***PLEASE, spare me Rosalind. You KNOW what you are suggesting is inaccurate.***

Rasi, I actually do not know you and do not know what you believe. Your statement implied that because one lives in Wales and has an English accent that there is “nothing Caribbean” about them. I asked if this was what you really believe (because I assume that sometimes people say/ type things in anger that they don’t mean, and) because to I the suggestion was that where one lives is what determines who they are. Recently I’ve been doing a lot of work around identity construction and cultural-artistic expression (particularly in the African Diaspora) and so the issue is a hot one for I (building my work on Freierian theory BTW Selassielive, *smile*) .

***Its funny that you are redirecting the discussion to not address what my initial post was about:
"Most African leaders are pigs"
So I guess in your world its more pressing that I question an INDIVIDUAL's identity in the context of a 'discussion' than the labeling as a whole group of people as PIGS***

As far as I know Rasi, we’re actually in the same world; we’re even on the same continent. I know you questioned one person’s identity, but for I the implications of your statements extend far beyond that one person. And I am not avoiding your initial post. I responded with what I had thought and my perception may or may not have been an accurate. Oshun made a statement about MOST of a “whole group of people”, not the whole group. And I actually don’t find anything wrong with you challenging her claim itself because we’re all here to reason and that requires asking questions. If there are African leaders who are not pigs, then it would be important to draw that out and ask for more specific information, and also if you needed more clarification about who she was defining as a ‘leader’ I see nothing wrong with asking.

The problem I personally had with your post was the aggressive tone and apparent attempt to discredit her claim through ‘racializing’ and depersonalizing her.

I should not have said “Rasi knows full well…” because I really can’t speak for what you know and in the same way that I am asking you a genuine question about your comments to gman it is possible that you were also asking genuine questions of Oshun Auset. However, I thought that your suggestion that Oshun Auset was being a racist (rather than speaking in concrete political terms) was disingenuous.

In the meantime, I don’t the topics here as distractions from the original post but the evolution & flow of the reasoning.