhappy and sad as it is.

However, doesn‘t that leave men with less money, less charisma, out in the cold?  I mean, in societies where there‘s polygamy that is widespread, there are a lot of unmarried men with no prospects of getting married.  And that‘s not good for society, is it?

JOSEPH:  No, it‘s good for society.  Those guys need to shape up so that a woman will want them.
CARLSON:  Did—did the women in your household, the other wives, every gang up on your husband as one?  All eight of you ever go at him?
JOSEPH:  Always.  Always.  I mean...
CARLSON:  Always?
JOSEPH:  ... just for our own—just for amusement purposes.  I mean, guys are such easy targets.  And—but it was all in good fun.  It was.
CARLSON:  Did your husband see it that way?
JOSEPH:  Yes.
CARLSON:  I don‘t know any man who want eight women going after him at once.
JOSEPH:  We weren‘t vicious.  It wasn‘t like that.  It was good fun.  We had good times together.  For example, going out to dinner with him alone, that was special.  But I kind of preferred if three or four of us went out, because it was more fun, more conversation, and he was more in his element.  So that was my preference that I acquired over the years.
CARLSON:  He sounds like a quite a guy, I have to say.
JOSEPH:  He was.
CARLSON:  Elizabeth Joseph, thanks for joining us.  I appreciate it.
I appreciate your taking the time.
JOSEPH:  You‘re welcome.
CARLSON:  Well, for more on this subject, you can check out my blog at Tucker.MSNBC.com.  I‘ve been in my office banging it out furiously.  I‘m not sure if I‘m right.  You can judge.

http://www.polygamy.com/articles/templates/?a=73&z=1
2
General Discussion / Having a Big Butt May Be Good for Your Health Ladys
« Last post by festus on January 28, 2009, 08:06:47 PM »
Having a Big Butt May Be Good for Your Health Ladys

According to Fela Kuti, in the Nigerian Oyibo created “craze world” if you no get “particulars” you go enter but in the true African world if you are a woman with “particulars” you go “enter”. We all know about the African man’s fixation with pear shaped “full figured” women. But this is not merely an African man’s fixation but an African cultural preoccupation with fertility and its symbols.

Some people think the Hiphop obsession with “rump shakers” is new. Anybody recall Teddy Riley and Wrecks-n-Effect ‘s  “rump shaker” way back in the 1990s – “all I wanna do is put my zoom zoom zoom on your boom boom” . Actually I have seen more “rump shaking” in traditional African dance compared to the stuff in the “entertainment” media.

Most of what people see on “Black Entertainment” TeeVee is tame compared to what traditional Nembe women call “Iworoko” dance. Owerri, Ikwere and many other people around igbo land understand the cosmic relevance of “avu” or “egwu ukwu” or “waist dance”.

In ancient times in Africa, “fertility” Deities are always appeased, men are mesmerized and ensnared through those “waist” dances. I know a few friends that “dumbed out”, turned against friends and family to appease a “big butt and a smile” or frown.

Anyhow, it seems that the “rump” is not only an aesthetic magnet for the initiated but recent research suggests that it might actually have health benefits according to Dr. Ronald Kahn at Harvard University. My point? Ancient Africans always have a way of emphasizing subtle truths.

Read on…

http://poshlifeposhstyle.com/2009/01/having-a-big-butt-may-be-good-for-your-health/
3
General Discussion / King Solomon’s Rhymz and Street Psalmz: New Horizons in the
« Last post by festus on January 18, 2009, 10:46:46 PM »
King Solomon’s Rhymz and Street Psalmz: New Horizons in the Power and Wisdom of Hip hop

By

Festus Ikeotuonye

Introduction

“Wealth is a state in a mental debate; it’s all in the fate. Plant seeds then you wait…Be patient, backwards glories found…When the ancient are the living, stay down. Kings sport ya crown, queen sport ya crown. Jah brings light, now the cipher goes round” Zion I

My previous piece on Hip-hop provoked some interesting criticisms, insights, thoughts and responses (via email) but some people remained skeptical due to the power the mainstream image of Hip hop still exert on the popular minds and imagination. Even “rappers” themselves fall victim to that same “misinformation” that inspired arch-insurgent Lauryn Ugwu aka Lauryn Hill to kick the “preacher’s son” in his “Fugees” – “how you gon’ win if you ain’t right within” she asked? Oh! I must confess that I really like Lauryn Ugwu for having the guts to “piss in the wine” of fame and for “defecating on the microphone” of those “imitating Al Capone”. We all know she’s got the gift of the garb – a true “maroon” griot and psalmist that shunned the mainstream minstrel show and even rubbed off the ointment of the great Bob Marley. Lauryn Hill is the true image of Hip hop not the “misinformation” in the media.

Contrary to the available evidence, many continue to associate Hip hop with social problems that have existed long before Hip hop emerged. Some even insist on the ridiculous idea that “street gangs” or “mobsters” didn’t exist until Hip hop “was well underway”. If we accept this view, then, “Mob Deep” probably used a time machine to go back in time to inspire “Don” Vito Genovese. Was Salvatore Lucania aka Charles \"Lucky\" Luciano also corrupted by Snoop Dogg’s “pimp limp”? Those that make the former argument should read about New York in the 1920s and 30s. But as Chris Rock said: if it is “white”, it is probably “alright”.

The other popular argument that equates Hip hop with misogynism, inner city violence and narcotics is almost laughable if one looks at the evidence. I remember when some people used to believe that Ozzy Osborn and “Black Sabbath” “worshipped the devil”. But the Osborn Show on MTV (not the horror channel) proved all that silly notions wrong. Rappers merely reflect the “school boy” sexism that exists in society any way. Drugs and the associated violence exist because there is a “market” for them not because somebody made a “dope” beat with Akai’s MPC and put “parental discretion is advised” lyrics over the beat.

Hip hop is not the “what\'cha know about” lyrical content of a “dirty south” album or the “one track mind and one black nine” hoarse renditions of a poor soul sodomized in prison. Hip hop is simply an outlet – a vent – for those “gutter” sentiments (whether real or imagined) not the generator or even “governator”.   Hip hop insiders remember that long before Hip hop became main-street currency, Afrika Bambaataa transformed the street gang the “Black Spades” into the music and culture oriented “Universal Zulu Nation” after returning from a pilgrimage to the mother land like arch-insurgent Dave Chappelle.

Bambaataa’s conversion after a “spiritual”  visit to Africa, demonstrates that Hip hop have been an outlet for the confused pent up anger “gangs” rely on rather than a stimulus for gang “activity” or membership. Gangs are simply a perversion of the family, clan or kindred unit that often happens to uprooted or traumatized people. The Sicilians who migrated to American early in the 20th century are a good example. So, it is hardly surprising that the “mob units” or conglomerates called themselves “families”. In other words, it is rather silly to suggest that Hip hop somehow manufactures things that were around a hundred years ago. But as we all know, entrenched beliefs built up over time, and reinforced by mass pressure, are hard to shake loose because they are liked a rusted nail on a rusted metal – if you use a “blunt instrument”, “something will have to give……….  believe!”

Most people associate Hip-hop with what they see on “TeeVee” and other mass media. They wallow in the ostentatious exaggerations of the mainstream minstrel shows and ignore the formula the minstrel shows are feeding on. Hip hop has survived many trends and fashions within my own life time. I remember when rappers were “lovers”, “princes”, “dope”, “fresh”, “cool”, “cold” and “ice”. I also witnessed when rappers became “rough and tough and all that stuff”, “fools”, “Gs”, “gangstaz”, “pimpz”, “playaz”, “pornstaz”, “hustlers” and “goons”. Many of these “rappers” on MTV today “talking a good game” were probably swimming around in liquid form in somebody’s OPP when “Naughty by Nature” was on “TeeVee”.

Remember when “Puff Daddy” and “Mace” thought “it won’t stop”? Well, it did…

Jay Z might be shifty but in the end, it is Hip hop that is nifty not Fiddy. Many rappers have moved on to “acting” (which is where they truly belong) or selling Mobile phones like (MC Hammer), jewelries, tennis shoes, t-shirts (better “rock” on their wrist, neck and teeth than “rock” in the Ziploc).

Main stream Rappers always talk of “falling off” because deep down they know that the “platform” is temporary. “Underground” rappers talk about “unplugging from the matrix” because they know that “he who is down fears no fall”. But each one of them drink from the Hip hop waterfall with only thoughts of building a wall around the fall. That is why when I tell them the igbo Hip hopper “77” was busting rhymz in igbo language long before “2pac”, they laugh and claim I need a total recall.

The Audacity of “Hos”

However, it is true that Li’l Wayne was too “short” to play basket ball and too “small” for baseball (the only real job options in the hood). Despite the odds, and thanks to Hip-hop, today and every day, Wayne “ball”. Without Hip hop no “licking like a lollipop” for poor Wayne, no mix tapes, no fame, no money. Funny how quite true it is that ex-convicts have very little chance of “making it” in the same mainstream societies (that produced them) but again thanks to Hip hop, “ex-cons”, drug dealers and “goons” now have “legit” jobs, pay taxes and get their “freak on” on clean sheets instead of dirty “broke azz” ghetto mattresses. We all know that ghetto mattresses are unique because they are actually museums of “natural history”.

I have seen one with rat “cum stains” from the slave trade era. A friend of mine once said that he used to sleep in one of those “dirty” mattresses – he swore that the “cops” amongst ghetto rats and cockroaches use the mattress as background for mug shots. The problem is that many of these brothers and sisters were conceived in a ghetto dirty mattress, figuratively of course. But with “jobs” from Hip hop, it may be harder to catch brothers “ridin’ dirty” (or they might get good lawyers), so, at least they stay out of jail long enough to be fathers to their sons on clean sheets. And then, their sons can then make a “movie” about “biggie” without “getting high” or “drinking 40s”.

Thankfully, the offspring’s of such Hip hop “jobs”, conceived on cleaner sheets and better environments may start aspiring for better things than becoming “third world visa/permit hos”, “hos” on “poles” or the boring clichéd “autistic”, “dyslexic” gun holder of “vagabond sociology” and mainstream “hood rat” rap. Hip hop spin-offs and money trickles down from the beat makers, to writers, publishers, film editors, computer technicians to entourages, “security”, club owners, “fixers” etc. So, at least middle class people won’t worry about “yobs”, “crime” and youth “gangs” so much anymore apart from the slightly irritating issue of “Malibu’s most wanted”. But perhaps, we will never have to put up with “mentally challenged” politicians using the fear of crime to get into important positions.

Almost everybody these days accept that Hip hop have contributed immensely to elevating poor Africans caught in the grids of power structures they don’t even know exist. However, this elevation is breaking into new horizons. According to ABC News “In Senegal, Hip-Hop Artists Have Gained Exceptional Political Influence” – Hip hop, “exceptional political influence”?

Remember what Fidel Castro said about Hip-hop after his initial misgiving about “American capitalist mass pop culture”. After he was seduced by the poetry of the “moneros” and “raperos”, Castro declared that Hiphop was the \"vanguard of the Revolution\". Cuba is interesting because in Cuba, Hiphop is genuinely pan African – true to the roots. Groups like the Orishas clearly celebrate African traditional religions that have survived in syncretic forms in South America.

In America, for instance, who is referred to as the “Hip-Hop Candidate”? If you are not sure, just google the phrase “Hip-Hop Candidate”. Now, let’s get back to that word “political influence”. Why did ABC NEWs claim that Hip-hop artists have gained “exceptional” political influence in Senegal, West Africa? Are the griots coming back? Funny thing is; they are going global!!!! No? Google the name of any country in the world with “Hip hop” as prefix and view the result and then ask yourself: what other cultural phenomenon today can boast of such cross cultural penetration without military conquest, hell-bent evangelists, oil companies, missionaries, “aid” agencies and agents, political and economic “hit men” or institutional propaganda?

Still skeptical? Go to http://www.africanhiphop.com and see what Hip hop is doing in the African grassroots.

One Example of the Power of Hiphop

Read on....

Where Hip-Hop Brought Down a Government

In Senegal, Hip-Hop Artists Have Gained Exceptional Political Influence

By BEN BARNIER

DAKAR, Senegal, Sept. 1, 2008 —

In a country where journalists are banned from saying or writing what they want, hip-hop artists have stepped up to speak for those who can\'t.
Moussa Lo, a.k.a. Waterflow, is one of Senegal\'s most famous hip-hop artists.

He said he became a hip-hop singer not for success or his own glory, but to be \"the voice of the voiceless.\"
\"Hip-hop in Africa needs to grow,\" Waterflow told ABC News, \"because we are the journalists for the people.\"
While Senegal\'s daily papers praise the government\'s action  new roads being built for a recent summit, urban renovations -- Waterflow denounces the corruption and the poverty that plague his country.
\"Most people,\" he said, \"the masses, don\'t have everything they [need] to live a normal life. They don\'t have running water, often they don\'t have electricity.\"

With more than 2,500 groups that enjoy increasing popularity, the hip-hop scene has gained exceptional political influence.
\"Senegal, for the past 10 or 15 years, is really one of the best examples of how hip-hop can be used not just to create jobs, but also for political action,\" said DJ Magee, a New York-based produced who with Nomadic Wax records put together a documentary called \"Democracy in Senegal.\"
Many political observers agree that hip-hop artists influenced voters to oust President Abdou Diouf in 2000, who had been in power for almost 20 years, and elect President Abdulaye Wade.
\"The election of 2000,\" said DJ Magee, \"is the only known case in the world in which hip-hop has been seen as one of the main reasons behind the change of regime.\"

Wade\'s election prompted great hope in Senegal, especially among young people who thought that poverty would finally be reduced.
But according to Waterflow, with Wade at the helm, the country\'s economic and social situation has not improved.
Waterflow, along with other hip-hop artists, have lost faith in the politicians they helped get into power.
\"There was so much hope that Wade would bring hope,\" said DJ Magee, \"and that was crushed.\"

So now, Waterflow and others see hip-hop artists as the only new political force able to drive the country and defend the deprived. He says the hip-hop community has a mission to cheer up the Senegalese people and help them stand up for their rights.
\"We need to wake up,\" said Waterflow, \"Senegal, please stand up.\"
\"I believe it\'s the people who can change the Senegal,\" he said, \"not the political leaders.\" Poverty and unemployment are endemic in Senegal. Every year, young people flee the country and put their lives in jeopardy just to try their luck in Europe. They often spend fortunes in trying to reach the Canary Islands illegally onboard fishing boats.

Some are found washed-up dead on the Senegalese coast after their small vessels were overturned by raging seas.
\"For them, it\'s an attempt to escape,\" said DJ Magee, \"very much like the people who flee Cuba for the U.S.\"

But even for the Senegalese who make it safely to Spain, Italy or France, Europe is no dreamland.
Senegalese immigrants are often forced to work illegal and menial jobs.
According to Waterflow, many Senegalese who emigrated to Europe now wish they could go back, but they don\'t, simply because they are ashamed not to have established themselves in the West.
Like many young people in Senegal from a modest upbringing, Waterflow and his crew Wageble had a dream.

But instead of giving up, or trying their luck in foreign lands, they stayed in their home country to show that they could make their dreams come true in Senegal.
\"Wageble is an amazing group,\" said DJ Magee. \"They really walk the walk. They practice what they preach.\"
\"It is amazing to see how much they have done for their neighborhood, Thiaroye Azur.\"
\"We want to show to the Senegalese youth,\" said Waterflow, \"that even when you come from a very like poor place in Africa, you can be someone else, you know, you can like, travel around the world and do your music.\"

Despite his numerous business trips to Europe and America  a privilege usually reserved to the elite in his country -- and the fact that he speaks fluent English, which is also rare in Senegal, Waterflow says he feels 100 percent Senegalese, and he would not trade either his roots nor his identity for any other.
\"Senegal, it\'s me, me I am Senegal,\" he said, \"so of course I love Senegal, it\'s my country, it\'s my soul, you know.\"
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=5700928

Conclusion

Again what can I say? To paraphrase the Hip-hop wordsmith, Zion I in the song “Boom Bip”, I always “taste the bitter” in mainstream “sweet” even though I am no “metaphysic flow spitter”, I still try to read in-between the lines. Unfortunately many just sip the mainstream “licks like pop liquor”; drink from my flask, kick back till it hit ya. Hick up!
Now, a few closing lines from Zion I’s “Boom Bip”

“Capiche, released stress at the doormat
Fresh with the raw rap collapse in your format
Backspin the game, gyrate your waistline (???)
Why hate and waste time, bounce with the bass line
Follow,  the sunsets of tomorrow, why rappers don’t never
Understand their role models, sick with the bottle
Let it get hollow, medic, get sweaty by the spit (of )my motto
Holler back, I\'ve died cold and you got the \'nac
I\'m asking all of my people, where ya loving at?

[Chorus:]

So don\'t fight the feeling
When we got it right here
We ain\'t going nowhere
Open your mind
When we got it right here
We ain\'t going nowhere

Then we back to the lab for some more battle drills
Skills that\'s for real, fellness is kill, houseless is lost
In the blizzards of their mills, still I arise my
Ancestors let my soul catch fire
And it serve as a beacon, for lost soul seeking
A candle per say like in a dark day
We reaching sky high, help me get by
....Rhyme scholars, the green and the MP
I plan to be out like Marcus Garvey
See D-awn, trip on ya sizzle, cocaine and pistols
Boy that\'s a issue or two, you can \'t see thru the lies
Control the mind, lord knows I\'m trying
Resign, flip manuscripts It\'s amp live with the beat
And boom tick”

Zion I “Boom Bip”

Does this “flipping manuscripts”, “back spinning the game” and “Boom ticks” all sound like James Brown at 3 in the morning or like ODB’s babies mama trying to make sense of what ODB just said? Then give me back your “ghetto pass”! IT HAS BEEN REVOKED! lol
4
General Discussion / Feminism and Polygamy a Match Made in “Heaven”?
« Last post by festus on January 18, 2009, 10:39:56 PM »
Feminism and Polygamy a Match Made in “Heaven”?

By

Festus Ikeotuonye

Recently, I read an article by a young “Nigerian” woman in one of the Nigerian Newspapers. The topic was of course the clichéd “lack of good men”. She concluded the article by “daring” to contemplate “polygamy”. I remember I wrote something a while ago about polygamy suggesting that it might help to stabilize the turbulence the family unit is undergoing in Africa at the moment. Many African women are just “wasting” and stable family units (whether monogamous or polygamous) are the key to solving social problems. All the evidence about social problems point to unstable community and family units as the root cause – including single mothers, broken family that create the need for young men and women to look for support and group identity elsewhere.

Anyhow, in my numerous discussions with women on this matter, and this is important, I found that “white” women, Muslim Women (perhaps except Pakistanis) and some Latin American women are not as hostile to the polygamy idea as African and African American women (even the babies mamas). The question is why? In one Web site where they are discussing this issue, a sensible voice reminded those assuming that monogamy is the standard of human marriage arrangement that:
 
“That is quite a socially arrogant view...I would be willing to bet  “real” money that if India had had the technology and had colonized Europe we\'d be living in a polygamous (both polygny & polyandry) society where monogamy would be viewed as the deviant culture that couldn\'t possible have amounted to much...;-)” (http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Soc/soc.women/2006-03/msg00065.html)

The funny thing is that Africans have never been monogamous, even today in Africa or in diaspora. Why are sisters so “mad” about this idea….? Many brothers put it down to what some claim is the usual tendency of sisters to “throw salt into a brother’s game”. But what will the sister gain?

Below is the famous article \"Polygamy: The Ultimate Feminist Lifestyle\" by Elizabeth Joseph - a famous “feminist” (yes feminist) who not only endorses polygamy but is in it. Now, why would a feminist marry a man with many other wives?  Now hang on, she actually claims that polygamy is the “feminist option” when it comes to marriage, sisters, on the other hand, see it the other way round.

So, sisters why not “double team” or “triple team” on brothers, I know it is not a fair fight (all is fair in love and war though) because women always win, but why not if it will balance things out. But a note of caution to the brother already dreaming about five Lauryn Hills with Mary J. Blige’s sister’s waist line. “Double teaming” on you also means that they can drop “the bees” on you (multiplied according to their number). And… as you know, “African killer” bees are relentless and as Chris Rock said, they often “don’t have the need to make sense”. So, yes, you might be “buzzing” but it depends on if there is some “sting” in that buzz, no pun intended.

Bottom line (again no pun intended) is I will take the risk of the “killer bees” if the “queen bee” gives me “assurances”. I am man enough, after all, my hero Fela Kuti managed 27 wives… wetin if it too hard na draw and draw na equality abi? I have 26 vacancies in my nascent \"harem\", any good teams with the right attitudes and (very important), the right \"particulars\" may apply. Lol
   

Polygamy - The Ultimate Feminist Lifestyle
By Elizabeth Joseph

I\'ve often said that if polygamy didn\'t exist, the modern American career woman would have invented it. Because, despite its reputation, polygamy is the one lifestyle that offers an independent woman a real chance to \"have it all\".

One of my heroes is Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon, a physician and a plural wife who in 1896 became the first woman legislator in any U.S. state or territory. Dr. Cannon once said, \"You show me a woman who thinks about something besides cookstoves and washtubs and baby flannels, and I will show you nine times out of ten a successful mother\". With all due respect, Gloria Steinem has nothing on Dr. Cannon.

As a journalist, I work many unpredictable hours in a fast-paced environment. The news determines my schedule. But am I calling home, asking my husband to please pick up the kids and pop something in the microwave and get them to bed on time just in case I\'m really late? Because of my plural marriage arrangement, I don\'t have to worry. I know that when I have to work late my daughter will be at home surrounded by loving adults with whom she is comfortable and who know her schedule without my telling them. My eight-year-old has never seen the inside of a day-care center, and my husband has never eaten a TV dinner. And I know that when I get home from work, if I\'m dog-tired and stressed-out, I can be alone and guilt-free. It\'s a rare day when all eight of my husband\'s wives are tired and stressed at the same time.

It\'s helpful to think of polygamy in terms of a free-market approach to marriage. Why shouldn\'t you or your daughters have the opportunity to marry the best man available, regardless of his marital status?
I married the best man I ever met. The fact that he already had five wives did not prevent me from doing that. For twenty-three years I have observed how Alex\'s marriage to Margaret, Bo, Joanna, Diana, Leslie, Dawn, and Delinda has enhanced his marriage to me. The guy has hundreds of years of marital experience; as a result, he is a very skilled husband.

It\'s no mystery to me why Alex loves his other wives. I\'d worry about him if he didn\'t. I did worry in the case of Delinda, whom I hired as my secretary when I was practicing law in Salt Lake City. Alex was in and out of my office a lot over the course of several months, and he never said a word about her. Finally, late one night on our way home from work, I said, \"Why haven\'t you said anything about Delinda?\"
He said, \"Why should I?\"

I said, \"She\'s smart, she\'s beautiful. What, have you gone stupid on me?\"
They were married a few months later.
Polygamy is an empowering lifestyle for women. It provides me the environment and opportunity to maximize my female potential without all the tradeoffs and compromises that attend monogamy. The women in my family are friends. You don\'t share two decades of experience, and a man, without those friendships becoming very special.

I imagine that across America there are groups of young women preparing to launch careers. They sit around tables, talking about the ideal lifestyle to them in their aspirations for work, motherhood, and personal fulfillment. \"A man might be nice,\" they might muse. \"A man on our own terms,\" they might add. What they don\'t realize is that there is an alternative that would allow their dreams to come true. That alternative is polygamy, the ultimate feminist lifestyle.

From a speech given by Elizabeth Joseph at \"Creating a Dialogue: Women Talking to Women\", a conference organized by the Utah chapter of the National Organization for Women. Joseph is an attorney, a journalist, and lives in Big Water, Utah. May 1997
5
General Discussion / Unorthodox Paradox: Hiphop Poetics and the African Truth
« Last post by festus on September 04, 2008, 02:51:09 PM »
Unorthodox Paradox: Hiphop Poetics and the African Truth Beneath the Outer layer   

By

Festus Ikeotuonye
      
Introduction

A couple of years ago, I taught a sophomore module on Hip-hop and Urban Contemporary music “culture”. The aim of the module was to use Hiphop to illustrate the migration of ideas, images, and cultural influence in the world from the 16th century onwards. The module, in general, used Hiphop to demonstrate the dominant role migration of people and ideas played in the dynamics of the social and political forces that made inner cities possible. To my surprise, many of the students taking the module were quite ignorant of the real history and heritage of Hiphop. When I began to comb through the discussion forums of numerous websites supposedly devoted to “Hiphop”, I was astonished at the sort of views, the so called Hiphop “headz” were throwing about. Many of them reduced Hiphop to what Professor Renford Reese describes as the “thug model” in his book American Paradox (2004). A great number of the views expressed in those forums were so misinformed; there is hardly any way of countering them effectively. This is also true of the so called “underground” Hiphop “headz” who listen to “horror core” Hiphop or other localised or esoteric versions of the Hiphop art form.  

In mainstream societies, spurious debates rage about the so called “Hip-hop” culture; about the “baggy” pants and “jail house” fashion style of the inner cities world wide – the “pull your pants up” campaigns in Texas and other states in the U.S are a good example. These debates are not simply happening in the U.S or Western industrial societies, they are happening in Iran, Pakistan, Japan, Tanzania, Ghana, and even Nigeria. In Africa especially, many of the youths laugh at the older generation accusing them of buying into “Western” influence. Yet, these older generations, “fried” and parted their hair like Europeans; wore wigs that made many of them look like “Coons” of the “Jim Crow” era; danced to James Brown, Geraldo Pino, Hendricks, and East African “Rhumba” and Jazz. The double standards of their parents are quite apparent to today’s youths.

During a recent trip to Africa, one of these youths told me in no uncertain term, that his parents are “hypocrites”; that they accept older “Western” influence like Christianity and Western education and then try to lecture their offspring on “African” culture that they neither practice or even respect. Igbo people say that whatever is obtained from the side of the pot always end up at the side of the month. The proverbial colonial “chicken boy” has simply come home to “roost”. Despite the merits of the latter argument, I countered by recycling the clichéd Nigerian parent’s colonial argument that says that Africans should “pick” the “best” from both cultures. The youths dismissed me by asking me to show them who amongst their parent’s generation “is practicing the real African culture even in the continent of Africa”. “All our parents want is Western things, they discourage us from speaking or doing local things, and then they accuse us of foreign influence”, they chorused. These were not just “middle class” kids that hang out in the numerous cosmopolitan “malls” or shopping centres across Africa listening to Kanye West and Jay Z, some of them were street vendors and “Rasta” selling paintings and art stuff in and around the West African coast.

In Muslim countries, and even in Kano, Nigeria, the old school morality police are going hysterical over the so called “American Hiphop culture” taking over the youths. One “rapper” is in prison and another had his record banned in Kano for adopting Hiphop as his mode of expression. Funny enough, the generation behind this moral hysteria was the same generation that normalised the “foreign” British Sabon Gari/Sabon Garuruwa colonial administrative system in Kano in particular, and in Nigeria in general. They were equally the enthusiastic tools of the “foreign” Turco-Islamic and Wahhabi Arab “culture” imposed on the various ethnic groups in Northern Nigeria. That is: “Turco-Islamic” and “Wahhabism” tweaked to save British interests as Lady Lugard told us in her book, A Tropical Dependency: An Outline of the Ancient History of the Western Soudan, with an Account of the Modern Settlement of Northern Nigeria (1902). According to Mrs Lugard, the “Lugardian system” in Nigeria is based on the pax Britannica principle of ruling “as far as possible, through the existing Fulani and Bornuese machinary, modified and controlled by the advice of British residents”.

The modified “Fulani and Bornuese machinary” that lady Lugard referred to in the statement above is not only the “machinary” of “rule” in the Nigerian state today, it is the basis of the Turco-Islamic and “Wahhhbi” moral compass in Kano not Islam. Bear in mind that Kano, as a geo-cultural entity, is at least 600 years older than Dan Fodio, Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab and the British “empire”. Also, this generation’s counterparts in the West invented “sex, drugs and rock and roll”. Many of them, including people like Bin Laden, G.W Bush, Tony Blair, Bill and Hilary Clinton, and Babangida wore and did outrageous things many of them will be too ashamed to admit to anybody today.
Have we all forgotten the “double Decker” shoes, “bongo” trousers, and “mini” dresses and gowns of those “boogie” people of the late 1970s and early 1980s. How can we forget the old school  “Jerry Curls” and the “effeminate” tight trouser style of Hot Chocolates, the “BeeGees”,  Prince, Michael Jackson and Rick James. I am sure some people from my generation can still recall when the girlie “Pastor” Chris Okotie used to do that silly “running man” dance on Nigerian TV with his “dripping” Jerry Curls. Remember those classical British “Top of the Pops” with all those glam rock dudes that “look like ladies” – Simon Lebon of Duran Duran etc? I saw that generation “boogie” to the “Brass Construction”, “Whispers”, “Shalamar” and “Kool and the Gang”. Some of them even had nicknames like “Disco Messiah” …how so wack! Now, they are all talking about “kids of nowadays”.

My point is simply that in Africa, the generation who are 50 and above today, lived exactly the same “foreign” influence contradiction they are accusing the youths of today of. What is even more insidious is that they are projecting the contradiction of their own generation on their own children basically blaming the moral decline they actively participated in on their own progeny. Who are the feudal “sugar daddies” in Nigeria/Africa today using their localised strangle hold on our collective resources to make whores out of the daughters of those they have pauperised?

However, two things struck me as odd in considering all of the above points: firstly the clandestine underpinnings of the use of “culture”, “tradition”, or history in intergenerational tension and politics; and secondly, how Hiphop as an art form encapsulates all those things. What do I mean by this? The real history and heritage of Hiphop tells us the real story behind the alienation and tension that characterise many generations of Africans including our genealogical extensions world wide. That real story highlights the way subsequent African generations have dealt with their lack of self knowledge and the colonial violence on their common ancestral culture. Since Hiphop is now a global phenomenon, the same question is creeping up globally, particularly, in those various spaces and places that was, and still is, dominated by the West. We must remember that intergenerational tension and conflict in Africa, since colonialism, is always based on an accusation and counter accusation that is firmly anchored on the degree of “foreign influence” not on the so called “ancestral heritage”. This bias clearly tells us which of those two “cultures” is aligned with the axis of power and influence in the minds of various African generations and ultimately, what that says about African historical and cultural amnesia.

The Side of the Moon you Can’t See

The autobiographical book on Fela Kuti by Carlos Moore entitled “ Fela Fela: this bitch of a life”, in many ways, sums up that same real story that Hiphop represents: which is the intergenerational story of how a people “alienated” from their own genealogy can wallow in endless misconceptions that divides them and, at the same time, symbolises that “alienation”. But like Hiphop and Fela Kuti shows, those same alienated people can find their way back through circumstances they least expect. For the great Fela Kuti for instance, that defining circumstance came in the form of a beautiful African American women, Sandra Smith who, as Fela said, “opened” his eyes. Before Sandra, Fela was the typical “colonial African”, attributing everything positive to the West and demonizing or belittling everything African. In Fela’s own words:

“On 15 October 1938, I was born a second time in a hospital somewhere in Abeokuta. Abeokuta? Terrible, man. A planless town. The only people you saw in the streets were tax collectors and soldiers. There was the reservation where the white man lived – called “Ibara” – and then the town. There were occasional Yoruba ceremonies, but we children were discouraged from being interested in such things. Our family was Christian and those things, we were taught were ‘pagan’…
Sandra gave me the education I wanted to know. She was the one who opened my eyes. I swear, man! She’s the one who spoke to me about…Africa! For the first time I heard things I’d never heard before about Africa, Sandra was my adviser… She taught me what she knew and what she knew was enough for me to start on…She blew my mind really…Sandra was the woman…I swear”

How can Fela, born and bred in Africa, learn something this fundamental about Africa from Sandra, an African American, whose ancestors left Africa hundreds of years before Fela was born? Even more fundamental than that, how come such defining information on Africa is absent in the mind of somebody born and bred in Africa; somebody who can speak an African language very well? It is true that Fela’s Father, Reverend I.O Ransome-Kuti, was a typical colonial puritan Christian who tried to inculcate Western values in his Children. Reverend Ransome-Kuti on the other hand was also the same person that was beaten up by the colonial
army for refusing to take his hat off for the British flag. Fela’s great grand father was also a staunch practitioner of Yoruba traditions. Fela knew about some of those traditions and oral histories but prior to meeting Sandra he was preoccupied, in his own words, with “Simon Templar – the fictitious man I‘d wanted to imitate”. For those too young, Simon Templar, is a hero of a classical British detective series called “The Saint”.
So, while in Africa, Fela’s mind was pretty occupied by the “fictitious” images of the colonial masters which, until Sandra’s rude awakening, were his dominant frame of reference. Could this also be the reason why many assume that Hiphop is American? Can this explain why Africans seem unable to recognise what is African? Too busy imitating today’s equivalent of Simon Templar - Tony Montana and “Godfather”? According to Fela, the defining awakening moment came one day while he was “sleeping”:

“Then one day I was in her (Sandra) house sleeping. We weren’t talking about politics then, just business. I don’t remember what happened exactly. I must have said something because she said, ‘Fela, don’t say that! Africans taught the white man. Look, the African’s have history!’ I (Fela) said, “They (Africans) don’t have shit, man. No history, man. We are slaves’.”

Notice how the then Afro-phobic Fela said “they” in relation to his own people and then move on to “we” while still emphasising the colonial notion that Africans are “none-entities”. This view that Fela had about Africa in the 1960s is still the dominant view about Africa by Africans today. Of course that sycophant Fela died that day Sandra introduced him to Malcolm X. Interestingly, Fela’s mother’s maiden name was Thomas and she was a descendant of the same transatlantic African diaspora as Sandra. It was Fela’s mom that instilled the “maroon” spirit in him Sandra rekindled in the U.S. Funny enough, Sandra and Fela’s mother got on quite well when they met during Sandra’s visit to Nigeria in the 1970s.  Any how, what does Fela’s story tell us about “Hiphop”, intergenerational conflict and geneaological continuity? Before getting to that, let me first, talk about some common misconceptions about Hiphop and then, I will try to clarify some of the issues raised by those misconceptions. Finally, I will use the words of Hiphop artists themselves to ground the overall point the article is trying to make.

Beneath the Outer Layer

To many, Hiphop is quintessentially a product of inner city America. Hiphop artists themselves talk about the Bronx and then Brooklyn, New York. However, Hiphop is an African art form. There is a good book on the subject: James Haskins’ “The Story of Hip-Hop: From Africa to America, Sugarhill to Eminem”, London: Penguin (2000). Hiphop came to America/New York via African migrations from the agrarian South of the U.S and the later migrations from the “West Indies” to inner city America. Hiphoppers all know the story of how DJ Cool Herc brought the “sound system” format from Jamaica to the U.S before Grand Master Flash and Afrika Bambaataa.

That was before Ronald Reagan’s punitive policies helped to create the conditions that made the “thug”, “pimp”, “gangsta”, “hustler”  and “hoes” the dominant models of self representation in the project housing “hoods”. The Reaganite/Thatcherite over emphasis on rugged individualism, showy acquisitiveness, and pseudo social Darwinism gave rise to the “hustler” or “ghetto” entrepreneur mentality ingrained in today’s “cash money” ghetto articulation of “Reaganomics”. Reagan also pioneered the shift in policy that contributed to the high incarceration rates of those “hustling” African Americans with his emphasis on plutocratic “law” and “order”. This was in many ways a continuation of his policies while he was the governor of California. Predictably, “crack” cocaine appeared on the scene at the same time and it is no mere coincidence that “gangsta” rap, NWA and “Master P” first appeared in Reagan’s former state. The dramatic increase in institutional confinement and incarceration of African American in the post-civil rights era was happening at a time government welfare programs were down sizing. This paved the way for the ghetto/prison symbiosis that produced the “speech impediment” thug model with “money” on his “mind”. The so called “thug” or “gangsta”, in the “black” or “Hispanic” incarnation, is actually a caricature of the Southern European ethnic formations designed to function beneath the Italian state’s realm of control. These Ethnic formations acquired the status of “organised crime” at some point during the Southern European migrations into the U.S and the economic down turn following the 1929 Wall street crash. The ghetto was, in many ways, an “organised crime” in the sense that economic conditions and governmental indifference combine to create the condition favourable for racketeering. What many people call the “Mafia” is largely a creation of the U.S government’s “prohibition” policies of 1920 to 1933. The “thug”, on the other hand, is the product of the “prohibition” policies of the late 1970s to the present that parallels the economic down turn of the post 1970s “oil crisis” era. Did Lil’ Kim not belong to a group called “Junior Mafia”?

Any how, what is relevant to the point I am trying to make in this article is that, despite its problems, the “ghetto” was a transnational ethnic enclave that was fertile with that same energy we identity with the migrations and social circumstances that produced the “Cosa Nostra”, “slave” cabin revolts or the “maroon” areas of Jamaica. Every one knows that for a small country, Jamaica is a power house of African music culture production. Even among the famous “American rappers”, first and second generation Jamaican migrants to the U.S are over represented in the Hiphop “game”. The question is why? Jamaica before “independence” was one of the only places in the Western colonies where Africans were able to carve out a relative autonomous space for themselves – the so called “maroons” enclaves. In the South of the U.S, enslaved Africans due largely to their relative isolation and population concentration were able to also replicate their ancestral music and contours of the oral culture they were taking away from.

The mass movements of Africans that happened “after” slavery or the “first reconstruction”; the subsequent migrations during the civil rights and Pan Africanism era brought together Africans hitherto scattered in different locations in contact with one another. The site of that meeting, in the post 1970s era, was the ghetto enclave, which like the “maroon” areas before it, became a collective space that hitherto scattered and diverse Africans were forced to live together. In spite of the conflicts and problems of such enclaves, the coming together of diverse Africans scattered by colonialism in different locations; whether in “Freetown”, “Jamaica” or the U.S inner city, rekindles that genealogical energy; the same energy Fela’s mother instilled in him; the same energy Sandra unconsciously provoked in Fela. In many ways, Hiphop is the culmination of the different trajectories and tributaries of the African cultural energy and consciousness coming together like Fela and Sandra Smith outside continental Africa.

Today, Hiphop is an art form “pimped” for Billions of dollars since for the ghetto Reaganites nothing is safe from commodification – including the virtues of wives, mothers and daughters. Ivy League Universities teach courses on Hiphop; Romanian Gipsies use Hiphop for their own Ethnic purposes. Many variants of Hiphop have appeared around the globe with some claiming to be “nationalistic” – like the Union Jack flag waving “Grime” in the U.K. In the thick of the Hiphop dollar rush, as it is often the case, nobody remembers Africa or the Africans whose “blood, sweat, and tears” transformed that art form into the incarnation we recognise it as today. Hiphop is not American; it originated in the African griot and bardic rhythm and oral tradition that still exist today. Hiphop cannot be wrapped in a national flag of those that perpetrated the “blood sweat and tears”. It has always been borderless and free like the Kuyatehs: the originators of the original griot Hiphop.

My good friend, Jalli Lamin Kuyateh’s ancestors were the original griots and Lamin continues to carry on the tradition today. But who knows about the Kuyateh’s or the emphasis on verbal dexterity and oral tradition that gave us Hiphop? Who cares about the transformation of African rhythm into the slave plantation “call and response” rendition that gave the world Blues, Jazz, Bebop, Rock n’ Roll, Soul and Gospel (now characterised as “Christian” music)? Who cares about a “none entity” without a history and tradition of its own? Ironically, the griots were the ancient historians of Africa and today “Hiphop” is stirring up debates about “foreign influence” and history. Think about it, Hiphop is playing a role its originators intended – to remind us of what is beneath the colonial outer layer. The Hiphop wordsmith, Brother Ali breaks it down for us here:

Beneath the outer layer, the train is black
You just don’t disrespect the people that laid the tracks
Cos this human expression they gave you that
So the least y’ll can do is try to pay ‘em back

You might ask: what is this “human expression” they gave you? What has Hiphop done for us Africans or even the world? Consider the following facts: In the U.S, Hiphop is perhaps the biggest saviour of those Africans without formal qualifications; those who are shuffled between the ghetto and the prison system; the “throw away” generations of the “crack wars” and “whores”. In Africa, Hiphop is pioneering the rehabilitation of African indigenous languages neglected by the African states and formal structures. The same youths who were taught to disrespect their ancestral tongues and dialects are utilizing those cultural capitals. Hiphop has helped to bridge the mentality gap between white suburbia and the inner cities everywhere. Kids share slang and phrases across vast territories.  Hiphop is arguably, the biggest break Africans have had, even bigger than civil rights in the U.S. or “independence” in Africa. Dr. Dre is perhaps more aware than most, in terms of what Hiphop represents to Africans generally:

Imagine it never happened
Imagine no rappin\'
Imagine niggaz trapped
Imagine it havin\' action
Imagine how niggaz could be actin\'
If we never got this shit crackin
Imagine life\'s so hard
You can\'t imagine it\'s like livin\' in city of god
You feel me
Imagine life on the yard
 tryin\' to get that dollar on some shitty ass job
Imagine Biggie with his son
Imagine Pac gettin\' called pop \'bout one
Imagine a mother struggling
Dealing with a system that don\'t give a fuck about who shot her son
Imagine life you can\'t win
When you get out of the ghetto and go right to the pen
When you get out to the pen you go right to the jenz
When you put back to the streets you get right back in
Imagine Russell still struggling
No Def Jam it\'s another nigga hustlin\'
And no rocks on them fellaz
Just rocks on them fellaz
Just try and keep it bubblin\'
Imagine niggaz just stopped
From the east to the west coast, everybody fucked up
I can\'t imagine no less
But it don\'t take imagination
To know niggaz been blessed with
HIP-HOP

Enough said.

Conclusion

I’d like to conclude this article not with a summary but with the griot “lyrical” of one of the best lyricist in Hiphop, Poetics (RIP) of the “Grave Diggaz” and the genius of RZA and the Gate Keeper. As the case of Fela and Sandra shows, sparks always happens when African “dangerous mindz” align to crystallize the “word” – the word in the Akan Adinkra symbol – “Sankofa” or the African truth beneath the outer layer that all Africans need to “go back and take”. Even more than Jazz and country Blues, Hiphop is the very incarnation of the Sankofa paradox that makes the “past” ever “present”. Making some thing so new, so old, and in the processes recreates the broken link between Africans and their geneaology.
Hiphop might be used to highlight the social conditions many deal with on a daily basis; it might be the voice of the oppressed, the banner that gives vent to injustices, inner consciousness or the triumphal banalities of Reaganite materialism. But Hiphop is much more than its uses and utility. More than any other thing, Hiphop is the very impulse of the African past pulsating in the veins of the present and the future. An ancient griot practice that is still resistant to the attempt to reduce it to mere contents and finite frailties.

\"Dangerous Mindz” lyrics by Grave Diggaz

Verse One by Poetics

Yo, hah yo, rahh, yo, yo
Yo, yo, yo...
Yo, I got stress on my brain that causes chest pains
inside the best frames ghetto blood clots is scored by slug shots
and drug spots, well if you\'re too poor to move out
or get a new house, it\'s like livin in a war walkin through shootouts
And you doubt God exists, when hard fists
be poundin on your head like jackhammers
You\'re trapped in the black drama, you hear the laughter
seconds after that you fade out, you\'re played out, you\'re laid out
Your heart nearly gave out, you\'re lucky that you made out
with just a few scars when the beating ends
The streets [sniff] let ya breathe again
But evil men, will soon be on the receiving end
of Universal Law, I\'m callin on the meek and the poor
To fight back and never forfeit the day you have to go to war
With forces that are armed upon the seven continental borders
A mental fortress is essentials to absorb this
My sword hits the human orb until it orbits
In the art of war kids see Grym Reap be morbid
Since pieces of the lost civilization in the past
Had my photographs etched inside of pyramids
To laugh at this revelation, without 365 days of concentration
and twenty-four hour meditation, would be foolishly pagan
I\'m ancient as \'amen\', see I stay Grim
Throwin fools in in a pit full of pit bulls to be shaken
Or strapped to the crossroads of Hell and inner sin
Which trap the sinners in, to sell such in Sing-Sing
I bring Grim tidings, tidal-ed/titled your wave all not exciting
Stop riding the dick, start writin your own shit
Cause I stick figures that think they phat and can\'t rap wind blast
I make em Slim Fast, lookin like stick figures
I\'m all that, I bag chips at concerts and shows
Get more panties than hoes that boost Victoria Secret clothes
Foes is tagged like ex-foes toes at the coroner\'s
Kids with cold feet rise and fall like the barometer
Grym will mentally chop your career
See shit is locked down here, like penitentiary blocks and tears
Escape outta your ducts every time you hear my name
you better duck fate, or catch a fuckin face full of duct tape
You get smacked like a trick that sniffed off her money
Then smoked like Rzarector with the blunts dipped in honey

Verse Two by Prince Rakeem/Rzarector/RZA

Rotate your head like a gyro, my hair grows in knotty spirals
Feet resembles Christ\'s description from the Bible
Water-walker, immune to all physical torture
Pull out fast in a Porsche, upon a double-crosser
My penis rise up in the morning like a Phoenix
And blast iron cells into a low blooded \'nemic
The imperial - material\'s venerial
MC\'s get murdered in serial, you can\'t fuck with the material
Unorthodox paradox, my shit is seen wide-screen Magnavox
Grabs thought like Doctor Octopus
Cause war like the grandson of Kush
I\'m hangin devil\'s heads on a evergreen bush
Sugar-frosted sorceresses bitches get exhausted
Pussy lips be drippin, like leaky faucets
Undercover C-Cyphers sprayed up like windshield wipers
While I\'m guzzlin Piper\'s, changin my son\'s shitty-ass diapers
Dime piece trapped in sync like many time piece
You get stampeded by the wildabeast
A rap dast\' plus tracks black like Chow Yun Fat
Oppositional forces get their eardrums flat
Common denominator, I swing the mic saber like Vader
He was fooled by the inter-pre-atation made from a traitor
MC\'s get their wigs blown, trounced off my fistbone
Choked from my death, every time they break a wishbone
Eventually, I knew the whole world would mention me
Potentially, I have the key to make G\'s
MC\'s breeze on my tracks, I rock the fruit with the trees
Killa bees spread rapid like diseases
See it\'s, like the second comin of Jesus, of Nazareth
be fabulous, raise the dead crowd up like Lazarus
Hazardous vocabulary attacks be beautiful
Acoustical notes we provoke, it comes out musically dope
Niggaz realize they just can\'t cope
The hair, bustin out the head resembles fire and smoke Loc

Verse Three by Frukwan/Gatekeeper

I blast watts in circuits like General Monk-Monk was Turkish
My science is divided deep into your central nervous
Pervert area codes peep this murder
I\'m boxed-in, suckin hologram tits, inhalin oxygen
Parallel world of crab niggas and sea shells mix
I pierce my dick and sword right through you pelvics
I\'m hell stricken bomb, wrapped in trees of palm
Physical existence is descendants of Allah
I travel at high rates, Weaker men are primates
That either migrate or get burnt to the stake
I feed off lyrical light beams of amphetimene
My terminology is panatomic like lobotomy
Crazy el loco, gas niggaz like Sunoco
Flush em like Presto, Blast in your chest bone
I raise from the shore, like Sodom and Gomorrah
with traction, flashin a 4-wheel drive Ford Explorer
While mucus lies within the center of the Rubik\'s
The roots of the wine induced the enzymes inside your nucleus
Turmoil boilin appointed, niggaz rubbin off my style like a ointment
Lost in the Sahara, From trial and error
Confused with 3 meals for Sister Sara
Rahh! Bearer, Digestin minerals in abundance
Because the dead is not known to return from the dungeons
 
You can watch GraveDiggaz “Dangerous Mindz” here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqhb28UjTyw






6
General Discussion / Evil pastors do
« Last post by vikki on September 02, 2008, 02:29:23 AM »
Evil pastors do
By HENRY UMAHI(umuahi@sunnewsonline.com)
Saturday, August 23, 2008

By their calling, pastors ought to be the conscience of society. As God’s representatives on earth, their responsibility is to ensure that a healthy moral temperature prevails. Like ancient prophets, they are expected to warn the people about the dangers of disobedience and guide them to the path of righteousness. Indeed, pastors ought to live by example.

Today, however, pastors have become a problem to society. In Nigeria and elsewhere, the odd character shown by many so-called men of God has put a big question mark on the principles and doctrines of the faith they profess. The situation is such that prefixing one’s name with the title of pastor in today’s world often attracts immediate suspicion. This sad development is as a result of the glaring and expanding scope of misdemeanouvers of some of them.

Indeed, the church has become a house of scandals and controversies in these shores. These ills have become firmly entrenched, taking root like an incurable cancer that is feasting on the afflicted body. Hence despite the number of churches springing up in all nooks and crannies, a wave of iniquities is sweeping across the land. What seems to have emerged is a convoluted practice of the religion held under siege from within.

Shola Oshunkeye, editor, The Spectator, captures the scenario thus: “There are many of such preachers out there, masquerading as angels of light. They are fathers of lies, mothers of hypocrisy, who, according to 1 Timothy chapter 4, have had their conscience seared with hot iron. They are learned. They have sugarcoated tongues. They feign sympathy and fake listening ears in order to milk their unfortunate audience. They bamboozle with supernatural powers obtained from sources other than those stipulated by the holy writ, and use dubious, sometimes pre-arranged miracles to railroad unsuspecting citizens to their mega churches.

“To them, church is not the stairway to heaven but a super highway to obscene wealth. And no trick is too dirty to ensnare their luckless victims. While many in their congregation cannot afford three decent meals in a day, the evil pastors, who are mostly located in the new wave Pentecostal movement, ferry collections to their banks in Bullion vans every Sunday. They build churches that compete with the Basilica in Rome, cruise about town in state-of-the-art cars, and spend vacations in the most exotic tourist destinations across the world. Safe for a few, the majority of them would never lift a finger to ameliorate the sufferings of their poor parishioners.”

Indeed, rapists, murderers, thieves and sundry criminals desecrate the pulpit and drag the name of God in the mud. A few examples will suffice.

Raped to death

It is a story that chills the bones and numbs the senses. Even the devil himself may be shocked that one of his agents masquerading as a minister of the gospel could perpetrate an evil of such astounding proportion.

Recently, one Pastor Henry Evbotokhai of Miracle Deliverance Ministry, Ira Odan, Era, Ojo Local Government Area, Lagos reportedly raped Covenant Elijah, an 11-year old girl to death.

The JSS1 student of Caritas Model College, Onireke, Lagos, was taken to the pastor by her mother, Mrs. Arik Bassey, for spiritual deliverance. Unfortunately, the paedophile delivered her unto death, abandoning her corpse in his bedroom with congealed blood around her private part.

Devastated beyond measure by the way and manner her only child died, Arik, a widow, is at the verge of losing her mind. Now, she wears a robe of anguish, intermittently speaking to herself even as she has lost even a vestige of respect for pastors. In fact, she now sees all of them the devil incarnate.

The grieving mother told Saturday Sun, “whatever respect I had for anyone who claims to be a pastor has vanished with my daughter’s death. They are all merchants of death.”

Human barbecue

Mr. Alfred Uzuh from Amairo, Oboro, Ikwuano, LGA, Abia State is another person whose regard for men in cassock has taken a nosedive. His daughter, Ann, an undergraduate of the University of Lagos, was doused in fuel and set ablaze in July 2006 by weird cleric, Emeka Ezeuko alias Rev. Dr. King, for alleged fornication.

Ironically, during King’s celebrated trial at the Ikeja High Court, which lasted from September 26, 2006 to January 11, 2007, witnesses testified that the self-acclaimed “god” and “Jesus of our time” is, indeed, a god of fornication. Kelechi Chikere, one the female witnesses, gave a lurid account of how the bearded grand overseer of the Christian Praying Assembly (CPA), Ajao Estate, Lagos turned her into a sex object. The lady, who told the court that King compelled her to serve his meals naked, said the notorious pastor impregnated her several times and compelled her to procure abortion on each occasion. She added that her womb was in a terrible state as a result.

While delivering judgment on the matter, Justice Kayode Oweyola said: “The variant demonstrated by the accused is a throw back to the dark ages and an assault to the gains attained by humanity in the areas of respect for human dignity, freedom and liberty.”

He, therefore, condemned the accused to death by hanging.

Rev. King, who is cooling his heels at the Kirikiri Maximum Prison while awaiting the hangman, was also notorious for wife snatching and forcing his followers to adopt his name. He equally made unsubstantiated claims of working miracles.

Speaking with Saturday Sun, the 69-year-old grief stricken father lamented: “A day before she was burnt by King, I had a terrible dream about her, and went to the church to see if I can have the chance to inform her that there could be danger. But when I got there, the people I asked said they did not know who she was. One later told me that she was Rev. King’s wife and was in hospital.

“In the hospital, I saw a terrible sight. Anna was like a roasted yam on hospital bed. After a long inquiry it took her time to tell me Rev. King set her on fire. What she said was ‘Daddy, Rev King has done his worst. He did this to me.’ Few days after, she died. I had thought before then that she lived in UNILAG as a student and just attended the church. It was that day I knew she actually lived with Rev. King. That is how I lost all I laboured for.”

Abortion in the mix

The assertion that there is no art to tell the heart of a man from his looks moped into ugly reality for Miss Ebere Eze when she jumped into bed with a smashing young Catholic priest, Rev. Father Patrick Okon of Somolu parish in Lagos.

In a celebrated report, Ebere narrated how the cleric deceived her into believing that he was a lawyer on an attachment with Saint Kizito Catholic Church, Iju, Agege, Lagos. He promised her marriage and even gave her an engagement ring. The tale began to twist when she got pregnant and disclosed same to him.

Hear her: “He said I should take pills but I told him I wanted to have the baby. But he refused and said that babies take too much money to maintain. When he found out I was not yielding to the abortion idea, he tricked me on an outing one day. That was in June (2007). He took me to somewhere in Sagamu. The place looked like a club and they play golf there. He ordered a bottle of Star beer and he wouldn’t want me to take soft drink. He ordered a bottle of (small) Guinness Stout for me. As soon as my drink was opened, that was when he remembered he forgot something in the car and asked me to go and get it for him.”

At that point, the wolf shed the clothing of the lamb. Ebere continued: “I don’t know if he put something in the drink because I slept off and didn’t know how I got back inside his car with him. I woke up and saw myself padded in sanitary towel flooded in my blood. I asked him what happened he said I should not worry. He told me to ‘clam down, let’s go home first.’ He wanted to drop me off at Oshodi. I said no, that I couldn’t go to my brother’s house because I couldn’t understand what was happening to me. So he dropped off and asked me to take a bike and wait for him at Saint Peter and Paul Church, Somolu. I was in his place for two days. He used to prepare food for me while he was hiding me. He did not want anybody to know I was in his apartment.

“After the abortion, I started having severe stomach pains and each time I talked about those problems, he never regarded it as anything. He would always tell me that I would be well. My body started swelling and smelling from inside and outside. Then I told him I will let everyone know of it. Since then, he started calling me regularly that he wants to see me. But, I’m afraid since he had threatened to kill me if I scandalized him. Several times, he had requested to see me, but I’ve been scared.”

To authentic her narration, Ebere, who hails from Nnewi, Anambra State, tendered a video recording of some of her intimate moments with Reverend Father Okon.

“After the abortion, I confronted him. He apologised for not seeking my consent before the abortion. That was when my spirit told me to record every of our dealings (on my camera phone) in case he tries to deny our affairs. I spent two days in his house and I decided to record every happening between us. It was after he removed the pregnancy and we were both sleeping naked. He likes being naked.”

Torture expert

It is a naked truth that Pastor Noah Ajiboye of the Celestial Church stole in from the pit of hell to wreak havoc. Even a stone heart would melt at the sight of the grievous harm he brought upon his 17-year-old stepson, Dare, for allegedly stealing a telephone handset. He damaged the teenager’s two hands recently. Now, only a miracle could make the hands useful again.

Ajiboye said: “Actually, when I was beating him, he was unruffled, which made me to resort to a higher punishment. I only tied his two hands to the back (for a week) and locked him up in a room without food and water, so that he cold learn his lesson.”

After damaging his stepson’s hands, he asked the boy to lie to the doctor that he had fire burns. This, he admitted, was to prevent the doctor from inviting the police if the truth was told. But the truth came out and when the police stormed Ajibola’s church, they found a human skull.

A native doctor and man of God

Similarly, in May this year, the police arrested a couple said to be pastors for alleged involvement in ritual killing. Pastors Benjamin Ojobu and his wife, Patience, who are members of OO Obu in Asaba, Delta State were arrested with a human head believed to be that of a teenage girl.

Benjamin confessed to using human heads to prepare rituals for church members, adding that he functioned as a pastor and native doctor at the same time.

“I got it (human head) through somebody called John, who works in a cemetery. He brought it for me and said I should buy and I bought it for N3,000. Yes, I am a man of God. But I do this outside church hours. I am both a native doctor and a man of God. This is my personal practice. I do it to complement my church job and I have been assisting a lot of people with it. I use human skulls to do charms for prosperity, to make money and for protection. After preparing the charms, I give them to members of our church and other people who are not members,” the 51-year-old man explained.

Shamanism with Christian terminology

A couple of years ago, Pastor Chris Okotie of Household of God, had warned a pastor neighbour to terminate his relationship with another cleric whom he said “is neither a minister of Jesus Christ nor a brother in the Lord but an occultist, practising shamanism with Christian terminology.”

Okotie stressed: “His desire is to enter the church of God and paralyse God’s people with mysticism. He denies the power of God is operative in the gospel. These agnostics preach holiness accompanied with signs and wonders. The power of signs and wonders is embedded in the mystery of iniquity. It is all calculated to deceive, entrap and entice you.”

The apocalypse of brotherhood drew flaks in the Pentecostal Christian family and beyond.

Blowjob man

Mysticism or ritualism was suspected when Pastor John Ugoh of Love and Faith Bible Ministry, Ijegun, Lagos allegedly had licentious acts with male teenagers in his neighbourhood. The 47-year-old indigene of Mbaise, Imo State, was accused of habitually sucking the private part of boys between 14 and 15 years. His victims were also said to be sick after the encounter. He was, however, arrested by the police on April 19, 2008 following complaints lodged by the victims’ families.

Thieves at the Lord’s table

The money mongering inclination of some pastors in these shores was taken to a disgusting level in 2005 when the $4 million provided by renowned American cleric, Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke, for a crusade in Nigeria developed wings. According to reports, those saddled with the responsibility of using the fund to organize a serious evangelical campaign simply pocketed it.

In the same vein, a pastor of the Mountain of Fire and Miracle Ministries (MFM) recently attempted to rob the church’s Prayer City along the Ibadan/Lagos expressway. He was caught with a gang of armed robbers while perfecting their evil plan. He confessed that he and another church worker usually tempered with the church’s weekly collections.

Preacher kills wife, rapes daughter

As it is in Nigeria, so it is elsewhere. Pastor Anthony Hopkins of the Inspirational Tabernacle Church of God in Jackson, Alabama, USA is currently facing charges of murder, rape and incest. The 37-year old allegedly killed his wife, Arietha, 36, after she caught him sexually abusing their daughter in a bathroom in November 2004. Thereafter, he hid her body in the freezer in the laundry room of their home. He was nabbed a few weeks ago just after delivering a sermon to a congregation that included his other seven children, following an affidavit deposed to by the daughter. Now 19, the girl alleged that the father had been having sex with her since was she was 11.

Arrangee miracle

A Ghanaian Pastor, Mr. Kojo Nana Obiri-Yeboah was arrested in June by detectives at the Entebbe Airport as he attempted smuggling in an electric-shock device that when activated would send shock waves through anyone he touches, making them assume that they had been touched by the Holy Spirit.

According to reports, “he would lace his body with the gadget’s low-volt electricity and once he touches anybody on crusade ground, the person would fall – ostensibly gripped by the Holy Spirit.”

It was gathered that many Nigerian pastors use the device to hoodwink unsuspecting members of the public, who regard them as powerful men of God.

It’s an endless tale really.

The main problem

The above stories are just a few of the evil pastors perpetrate. There are many unreported ones. These pastors have turned the supposed house of God into “den of thieves” and sexual adventures. The pastors are having a field day because of the low spirituality of church members, who cannot discern between the spirit of God and that of the devil.

To be sure, people are swayed by wonders pastors perform, without caring to know the sources of power used. They do not care that some of these pastors take devilish power from occult chambers, from India and other sundry countries, with which they hypnotise people.

Also, the economic situation in the country and the desperation to have children have made people preys of pastors. Many of the pastors, in preaching prosperity, tell their members that their situation would change for the better if they are prayed for. Women, who are looking for the fruit of the womb easily fell for these pastors, who claim that their prayers would get them pregnant. For the pastors, the more people have problems the better, as they would have more “clients” to deceive.

Bishop Joseph Ojo, National Secretary of the Pentecostal fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) and senior pastor, Calvary Kingdom Church (CKC), premised the development on what he described as the invasion of the pulpit by area boys (touts).

According to him, many who were not called but called themselves for the sake of the stomach, are the ones perpetrating all sorts of iniquity. In other words, self-styled pastors are those deceiving the victims.

He said: “The biggest challenge facing Christendom, especially Pentecostal Christianity in Nigeria is the invasion of people who are not called by God. You know, there are people that, if I want to use a very loose term I will call them touts, have hijacked the pulpit. They are not representing Christ. They are representing their stomach. They are representing their worldly mundane desires. That’s the truth.”

Pastor Success Ibeakanma of The Masters Royal Choice Revival Ministries, Ketu, Lagos averred that the development is just a fulfillment of the word of God, as recorded in Matthew 24.

He said: “The Bible says that in the last days, iniquity shall abound and the love of many shall wax cold. We are living in the last days, hence these things are happening now.

“Another factor is impatience. This has caused more harm than good in the life of many ministers of the gospel. This is responsible for many ministers trying to jump the gun and manipulate their ways to be now where they suppose to be in 20 years time. They will lack wisdom and maturity because there is a level of maturity and wisdom required for every level of ministry or ministration.

“So, what such over ambitious pastors meet at this higher levels, without wisdom and maturity, leads them into terrible mistakes because they will like to cover up, thereby exposing themselves”.

“Our Lord Jesus told His disciples to watch and pray so as not to fall into temptation. But today, most ministers only pray without watching. You cannot watch without prayers and praying without watching may lead to these developments. One other thing is that some ministers seek short cut to anointing. That is seeking for power through the wrong means in other to be like others”.

According to Mr. Chimezie E. Obasi, a Lagos businessman, the disturbing trend in Nigerian churches today is that it has become an all comers’ affair. He added that churches are hardly distinguishable from business centres in terms of the quest to increase turnover.

Said he: “Most of these new breed churches only preach prosperity. The issue of salvation is rarely addressed and this impacts negatively on the leadership as well as followership. The messages are shallow; the preachers are not grounded in the gospel they preach”.

Obasi offered another perspective, saying that native doctors have studied the situation and repackaged themselves as pastors. Hence they are prowling, looking for who to devour.

Bishop Matthew Oluremi Owadayo, the Bishop of the Egba Diocese of the Anglican Church, shares the view that false pastors have turned churches to business centres.

He said: “I agree that some pastors have turned the church into a business ventures. Some of them, after their attempts to find means of livelihood had failed, would hire a classroom and start a church.”

The way out, he advocated, is that there should be paradigm shift with regards to setting up churches. He urged the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) to do a critical examination of the situation, with the view to checking the modus operandi of religious organization, especially one-man outfits.

On account of the inappropriate behaviours of pastors, fiery Pentecostal Preacher, Tunde Bakare said the church needs examinations.

He words: “Look at the shame we (pastors) faced after the Bellview crash, and they found so much stolen money (about N6 billion) in one of the pastor’s bank accounts. The bubbles burst when a second wife surfaced to contest the man’s estate. Does that glorify God? The person preached every day in church. He belonged to a church. How much has he given as tithe and tax? Honestly, I don’t mind churches being examined. I don’t mind.”

Bakare described as “outright madness” the trend whereby pastors are the sole signatories to a church’s finances. In his opinion, “trustees are not supposed to be beneficiaries of a trust,” regretting: “We have given God enough bad name in this country, all in the name of religion.

“The corruption in the church stinks to the highest heavens. The church stinks absolutely and a sick church cannot bring healing to a dying world. We are guilty. Let us repent before God.”

The good

However, Pastor Dennis Inyang of Sure Word Assembly, Okota, Lagos affirmed the development is not particularly strange or unexpected. He argued: “There has always been real and fake pastors, just like other fields. Sadly, the deeds of a few bad ones make more news. Most pastors are not into evil.”
7
General Discussion / Sex in the South: Unbuckling the Bible Belt by Suzi Parker
« Last post by festus on August 19, 2008, 12:39:33 AM »
Years ago, while in class 2 in GSSO, I discovered the fiery passionate side of a Scripture Union (SU) sister. She was so good I converted into SU as a way of getting the \"goods\". Like every one else, I used to believe the illusion that the Church was a place devoid of sex due to the usual rhetoric of \"sin\" and \"iniquity\". But then, like an oasis in the desert, I discovered that away from prying eyes, the most outwardly prudish are usually the most likely to be \"freaks\".

What they demand is that you keep your mouth shot. It didn\'t take me long to transform myself into a \"devoted\" member of the Church with my \"pencil\" trousers and Jehovah\'s Witness jacket. Some where laughing at me then... but of course they didn\'t know that my nights were filled with stuff they can only dream about.

Again, I must emphasize the fact that some of those SU sisters were sincere in their beliefs and weren\'t simply covering up their acts by using the Church as a cloak of convenience. With hindsight, I just think that those sisters were human beings with sexualities that were so intense they figured it needed divine intervention. However, what they Church did was to intensify these outlandish sexualities by compounding it with guilt and fear - an explosive mixture!

In other words, these were naive women trapped between an inherited biological disposition they weren\'t equipped to understand and an organization that gave those biological disposition almost an extraterrestrial power by further mystifying those tendencies. What results from this is a violent and schizophrenic swing between two extreme - obvious denial/flagellation and a sensual abandon that is rare amongst regular folks. It was an eye opening experience but one I will recommend to the grown folks out there.

In short, what I discovered at that early stage in my life is that, the short skirt, flirtatious type, often labeled \"bad girls\" are mostly empty. The sort that try so hard to put their innate passions in chains through divine intervention are in fact loaded and charged with the sort of passion many naija men dream about. This brings me to Suzi Parker\'s folkish book \"Sex in the South: Unbuckling the Bible Belt\".

Want to know what\'s happening beneath all that passionate \"fox news\" preoccupation with \"sins of the flesh\"? Read on... \"Catching Southerners with Their Pants Down: An Interview with Suzi Parker\"

http://www.southernscribe.com/zine/authors/Parker_Suzi.htm
8
General Discussion / Majority of Nigerians living in America reside in which city
« Last post by kcbright on August 13, 2008, 08:00:12 PM »
hell yeah!! H town takes it all for population and stuff
9
General Discussion / WHERE IS EVERYONE?
« Last post by chizor on August 09, 2008, 02:14:32 PM »
What happened to this site? We had some really good times back in 2005/06. What happened to everyone? Where are the likes of honneybunnie, susia, uzolance,uapo4, okey, juice, ada, martin, linda,aq, onyii, chizi. you name them. not forgetting all the annoys. What happened to our brain teasers? we where one big happy family.  :oops:  :oops:
10
General Discussion / Inferiority complex: Nigerians and their white counterparts
« Last post by vikki on August 04, 2008, 01:40:38 AM »
Inferiority complex: Nigerians and their white counterparts
Sabella Ogbobode Abidde

Pardon me for saying \"Blacks have low self-esteem.\" I am repeating a clichÈ, a truism that is evident in every Black enclave I have ever observed. But really, one of the biggest problems facing the Black man is his low self-esteem. I am speaking of a typical Black man and a typical Black leader. Both have a low sense of self. A Black man does not think much of himself. He does not consider himself worthy of anything. He has no regard for his family, his community and even his country. When one reflect on why Nigeria is the way it is, one has to conclude that low self-esteem is at the top or near the top of what ails the people and the country.

During President Obasanjo\'s first term in office, he genuflected; he bowed constantly and shakily before Western leaders. This was a war hero, a bona fide military general, a former head of government, a prospective UN Secretary General, a Chief a dozen times over; yet, he was a yes sir, yes ma, pardon me, forgive-me, no vex, nothing spoil kind of a leader. At home, he was a deity, the Asiwaju and the Alafin before whom everybody must bow and seek permission. But he was impotent abroad. Most Nigerian big-big-men are like that. Once they leave the shore of the country, they take on a different persona: looking dull and limpid. Boring, actually!

Truth be told, I take pleasure in watching some Nigerian big-men acting \"big\" at home, but then acting \"small\" in the US. Take Ministers and Governors for example. In fact, local government chairs, commissioners, and all types of advisers and special advisers all fall into the same group. In the wider pool, you will also find very many bankers, engineers, chiefs, lord of lords, pastors, and imams and all shades of ex-this and ex-that. In Nigeria, they are the rainmakers; but in the United States, the rain and snow fall harshly on them. In Nigeria, you can\'t even look some of them in the face; but in the US, they want to hug you - as though you are their drinking buddies.

The big-big-men aside, have you noticed how members of the armed forces and police officers, customs and immigration officers, and even security officers and any one with real or perceived power treat fellow Nigerians? They physically and mentally abuse Nigerians. They treat fellow human beings like rats and houseflies. But before White men, they act like kids, they seek favor. Before White men, they lose their spine and their balls. Before White men, they lose the colour of their skin, lose their senses. Before White men, they act like saints. The same Nigerians, who, in a heartbeat will beat up fellow Nigerians, will lie flat in the gutter for the White man to walk on.

There are a lot of Nigerians with useless power. No matter how mundane their office or power is - they derive orgasmic pleasure in frustrating fellow Nigerians. In recent Nigeria, most things are about power and money. Life and living revolves around brute force and money. It is one or the other; and much better if you have both since the latter can give you the former and vice versa. To have neither is to languish in Nigeria\'s bottomless pit. It is a shame, but for the most part, civility and grace is out. Benevolence and long terms rewards are out. Brotherliness seems to be a thing of the past. There are a few decent and righteous Nigerians left, though. Very few.

What is it about our culture and our society that makes the decent and the educated amongst us act foolish and godlike? What is it about power and public office that turns a higher-being into a brute, a beast? A Public Official visits the United States: he acts cool. He acts like a well-mannered human being. He is polite and gentle and chivalrous. He obeys the rules and regulations governing his host country. He smiles a lot, laughs a lot; but once back in Nigeria, he acts like a swine, a monster: thirsty for blood; ready to beat and dehumanize his underlings and willing to undo his colleagues and his superiors. Why? What\'s wrong?

In Lagos and Abuja and in all spots in between, you should see how Nigerian bureaucrats relate to White men. You should see how they relate to the Lebanese, the Germans, the Indians and the Chinese. They act like boy-boy, like Omo\'odo. You get the feeling these officials think of the Whites, especially the Americans and the British, as divine beings - beings they are never to say \"no\" to, never to offend, never to irritate. It is as if once they see a White man\'s face, they\'ve seen the face of God. They bow and obey and never complain. They pledge their loyalty. The same officials who disobey their God and their conscience never disobey a White man.

Now, if you think our officials and leaders behave like inferior beings before the White man, well, the behavior of the common man towards the Whites is even more repulsive. Some Nigerians lose their voices, lose their wind and lose their poise once they see a White face. They will do anything and say anything for the non-black skin - all in expectation of a dollar and cent. There are everyday Nigerians who will jump off cliffs, swim in shark-infested waters, chop off their nuts and even denounce their traditional deity if a White man tells them to do so. I beseech you to take the time to observe what goes on in our hotels and in government offices.

Except perhaps in the Scandinavians Embassies, Nigerians are treated like leprosy-infested people in most embassies (in Nigeria). They abuse and yell at us. They suspect our every move. They sometimes make us beg - on all fours - before granting us Visas. Not minding the fact that yearly, Nigerian students and businesses send roughly $550 million to the British economy, they still treat Nigerians like skunks. In contravention of their own laws and international conventions, Nigerians in European and Asian countries are violated on a daily basis. In essence, at home and abroad, Nigerians have become the world\'s bunching bag.

Almost fifty years after independence, the perceived superiority of the White man is still carved in our consciousness. Nigerians still worship the white skin. We helped in selling our people into slavery; and we certainly made it easy for colonization to take place. Today, we are selling ourselves and selling our country short. We give them cheap oil, cheap agricultural resources, cheap labor, and cheap everything. We make it easy for our country to be taken over, made it easy for others to lord over us. Heck, they\'ve even made prostitutes out of our university students. Our universities are now like brothels: dens for horny oil workers and other expatriates.

It has to be humiliating what we are going through as a nation: an incompetent, rapacious and thieving leadership lording over a fatalistic, gullible and poverty-stricken populace - both of whom are serving the interest of outside forces and their domestic agents.
Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 10