Conversation with fellow Brainiacs on Identity!

Asian people have a unique way about them and a different sense of beauty. It's exotic to me. I like
they way Asians project their feelings. There's a hardness to the culture, but at the same time there's a delicateness.
Paz Vega

• Dear Paz Vega, It seems that political movements seek to eradicate culture! Can law remove identity? Does culture have justice? Culture should evolve to survive, justice should work on the injustice within cultures!

Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government; they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad.
Denis Diderot

• in a positive way the term economy and its growth should be the measure of human ambition "dreams"; the projection of possibilities between people, nations and natural hard resources!

Most African women are taught to endure abusive marriages. They say endurance means a good wife but most women endure abusive relationship because they are not empowered economically; they depend on their husbands.
Joyce Banda

• The economic climate hasn't changed because the women haven't changed their thinking and still breed same mentality in their sons and daughters, yet when they see their daughter Inlaws striving for what they or their daughters couldn't pull the rug beneath and in return off their sons!
• The rules Imposed on women are rules set to protect women from men! When there is no harm what's the need to raise arms? All guards are down! Someone once told me "don't be in control". Maybe he meant "don't try to protect yourself so much". I said to myself "if there is no harm coming from you why would I need to protect myself? Why would I need to be my own hero if I had a hero?"
• If women don't sort the propaganda of a happily ever after maybe they would start having a happily ever lasting?! Women: We know how to cook, clean, take care of kids! Men: then do it yourself and we will do what we don't know best, exploring our inabilities!

I'm a polygamist. I can afford to have as many wives as I can afford to have. All Africans believe in it. My dad has four wives.
Akon

• Wishful thinking Akon! Well if that elevates poverty then it's a good cause hehe! Let's see if after the influence of the American system thinking it wouldn't change! Maybe a serial monogamist is more realistic? Keep a wife or your hard work will go to paying alimonies! Maybe you would be lucky if you come back to Africa where you can escape it, as women and kids aren't protected by law!

You go to conferences, and your fellow African intellectuals - and even heads of state - they all say: 'Nigeria is a big disappointment. It is the shame of the African continent.'

Wole Soyinka

• Dear Sir, Rather than entertaining the masses it's best to also edify the hearts of the people and their rulers to both become interchanging leaders! That's what the African intellectuals and leading heads of states may mean by "What a shame". To criticise is one thing to show direction is another! There is a difference between stretching a banana to the monkey on the tree and making it come down to the ground! Nigerians are distrustful, under-educated and there is no doubt why "fakery, lie's and pretence"!

I would love to take a cooking class from Gandhi. Maybe I could teach him how to cook, and he could teach me his message. I wouldn't mind learning how to make couscous from scratch from a North African woman, either.
Marcus Samuelsson

• To be able to speak like Ghandi one should go though what Ghandi did, fight back like Ghandi did and be willing to face incarceration or death like he did! Even the apostles of Christ couldn't do what he did, they could only spread the message and write about him! To learn how to cook is easy but to become Marcus Samuelsson will be hard for me, my heart maybe in another place. He is he and you might always be you if you choose to be only yourself! You never know you may become even better or greater! A lot of people loose their birthright by imitating! If anyone wants to be like me I will reinvent myself, even of my kids I demand to be individuals separate from me because they may not survive what I did! They will enjoy the benefits but I don't wish them my sorrows even if it got me to where I am! The various meanings for "he who hath no sin should cast the fist stone" in reference to this discussion is; 1. Those who choose to judge carry the burdens".  2. "We are  responsible for the lives of people who walk amidst us. 3. "A lost child "imitation" is a lost generation!

I had a hard time convincing students that they were going to North Africa to understand the North Africans, not to understand themselves.
Clifford Geertz

• No need convincing anyone "he who studies others understand not just others but him/herself"!

Africans need to be kicked, that's the only thing they understand.
V. S. Naipaul

• Has that yielded any benefit so far as one can see in Africa V.S.? "Spare the rod and you spoil the child" could become "be one sided and you achieve nothing if not worse"! If kicking didn't work could giving a hand be the alternative? A child that is always flogged becomes obstinate and a child that is always loved becomes arrogant!

I'm not a prophet; I can only use historical reality to come to a view of the future, and my view is that Africa will return to being African and not European. The advent of colonialism was foreign to the country itself, but it will return to what it was before the Europeans arrived.
Wilbur Smith

• If Africa returns to what it was before it will be a shame just as it is now, maybe the question is what good did colonialism bring and what was happening during the time of colonialism and start from there? No need to go way way back! Alliances must be kept or reformed to not just favour one party! I feel that the error came not from colonialism but the fact that the people surrendered by putting the responsibility for growth on the other rather than developing themselves. Have a look at Zimbabwe, no evidence that the people had any goal themselves! I did hear that those who worked for the whites left with them and the rest were now left to their own demise as they did while they were there! Personally I can't believe that I would work for someone for 5 years and learn nothing!

Fortunately, in President Obama, the child of an African and an American, we finally have a leader who is uniquely positioned to bridge the great reparations divide.
Henry Louis Gates

• I sincerely hope that reparation is not the only reason for Obama becoming president even if I understand the PR effect of it! I hope he wouldn't waste his life's work paying for the sins of Africans and the Whites! Why wasn't a Red Indian elected?! that seems more reasonable for reparation goals!

The biggest lesson from Africa was that life's joys come mostly from relationships and friendships, not from material things. I saw time and again how much fun Africans had with their families and friends and on the sports fields; they laughed all the time.
Andrew Shue

• The average African in his/her home is happy who is a citizen, it's the immigrants that are in a sad state! When I go to the village at first I don't see sad faces but content for their life! Of course dig deeper into their personal lives and you will see same as what you and I experience in the city regardless of the difference in livelihood! On the outside of course their infrastructure is bad but it doesn't disturb them as it would us in the city!

A group of white South Africans recently killed a black lawyer because he was black. That was wrong. They should have killed him because he was a lawyer.
A. Whitney Brown

• He/she may have been killed because he was a lawyer but people will accept the black label to make news headlines, its easier or convenient for an occasion! Black lawyer could mean fraudulent or giving them hell lawyer! There is a need to read between the lines; black has been defined not for colour of the skin only but of a soul! One might as well find bad lawyers amidst whites and level them black souls! Not everything is to be turned into a civil rights movement without proper investigation. Professional integrity also counts when it comes to weeding out some thorns; not too sure if Malcolm was killed because he was an activist, more likely he could have been disturbing some religious zealots for the race of fame! We have "black" journalists who paint the world black and priests who paint the town red should that be racism?! Lawyers are never innocent their profession demands the skill of coveting!

Because I worked as a newspaper reporter for about 14 years before attempting my first novel, I learned to write under almost any circumstances- by candle light, in longhand, in African villages where there was no power, under shelling in Kurdistan.
Geraldine Brooks

• Ever had an IPhone, blackberry with solar power charger? Maybe Internet would be a problem but to write is my joy!