Kenyans views of the African American -The case of Kobia

[mya88]

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I read this statement and I laughed so hard people thought I was losing it. Tragic as it may sound...it was also funny as sh*t. There is a reason I stopped frequenting .com. Because you have to hide reading some of the garbage spewed there. I work with AA and just imagive if one of them saw what I was reading........they would be shocked. I am curious about what others here think of this discussion.

Finje wrote

White trash are just as bad as AAs but once you deal with bazungus who are above working class I think you have to admit they are a breeze to deal with compared to the typical "angry AA nyeuthi." Why? Because most of us Africans and Bazungus of that class and above 'think in a straight line.' What do I mean by that? We think along these lines:

If I go to the club and step on someone's foot, I apologize and say I'm sorry. Hopefully they are not too offended and life moves on. No big deal

For most AA's (many well-educated ones included) the thinking is not straight. It is kombokombo kabisa, full of bizarre insights and warped logic. A sample of it goes like this:

If I be goin to da club, and some M*******r be stepping on my shoes, he "disrespecting me", so I need to "be a man" and "defend my manhood" by possibly beating the M******

This does not mean that the bazungus are not innately racist. Most of them are, but at least on the surface you can deal with them bila drama or fearing for your life. They are civil and logical.

On the other hand if you cross wires with AAs sooner or later you get what Kobia gets. Hata looking at them "the wrong way" can bring serious kicks and blows if not gun shots your way. They communicate non verbally with "bad looks" and such which can be very dangerous for you if you do not understand the kombo kombo codes and ways they think.

By the way Kobia stories are a dime a dozen. Some other poor pretty young Nigerian young lass in NYC that I knew got entangled with AAs akitafuta makaratasi. She survived the daily beatings and mistreatments to get the makaratasis. Once she had them (10 yr GC) she boldy announced to the AA that she wanted a divorce. Wapi? He smoked her the next day and we had to changa to ship her body home.

As we speak the guy is serving two life sentences (he was a convicted felon) after being convicted under three strikes laws. Ogopa AA's my friends. To kill is nothing to them. Their daddies and mummies have been doing it to fellow blacks for hundreds of years. This is why they are 80% of the jail population despite being a mere 10% of the USA population.

[mya88]

I always though Ngina was one of the more sensible ones, I stand corrected.

Ngina wrote...

They are like animals when they reach reproductive age they reproduce regardless of what is happening in their lives, and every 2 or 3 years they pop another one. I don't even know if they can be helped.

http://nipate.com/kenyan-killed-in-baltimore-t51476-30.html

[Kim Jong-Un's Pajama Pants]

mya88,

It can happen if the only people one interacts with on a regular basis are gangstas and hood rats.  Or if there is no interaction at all.  Either way, one ends relying upon caricatures to judge an entire group.  The amazing thing is the total blindness to the shit that the African Negro is capable of back in the continent.

[vooke]

Termie,
Generalities are not the way to go I agree. But of course there are some things which stick out such as Nyeri region churning out husband batterers or HIV prevalence in Nyanza. You can easily be mistaken for a bigot for just mentioning these things. Political correctness demands you don't acknowledge them elsewhere outside your head

mya88,

It can happen if the only people one interacts with on a regular basis are gangstas and hood rats.  Or if there is no interaction at all.  Either way, one ends relying upon caricatures to judge an entire group.  The amazing thing is the total blindness to the shit that the African Negro is capable of back in the continent.

[Little Bella]

There is also a difference between noting "generalities" and a prejudiced mentality hiding under the banner of speaking "truth". Every stereotype has some grain of truth to it, after all. Bigotry is always in an unjustified exaggeration that ends up presenting great lies about many people, while it tells truth only about comparatively very few people.

Also, a pattern emerges after a while, some groups always noted for negative generalities often without proof, or never good ones. There's normal irreverent banter of which many a Kenyan jokes are made, but then there's also an unnatural and imbalanced (negative) focus on some to the exclusion of others. It is soon easy to tell you are dealing with a good old bigot and not an irreverent msemakweli. Bigotry is for me a sustained negative predisposition towards members of a certain group. People from all quarters suffer from it, including the most progressive (politically), but it should not be confused with crude ukweli which does not pick favourites. The latter may be a jerk, but the former is a bigot.

[mya88]

mya88,

It can happen if the only people one interacts with on a regular basis are gangstas and hood rats.  Or if there is no interaction at all.  Either way, one ends relying upon caricatures to judge an entire group.  The amazing thing is the total blindness to the shit that the African Negro is capable of back in the continent.

[mya88]

Termie,
Generalities are not the way to go I agree. But of course there are some things which stick out such as Nyeri region churning out husband batterers or HIV prevalence in Nyanza. You can easily be mistaken for a bigot for just mentioning these things. Political correctness demands you don't acknowledge them elsewhere outside your head

mya88,

It can happen if the only people one interacts with on a regular basis are gangstas and hood rats.  Or if there is no interaction at all.  Either way, one ends relying upon caricatures to judge an entire group.  The amazing thing is the total blindness to the shit that the African Negro is capable of back in the continent.

vooke
what is your point? Does it then mean ALL kikuyu women beat their men or is it ALL nyeri women? Does it also mean ALL nyanza people have HIV or ALL luo's. Its not as much a matter of political correcteness as it is common sense. Its one thing to discuss the ills plagueing a region, vis -a-vis other regions without generalizing it to all people coming from that region. Its the same reason you use the terms like this jarluo or this okuyo......subliminal messages are sent regardless of your original intent. Kadame has explained the difference if you care to read.

[vooke]

mya88,
I don't know zilch about American Negroes. So you can imagine of those who do if majority tell the same tales. Could be a coincidence that all the Negroes they know are of the same income and social group. Or they may have a point.

on Dec 27th there was another buddy, a Teso. He married a Chagga. There was a function I attended before the wedding and some Chagga rites unsettled the Tesos. They had a goat roasted whole with its head intact except the head looked so fresh and alive. The goat was further garnished with vegetables. They then put grass on its mouth, danced aropund it and warned the boy against EVER starving their girl lest the goat haunts him. The scene was spooky and full of fun. I will send you an image privately if you wish.

Here is the point. Just about everyone who heard that the bride was a Chagga exclaimed that Chagga are into witchcraft. I don't know whether that is a stereotype or generalizing or what, but they was really convinced. While you should not relate with your fellow humans at generalities level, you can't ignore them entirely. When MOST of those who have interacted with American negroes are cautious, I would be cautious. But in my hearts of hearts I want to believe that it boils down to individuals not groups.

Let me help you,my Empress is from a 'different' tribe and am loving it, wish I married far much earlier than I did. Now supposing my marriage breaks (it won't). They will blame Tribe first before anything else

vooke
what is your point? Does it then mean ALL kikuyu women beat their men or is it ALL nyeri women? Does it also mean ALL nyanza people have HIV or ALL luo's. Its not as much a matter of political correcteness as it is common sense. Its one thing to discuss the ills plagueing a region, vis -a-vis other regions without generalizing it to all people coming from that region. Its the same reason you use the terms like this jarluo or this okuyo......subliminal messages are sent regardless of your original intent. Kadame has explained the difference if you care to read.

[mya88]

[vooke]

mya88,
By majority I mean all who contributed on .com. Of course they are very few. That's just the impression I got. Say you need opinion on milk formula right here. 4 out of 5 similar views from mothers would satisfy your curiosity in a way. That's all vooke felt from that debate; one too few negroes feel while American Negroes are genetically closer to us than bazungus, relating with them is more likely to be strained than with bazungus.

Sometimes back Pundit wanted opinion on company valuation. He settled on one quickly. Not every decision you make is subjected to scientific rigors and statistics.

My Empress, that's why I put tribe in quotes.

[Kim Jong-Un's Pajama Pants]

vooke,

The average African American will bore you to death in a real encounter.  A thoroughly uneventful encounter.  It can be an anti-climax, if one is convinced he going to meet a Dave Chappelle or Chris Rock type comic, or a Tookie Williams gang banger. 

They have a different culture from the African.  Their culture is an American product, probably the most American outside native Americans, in every sense.  I chalk most misunderstandings of this simple fact to ignorance and bigotry. 

They are black but they are not Africans.  It's futile to expect them to behave like Africans.

[mya88]

mya88,
By majority I mean all who contributed on .com. Of course they are very few. That's just the impression I got. Say you need opinion on milk formula right here. 4 out of 5 similar views from mothers would satisfy your curiosity in a way. That's all vooke felt from that debate; one too few negroes feel while American Negroes are genetically closer to us than bazungus, relating with them is more likely to be strained than with bazungus.

Sometimes back Pundit wanted opinion on company valuation. He settled on one quickly. Not every decision you make is subjected to scientific rigors and statistics.

My Empress, that's why I put tribe in quotes.

[Little Bella]

Mashada was special. It deserved the moniker "toilet" in every way. First time I stumbled on it I experienced shock waves, couldn't believe Kenyans talk that way bout each other. I had previously only blogged on very tightly moderated religious sites, I guess you could say I was an internet virgin. Unfortunately, two years later, having been around Kenyan blogosphere, I am quite used to it, no longer shocked. Occasionally I am surprised but that initial cognitive dissonance is gone. I felt better when I discovered that this nastiness is a staple of all sorts of forums, on all sorts of topics, not just Kenyan political ones. It has to do with human nature and the freedom and anonymity afforded by the net. It seems the same sorts of characters who show up in a flash to participate in an impromptu lynching aka "mob justice" are the same ones saying all sorts of unrepeatable things online, imo. In normal society, this dark bits are kept hidden only showing up when circumstances afford opportunity to practice cruelty with abandon, opportunities like conflict/social chaos, lynching frenzies and it seems also online anonymity etc

[bryan275]

vooke,

The average African American will bore you to death in a real encounter.  A thoroughly uneventful encounter.  It can be an anti-climax, if one is convinced he going to meet a Dave Chappelle or Chris Rock type comic, or a Tookie Williams gang banger. 

They have a different culture from the African.  Their culture is an American product, probably the most American outside native Americans, in every sense.  I chalk most misunderstandings of this simple fact to ignorance and bigotry. 

They are black but they are not Africans.  It's futile to expect them to behave like Africans.

Windy,

You're right.  I remember my first encounter with a Black Brit of West Indian decent.  It was rough, considering that I'd become all hopeful for seeing another black face in the grand lecture hall at uni.  Over time I came to realise that they (mainly west indians) haboured a deep dislike for Africans.  The saw us as backward and possiblly too "black" for them.

Later an African studies scholar explained that the causes of the hatred may be twofold.  Firstly the legacy of slavery, where some felt that our ancestors were slave trade collaborators that sold off their ancestors into slavery leading to their misery in the plantations and modern day woes.  Or that our ancestors were perceived as being superior for managing to evade the slave trappers.  Both schools of thought ignored the fact that we did end up colonised anyway.