CORRUPTION: THE NEED TO HEED AND FEED GREED

The greed that fosters corruption can only be identified with the words; enough is never enough, not yesterday, today, tomorrow or forever. As unscrupulous corruption perpetrators progress or regress into their addiction in a dire need to derive sufficient gratification and feed their greed, they have totally continued to disregard the words of Mohandas Gandhi; ‘The earth provides enough resources for everybody’s need but not for everybody’s greed.’ It goes without saying that; you never get enough of what you don’t really need. With these corrupt individuals pursuing opulence, their overwhelming and insatiable passion isn’t about getting rich but richer and still richer. Without any doubt whatsoever, their vast greed isn’t a virtuous cycle but a markedly vicious one.  ‘Much more’ is the keyword that denotes their total addiction to greed that triggers corruption. It’s very unfortunate that the ante of getting more than enough is always on the rise.

 Of all the things one might be addicted to, nothing tops the greed-laden pursuit of riches through deprivation of public resources. In its audacity, greed is totally manipulative and gross insensitivity to the needs and feelings of others. Realistically speaking, materialistically pursuit of happiness fosters corruption which is a societal vice that’s gloomed and doomed to fail sooner than later citing that, it's a goal that can never be achieved not to mention its extreme, myopic, irresponsible covetousness. By default, vast acts of corruption have continued to permeate in our motherland with an extremely supersonic speed. Corruption is just but an immoral vice that have for decades continued to subject the dear lives of citizens to miserable livelihoods and subject them to great fear to appoint that they are unable to deplore it. 

In general, greed of riches has everything to do with a feeling of opulence elation and also offers a kind of self-inoculation. What perpetual accumulation of illegitimate riches inoculates into the perpetrators of graft is the impostor syndrome which is the underlying and barely recognized feelings of guilt and shame which stems from a belief that deep down, they are not only failures in the society but also don’t deserve the already illegitimate accumulated riches. Greater and greater possessions are required to help them sustain their cherished illusion that they are vastly rich than others making it the most convenient narcissistic fix for whatever subterranean doubts they maybe tying to harbor about themselves.

Contagious corruption has for decade continued to disseminate in all government parastatals and other public entities like a bush fire. In a dire need to feed their greed, the masterminds of graft have a total negligence of conscience and humanity and are always willing to do whatever it takes to satisfy their narcissism. However, their mere 

thoughts that promotes a weird idea that accumulation of material possessions will render them to a happy and peaceful lifestyle is just but a fallacy. Happiness and peace attainment can only be observed from a spiritual perspective. By spiritual perspective, I'm envisioning the ideal state as emanating from a variety of non-materialistic achievements. This would include establishment of social capital that adds personal value and supports place attachment leading to the development of mutually self-disclosing relationships filled with unconditional love, respect, self-identity, self-efficacy and self-acceptance. It’s extremely imperative to know that, a person’s well-being is unassailable through invariance social capital networks that aren’t susceptible to monetary variations.

The very moment you begin to experience contentment as a result of illegitimate acquired possessions rather than complacence thereof, neither possession accumulation nor fame and publicity are pivotal to your happiness. Although such a remarkable experience might times without number render you to a total peace of mind and self-driven satisfaction, it shall never ever rob you guilty conscience and impostor 

phenomenon. The imaginary utopia is just but an ebullience of your thoughts and feelings that blocks the gloom and doom that may be happening externally.

Pursuing happiness through the acquisition of riches, through amassing more and more possessions is a fool's pursuit. For once such material appetite is aroused, at a certain point it becomes insatiable. When you substitute your humane with material possessions with a mentality of a life-term satisfaction, the pleasures and gratifications they yield are more or less fleeting. It’s extremely imperative to note that; no amount of 

money can suffice. Out of the present day rampant greed, fortune seeking has become both obsessive and compulsive. When that critical line is crossed, the pursuit is no longer a means to some presumably fulfilling end, it is the end. This occurrence validates the biblical words of Paul to his adorable friend Timothy. ‘For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people craving money have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.’ 1st Timothy 6:10 

Even thought corruption as an illegitimate pursuit of material possession has times without number been fruitful, the eccentric goons of this societal detrimental vice are more often left in the self-defeating position of hunting down that which can never ever 

feed their vast greed. Like an unquenchable thirst, not the riches but the intemperate lust for riches can never be satisfied. Materialistically searching for happiness through accumulating possessions invariably cries out for more material possessions. ‘Nothing is enough for a man whom enough is too little.’ Epicurus

This incessant seeking for what can never be definitively achieved explains why myriad corrupt persons are extremely hostile, aggressive, merciless and inhumane in their ongoing relentless efforts to accrue more possessions. Addictively chasing immeasurable riches, a fortune going far beyond the dreams of avarice as though such a radical pursuit will miraculously absolve their selfish deeds, they end up being monomaniacal and overly inhumane.

The sooner we understand that money can neither buy happiness nor fulfill relationships and it certainly doesn't have the power to generate unconditional acceptance of self, the quicker we will set ourselves free from decades old societal detriment of corruption. The 

decades old misconception that ties money with personal happiness is a biased ideology worth reprimand. Nonetheless, greed addicts are hardly focused on depleting or disbursing their fortune but on acquiring and maintaining it. Unconsciously, they link their fundamental human value to their financial worth. What drives their behavior is accumulating as much riches as possible and then using it to acquire still more riches. If your self-worth and happiness are measured against monetary currency, your self-worth 

holds no difference with shares and stocks; it will always rise or fall in accordance with the success or failure of your present enterprise.

The perpetrators of corruption callous lifestyles does not only portray their inhumanity but is also a crystal-clear evidence that their greed triggered infinite pursuit of illegitimate riches is a debacle that can never ever bring them the perpetual happiness and peace of mind. Despite of their blithe disregard of their immorality, the society isn’t lost that their act of corruption leads to citizen’s destitution and subsequently stagnation of developments in the entire nation. To add salt into the injury, their profane utterances like; ”why hire a lawyer when you can buy a judge,” begs the question; is our judicial structure behind this capitalistic system which regrettably supports ceaseless avaricious ventures because not even one corrupt person has ever been indicted and incarcerated?   

TEEN PREGNANCY

Tuesday 16th June we wake up to a very significant day; A DAY OF THE AFRICAN CHILD. whose theme this year was: ACCESS TO A CHILD-FRIENDLY JUSTICE SYSTEM IN AFRICA.
As it is my tradition, I did a Facebook post about the commemoration of the day and the awareness thereof. Unfortunately, when the news started disseminating, our children justice system got another extremely heavy burden as the news of 3,964 TEEN PREGNANCY within the last five months in Machakos county started trending.
Out of my great concern and outcry over these extremely unethical occurrence  that portrays how rotten our morals are, please join me this afternoon in DM MAX at 4pm-5pm CST which is 12 am-1am East Africa time as we discuss matters on TEEN PREGNANCY.
Feel free to reach us through our different avenues;
Facebook page: diasporamediamax
Phone number: + 1 571 350 0039
Website: www.dmmaxgrobal.com
For your adverts and other official matters, our business phone number is ; 205 835 2710
KINDLY DON'T MISS OUT. 

BLACK LIVES MATTER: HOW WE GOT HERE IS WHY WE ARE HERE

'If you do not know where you come from, then you don't know where you are, and if you don't know where you are, then you don't know where you're going. And if you don't know where you're going, you're probably going wrong.' Terry Pratchett

As a matter of concurrence, in his 1978 song; 'Buffalo soldier,' Bob Marley simplified the quote. 'If you know your history, then you would know where you coming from.'

Noting that it has been four decades plus since Bob Marley's simplicition of the quote, in my own words i will say, "History is the story upon which our glory will be glorified."

The knowledge and understanding of black history is the only way through which we can know and understand how we have continued to suffer under the centuries old immorality of racism. It's only by having a crystal-clear knowledge and understanding of how we got here that we will know, why we are here, demonstrating. 

I am a stout believer of the phrase; 'if you don't have anything to say, don't say it here.' This simply means, if your speech is a rhetoric talk, kindly stay quiet. Although little knowledge is dangerous, it's far much better than ignorance.

To help you understand my school of thought, amidst the millions of people who are participating in the global call to end racism in the United states, a young lady of an African descent who happens to be an American by naturalization, which might be the reason to why she don't have a smidgen historical knowledge of the 401 years of African Americans  recurring systemic and systematic oppression had the audacity to belittle the black lives matter movement by saying, " black lives matter is a joke." She went ahead to call the demonstrators hypocrites and attention seekers. 

As fate would have it, I was left wondering why her acknowledgment that there are no schools in Chicago and other black cities didn't bring back her senses if any to just reason why black cities and communities don't have good schools. Her great worry that 'her country' will be portrayed as a violent nation was biased and nonsensical. All she could see were the consequences but not the cause of the centuries old racial problem. It's only out of total ignorance that anyone can possess a mindset of a peaceful United States with the present day unrest that's rampant around the nation. 

To rebut her myopic thought of a free United States, let me point out just but a few systematic policies that have continued to oppress African Americans since the dark days of slavery. 

UNDER FUNDED BLACK SCHOOLS: This problem has been recurring since 1951 when a 16 years old African American girl by the name Barbara Johns led a demonstration because of the vast inequality in her school system in Prince Edward county Virginia. To my bewilderment, what followed was totally reprehensible. Instead of solving the problem, all the public schools were shut down for five years in the entire county. While African American kids stayed home, white kids continued to attend all white academies through a tax payers funded vouchers, meaning; part of the African American taxes were used to educate white kids while their children stayed home.

Hitherto, under funded black schools have continued to produce poor quality education which marks the beginning of unending African American societal problems. 

WAR ON DRUGS: A good reference is Tulia-46. This example goes beyond cops planting drugs in the pockets of African American men or inside their vehicles during a routine traffic stop. Tulia-46 is the most evil act of racism and injustice in the history of war on drugs. It's an occurrence where 46 African Americans were arrested in Tulia Texas on 23rd July 1999 on false allegations that they were drug dealers. Out of the 46 who were arrested, 36 were convicted and incarcerated. Although they were later pardoned by the Texas governor in 2003 citing racial profiling and judicial misconduct, their jail term range was between 20 years and 341 years.

It's worthy nothing that; the mass incarceration of African Americans men (much of it is as a result of judicial bias) has a massive detriment not only to these men psychological wellbeing but also to their productivity in their families and the community at large. The fact that finding a job with a felony record is like winning a rotary is an aspect that robs a man his God given preserve as a provider and renders him to a life of hopelessness which is the worst case scenario. To add salt in the injury, a felony proceeds to rob the man his voting right. In some states like Florida where permanent felony defranchisement is observed, your voting right can be suppressed for a period of 14 good years and can only reinstated through a governor's petition. 

Even though mass incarceration of African American men is an example of racism by its own, it's the highly preferred way of voter suppression because it guarantees a long period of ensuring that African American men are refrained  from the voting booth for the longest. 

VOTER SUPPRESSION: It's easy to say, "my vote my voice." Nonetheless, what happens when your 1965 voting rights are suppressed? Voter  suppression is the latest formula of kicking African Americans out of the voting booth. This heinous activity is articulated through mandatory requirement of a government issued photo ID while registering to vote not withstanding that a public housing ID (which is a government issued photo ID ) isn't legitimate for this cause. Voter suppression is the reason why the then governor of Alabama shut down 67 DMV offices in 2015 most of them in African American communities in order to restrain them from applying for government issued IDs. Voter suppression was responsible for the poor turnout of African Americans during the 2016 general elections where 8% reduction of African Americans votes was recorded. Voter suppression is also done through the introduction of poll taxes where you are required to pay a smidgen fee to become a registered voter despite the claims that the 24th amendment of 1964 abolished poll taxes. 

Those were just but a few systematic policies that have continued to undermine the rights of African Americans for centuries. It's worthy noting that; if you rob a man his hope, you give him a right to become hostile because he has nothing else to lose. The reason to why we are waking up to massive black lives matter demonstratorations and unrest on a daily basis is because of a biased system of governance that have deliberately failed to listen to the centuries old plead of African Americans, 'I CAN'T BREATHE.' A centuries old cry to mitigate the pain of African Americans plight has resulted to violence in a dire need to be heard. In the words of Martin Luther king jr, 'Riot is the language of the unheard.'

Although the present day agony of demonstrators is deeper than the pain of 8 minutes and 46 seconds that the police knee was on the neck of George Floyd, the objective of the worldwide black lives matter demonstratorations goes beyond the murder of George Floyd. It's the lamentation and bitterness of four centuries of broken and biased system of governance that fosters racial profiling, racial injustice, bigotry, racial inequality and the like in the United States. A system that has never ever recognized African Americans as equal human beings. This is a perfect example of the animal farm where it was believed that all animals were equal but some were more equal than others.

I am not lost of the truth that a dreadful experience of 401 years cannot be addressed overnight. Nonetheless, this begs the question; how long will African Americans continue living like fugitives in their own country? 

To anyone who wishes to challenge the cry of African Americans due to denial of their long overdue justice on equality, first finish your homework on African American studies and put your facts in the right order because black lives matter is a factual issue not a fiction. 

WHEN I BECAME BLACK

Growing up in African savanna grassland, a region south of the Sahara and north of the Limpopo, I always considered myself a tetrachromat. The words black or color blind had never crossed my mind.

Unfortunately, my artesian sunset brown complexion identity was only a short lived joy which was disreputed the very moment I set foot on 'the land of the free because of the brave.' Upon losing my complexion identity of two decades plus without my consent, I became subject to a rebrand where my artesian sunset brown complexion identity was replaced with; A BLACK MAN. 

For a moment, I thought that my flight of 24 hours had not only subjected me to a jet lag but had simultaneously turned me to a color blind. I was extremely eager to confirm my instantaneous complexion change at the nearest mirror encounter.

All the same, it didn't take me long to know that the sudden change of my complexion identity was a tactic to subjugate my self-esteem and subsequently render me to an inferior mindset. Although I never urged my case out, in reference to my 6th grade art and craft knowledge, I was well informed that; black is not a color. A black object absorbs all the colors of the visible spectrum and reflects none of them to the eyes. With that in mind, my self-conviction on this matter could not allow anyone challenge my intellect. This led me to the decades old quote; 'No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.' Anne Elena Roosevelt.

They say; When in Rome, do as the Romans do.' The fact that you can do what the Romans do dosen't mean you  have to think how they think. Thinking is a self-imposed aspect that leads to a conscious decision. A person who controls your actions isn't a great threat but anyone who controls your mind subjects you to slavery. 

After a period of 246 years of slavery, majority of the people never expected African Americans to ever regain their consciousness. Just like in the bible in the book of Exdous 1:12; 'But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.' So are the African American. It doesn't matter how oppressed they are, God is still granting them favour amidst pain. 

When Pharaoh's oppression against Israelites became futile, he ordered the murder of the firstborn boys but God saved them through the two Egyptian midwives. In a matter of contrast, slaves were likewise subjected to lynching and repatriation. 

It's very unfortunate that, after a period of 135 years after the abolishment of slavery, some caucasian still possess that 19th century retarded mentality where they think that African Americans are inferior human beings because of their complexion. 

On the entire planet earth, there only exist one race namely; THE HUMAN RACE. This is well recorded in the book of Genesis 5:2, 'He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them "Mankind" when they were created.' The interpretation of the word MANKIND is; a man with kindness. In reference to the Lord's prayer, (Matthew 6:9) we find that the entire human race hails from one ancestry namely; OUR FATHER who's dwelling place is heaven.

The fact that some people think that they are superior that others is the cause of racism. When lynching and segregation were dehumanized, new tactics of superiority complex mindset were launched against African Americans. To this day and age, prejudice, racial profiling, police brutality leading to vast deaths of African Americans, injustice, mass incarceration and mass shootings of African Americans are a daily occurrence, all in the efforts to subjugate African Americans especially young African Americans men. But why young African Americans men? The easiest way to obliterate a generation is through destroying the seed. Since these young African Americans men are the progenitor, they are being hunted down at every given moment in order to halt procreation among African Americans. In the present day and age, there is a crystal-clear evidence that African Americans are in the list of endangered species. 

Today more than ever before, apart from the decades old structural and institutional racism which for years have subjected African Americans to poor housing, under funded education, injustice and mass incarceration among others, the suppression of their voting rights is alive and well.

Although this is a violation of the voting rights act of 1965 which was won through blood and sweat via the civil rights movement, the introduction of poll taxes and mandatory voter's ID is out to deny African Americans thier constitutional right to vote. Voter suppression is a sure way of ensuring that the decisions that pertains to the plight of African Americans will continue to be made in their absentia. This is my sincere plead to each and every African American who have attained the voting age, kindly ensure that you have registered to vote no matter how tedious the process is. Let's make voting a collective responsibility like the Alabamians did during the 12th December 2017 senatorial elections.

Whether or not they fear the dominance of African Americans  genes against their recessive ones is a story of another day. Nonetheless, it's extremely imperative to understand that; despite the lapse of time, the centuries old mindset that once perceived African Americans as inferior human beings is still alive and well. 

Kindly let's speak out against any form of racism with a total conviction that; a day when we will be judged by the content of our character rather than the color of our skin is nearer than ever before.

On my complexion worries, I am very close to believing my mirror. As deceitful as it might be, there have been consistently in my complexion reflections recently. Nonetheless, when all is said and done, it's worth remembering that; 'When the lives and rights of African Americans are at stake, there should be no silent witnesses.'