Before listening to this make sure you listen to:

a) Part one

b) Part two of the interview

The Podcast

Things Discussed

1) Skills needed to succeed at the various stages of relationships: courtship, marriage

2) Sex (Need I really say more? )

3) Interesting facts about people who live together and how that influences the success of their marriage.

4) How is success measured in relationships when Julia counsels them?

5) What “works” in terms of African immigrant relationships?

6) The changing sex roles for African immigrant couples.

7) Money (Again, need I say more?)
How to raise kids abroad?

Websites

1) Julia’s website

2) Julia’s blog

3) Article on raising kids abroad

4) An African immigrant who raised kids abroad and her insights

5) My sisters who I mentioned in the interview (My most popular podcast to date BYYYYY FAAAARRRR)

Make sure you listen to Part One of this interview with Julia Sanna first.

The Podcast

Ideas Discussed

1) The importance of “relationship role models” especially when one is younger

2) Digressions to discuss African American relationships

3) The African “man is boss” mentality in the 21st century: How do women respond to male authority today?

4) The educated African woman in the West vs traditional African values

5) The changing roles between men and women

6) The flexible role of authority in marriage

7) Why on Earth should people get married if the rules and roles are so arbitrary and negotiable?
The role of children in marriage

9) How to ensure that people have a great relationship after they have kids

10) Friends and mentors in relationships

Websites

1) Julia’s website

2) Julia’s blog

If there are two topics the Internet, including the African immigrant web, are obsessed with its relationships and sex. HUGE proportions of this blog’s traffic, controversy, friends and enemies come from relationship and sex-related articles.

With that in mind, I thought I would do the most responsible thing I could. Get someone who is an expert on relationships, especially as pertains to African immigrants and find out what she knows, what her research has uncovered and what practical tips we can take away that we can apply to make our intimate relationships magical.

The  picture is gorgeous aint it

And so I called upon the years of expertise built by one Julia Sanna

This Interview Is Long, So…….

Me and Julia spoke for an hour and thirty minutes and so I have divided this interview into three parts that will come out over the next fortnight.

I hope this interview will contribute towards the end of our creating, and I quote, an African Immigrant Relationship Manifesto where we basically look at all the unique aspects of our identity and leverage them to make our relationships absolutely outstanding.

Enjoy!

One Last Thing

To receive the latest podcasts, and all the previous podcasts, for free direct to your computer and mp3 player subscribe to the Displaced African podcast. Instructions on how to do this are in the short video below:

The Podcast

Issues Discussed

1) Who, Julia Sanna is and why you should pay attention?

2) How has immigrant life changed in the US over the 14 years she’s been abroad?

3) Why is her focus on counseling couples in their early years of marriage?

4) The absolute importance of the decisions that people make in those early years of marriage

5) What defines a successful relationship?

6) Importance of negotiables vs non-negotiables

7) Commonalities, shared values and their role in relationships
We go in depth into negotiables vs non-negotiables

9) The importance of the man’s earning power to women

10) The definition of love

11) How the feeling of love and the choice to love intermingle

12) What men want vs what women want

13) The search for one’s parents in their partners??!!

14)

Websites Mentioned

1) Sigmund Freud’s ideas

2) Julia’s website

3) Julia’s blog

My co-host on SARFM radio (I get tickled silly that I can say that), Pammy, sent me an email asking me to check out a video.

The Topic of the Video: Should You Move in with Him?

It was 3 African women discussing whether or not they should move in with a man while living in the disapora. Check out the Youtube video right here:

What’s Very Cool About the Video?

Is its something that’s relevant to me and that I can relate to: I have many friends and acquaintances who have moved in with their romantic and sexual partners.

Sure its very common for Westerners to do it, actually here in Oz de facto couples have almost equal rights to marriage couples depending on the duration of their union, but very rarely is it discussed by us for us.

So Check Out the Video

Leave some Youtube comments and let them know what you think. If you have anything to add to the topic area, you are free to leave a comment below.

Have an awesome day,

Mwangi

Let me apologize for constantly interjecting with”Yup!”, “Yes!” and “Mh mh” all the time. The mindset I went into this audio with was that it was a discussion as opposed to an interview and so that’s why I kept making those interjections.

That aside, I think this interview is extremely valuable.

Repetition of Truth

It is amazing how whenever one pauses to ask questions like:

What holds people back abroad?

You get the same answers again and again and again and again. One of them is:

When people immigrate abroad, they forget that they are not just competing with their peers or learning from their countrymen but competing and learning from people from all over the world.

So listen to this audio and you may pick up something new, but at the very least, you get reminded of the fundamentals.

Some Other Quick Things

This audio is long but I will release it and leave a gap between this and the next post, so listen to the first part today then pick up where you left of tomorrow or when you can.

PS: I am aware of the problem some folks have listening to these audio, and videos, in places where high speed Internet is as real as a Unicorn/Centaur Tupperware party.

I am fully aware of that and am working on it: A solution shall be found.

Audio File

Things Discussed

1) Brief introduction of Coach Caroline

2) We break down the 4 stages of culture shock

3) We discuss our own personal experiences with culture shock (she went straight to the “shock”)

4) Coach Caroline discusses her initial peer group

5) She also tells her story as an immigrant

6) Patterns she has noticed in behavior of Africans in the States

7) “The herd mentality”

8 ) Transitioning and learning when immigrating

9) Losing your identity abroad and the blessing therein.

10) Racism in the United States

11) Cultural differences

12) The importance of having a vision and the challenges of having a vision as an immigrant

13) The power of the Internet and telecommunication

14) Getting caught up in fancy titles and ideas instead of falling in love with the process and goals.

15) Stories on taking action

16) Ideas for getting out of inertia. Echoes the same ideas I got from Kirk Nugent and for more ideas on how to put this into action check out this article from Steve Pavlina.

17) Caroline’s most important piece of advice for people who are just about to leave home and immigrate abroad.

17) Dreaming big

18) What you can tolerate you won’t change

19) Much much more…………….

Here’s a Little Something to Inspire You as You Begin Your Week

This story is probably 3+ years old now, but like all good stories it is still super fresh in my mind.

I know quite a few folks who read this blog are from Melbourne and probably know this story. If you do:

Ssshhhh, don’t tell who it’s about

I do hope some day to get the parties involved in this story on the phone so they can tell the story first hand. But I will do my best to tell the story as I remember it.

How You Can Use this Story

You can either use this story as a metaphor for anything you desire or want to achieve in this life or just use it as an example of how to get a member of the opposite sex to “stop being an idiot and come to you”

Engagement Party

And so it was an engagement party like any other, with food, drinks and fun buzzing up and down the room in excess.

It came time for the happy couple to stand up and tell the story of how they met.

And so, the man stood.

Brief Bio

Now this man is many things: tall, intelligent, has a great heart, but he is not a good looking cat.

By comparison the woman is short (I am talking almost Eva Longoria – Tony Parket short) and very very beautiful, so clearly it wasn’t merely that the woman looked at the man and thought he was:

“Tall, dark and handsome.”

In fact as she put it:

“I looked at him and really liked his height, but aside from that, I thought, “Your dreaming!”"

And So They Met

He had been commissioned together with a friend to help her move.

He came, he saw and he was immediately smitten and taken with her.

At the time she was going out with someone from the land of Caucasia and from what I heard she was quite happy with what was going on.

Smitten and excited from head to toe he made a choice:

I have to have her.

No Elegance, Just Persistence

This began what is probably the longest telemarketing campaign in human history. As the woman put it (I paraphrase):

“He used to call me every day. He was soooo annoying!”

But he just kept calling and calling and calling and persisting with conversation, invitations to dates and invitations to swim in the miasma of his passion for her

Thank God They Were Part of the Same Immigrant Community

Because they were invited to and some times attended the same parties.

The Brilliant Plan

During one of these parties, the heroine of the tale decided she would craft a master plan to get this guy off her back once and for all.

1) Accept his advances for the evening

2) Kiss him

3) Viciously reject him afterward thereby destroying his spirit and desire to chase.

Now any man who has been at this “chasing women” game for a while will tell you:

That’s a brilliant plan…….for me!

What the Heresay Accounts Say Happened

As he often did, he persisted and persisted and persisted. He chased her until eventually he found his window of opportunity and used it to lock lips with her.

Kiss! Kiss! Bang !

She was confused, smitten and part of a Mills and Boon novel all at the same time. She got so confused she probably left that kiss in the middle of the night to go feed ducks in the local pond. She was Rapunzel, she was Gabrielle Union to his Morris Chestnut. She fell in love.

From then on……

It was cruise control really all the way to the engagement party. And now, 3 years later, you should see their daughter, she is absolutely gorgeous.

What I Derived from this Story

Now, many of you will probably know this, but many a time, and many a situation, I am a huge coward.

Though it may seem otherwise, I always take very controlled risks and this story reminds me, though I sometimes forget the power of making a decision and going after it.

You don’t necessarily have to take the smoothest or the most elegant route. You just have to decide and go after what it is that has been placed in your heart.

As I said, this story can be used either as a metaphor for something you want in this life – fame, material success and wealth, fame, popularity.

Or maybe just maybe there is that mocha-eyed person who you need to begin chasing with the quickness

Either way Godspeed and I hope I inspired you.

Have a gr888888888 week,

Mwangi

To receive even more inspirational and useful stories like this in future subscribe to the website via either RSS or email

If you get nothing else from this article watch this vid

I continue answering your questions. Today, it’s all about Kelly. So shall we begin:

kelly asks:

When do you plan to come back to kenya?
What will you come back to do, like specifically?

My Answer:

For the last 5 years, any time I was asked that question, my answer was always an unequivocal yes. I would return as soon as I was able to support myself materially to either:

a) Work on deep social change at the grassroots level or;

b) Make a positive contribution to people’s lives at the grassroots level.

Whereas one would think that starting this blog would have given me even more motivation to stick to that mission, it’s actually had the positive effect. Allow me to explain:

There is So Much to Learn

I LOVE LEARNING! If you want to bribe me, buy me tickets to a Jay Abraham seminar or Anthony Robbins seminar or tell me about the equivalent of the Alfred Deakin lectures and I will be there. Over the course of this blog, I have come to see so much that I want to learn about so many areas, relationships, health, business, music and even grassroots acitivism. Now contrast that with the fact that:

We are a Very Negative People

I hope that since you are a reader of this my most personal work, I can be very honest with you, as I always am. We, African people, to a large extent are a bunch of whiners and crybabies and if not very negative people who like to hide behind any form of material or intellectual success we have.

Now, as I have fallen deeper and deeper in love with all that I can learn in this world, I have reflected more and more and more on how much negativity I would have to put up with working back home. BUT I did make a committment to myself that I would do it and it is of course the noble thing.

So my answer is Yes, I do intend on going home eventually. Where I am currently confused is how and to do what but its definitely to work on improving the state of the country.

Some of the Ideas I Have Had

Long time readers of this blog would probably know about my plans to work in media, I dreamed for the longest time of owning African media and using it to put out positve messages. I have also thought about:

a) Buying my own constituency, as one would a business, optimizing it and then using it and presenting as a model for how to develop.

b) Going back home as a speaker to young people who are about to immigrate

c) Give talks on controlling sexuality and sublimation so as to eliminate rape as a social ill in our society.

d) Start up a church for young African men.

With many other ideas mixed in there. At the moment I am just focussing on optimizing this blog and trying to get to the point where I can support myself online. The ideas are there, not only to go back home, I’ll decide once I achieve my goal of supporting myself what to do next.

kelly asks:

You seem to like marriage a lot, at what age do you envision you will be married?

My Answer:

When I am sure I will be a good partner and husband. In short the most important part of this is how exactly I will ensure that I won’t cheat on my wife and will have the mental strength to see my commitment through. I have a number of ideas as to how to deal with this, and I intend on investigating this a lot over the coming years, but I have no date set yet.

Something Sad I Realized

Again, I speak to you as I would among friends. I like a lot of people, male or female, I lust after many women but I am mentally drawn to very few. You know that stereotype of someone who turns you on mentally……doesn’t happen to me. Now it could be that I hang around the wrong folks or I have very weird standards but either way…..just something weird I realized this week that I also must deal with.

kelly asks:

When you say men don’t feel love like women do, what exactly do you mean?

My Answer:

I must put a caveat on this and say that I definitely need to investigate this area much much deeper. Me thinks the best person to give advice in this area that I know is Julia, after all, she does this for a living.

Usually when I say that, usually half-jokingly, I am referring to the fact that I have known or heard of very few men who need romance or any complex gestures from their partners to be happy, though those would be nice.

A lot of the people I know and have heard of, as long as the woman is happy, they are fed, they have respect as a man and the sex life is good and the man is fine. No need for mink coats or dinners or weird get aways and cruises, all those are for the woman: food+sex+peace+respect= Marital bliss but as I said, Julia is the best person to talk about this one.

kelly asks:

What would make a man stay in a relationship that’s no good for him, when it’s so easy for guys to walk away?

My Answer:

There is a theory that all human behaviour is motivated by two things, a pleasurable or desired feeling/emotion or the need to get away from a negative feeling/state/emotion.

Now if we view life through that lens, then there appear many reasons that someone would stay in the situation that you have just described. I will list a few below:

Positve

1) They made a commitment and want to see it through.

2) They view any temporary moments of discomfort as a part of the game.

3) They have a solid friendship with their partner.

4) They need their partner for some emotional reason or another and their partner needs them.

5) For the children.

6) For harmony

7) The security of the institution

Negative

1) They don’t want to be alone.

2) They don’t want to stop being cooked for, picked up after and taken care of.

3) They don’t want to lose access to sex

4) They don’t want to lose their peer group

5) They don’t want to lose their trophy partner

6) They don’t want to feel rejected

7) The process of leaving would be too uncomfortable.

In short, I don’t know, the reasons are many. It depends on the person, what they are getting out of the relationship and what they are scared they will lose if they leave the relationship. Yet again, let me recommend, Julia…..she has a Masters in it too

The Newsletter

If you are a fan of this article or blog, I encourage you to join and give me feedback ( ) on my Immigrant Survivor Guide Newsletter by putting your first name and email address in the boxes below.

In newsletter, once a week I send you short emails that give you actionable tips that you can immediately apply to make your immigrant experience better including tips on making friends, finding employment, how to stay healthy on the run, things to prepare before you immigrate, staying in touch with people from your home country etc etc.

So please join, and give me feedback, by putting your first name and email in the boxes below:

Have a great day or night,
Mwangi

This blog has been around for 8+ months now and I was actually extremely surprised when I realized that not once did I talk about something so unique yet so present within the African immigrant experience.

I am of course talking about “marriages for papers” or as I shall label them for the rest of the post paper marriages or PMs.

Now I must say I am faaarrr from an expert on them, as I have not seen too many blatant paper marriages, so what I will do is define them, tell a bit of a story and request that you leave a comment below giving some more information on them.

What is a Paper Marriage?

In brief a paper marriage is when an immigrant marries a citizen of a Western nation in order to either improve their visa situation, become a permanent resident or citizen of a country or to advance themselves materially in any way.

How Did I Get the Idea to Write This?

The idea to write this actually came out of the tiny little verbal assault I took when I decided to talk about the Jungle Fever article on Kenya Imagine.

A comment by one of the few folks who chose to support me and engage in discussion on it was a story about a man who went to the UK and engaged in paper marriage. After reading that, I knew, I’d best post this up on the site with the quickness so that at the very least you are aware and talking about it.

What Nature Do PMs Take?

At their best, PMs aren’t even PMs. Two people, across cultures look deep into the windows of each other’s souls and see eternity. They lock hands in a beautiful union in which one of the positive side effects is that whoever was an immigrant of the two gets upgraded and can stay in whatever Western country they immigrated to.

To illustrate the worst, I’ll give you a fictional story that is a collection of things I have seen and heard over the years.

The Story of Billy

Once Upon a Time

Billy is a middle class kid who grows up in some African city in some African country. His parents worked hard for years and managed to build themselves a wonderful company that exploited people’s needs for fresh fruit and vegetable for a profit.

When Billy is finished with high school, his parents decide it is in Billy and his family’s best interests if he flies over to the West to study something that will get him solid office job.

The Ladies Man

Now while all this is going on, Billy is quite the Don Juan. So smooth, he skates on sand and with words so sweet, the bees go to him for tips. He has done his fair share of seed distribution and heart breaking before he meets a lovely girl called Abby.

Abby is an angel, a jewel and most of all a gift that he wants to cherish for the rest of his life. He gets down on one knee before Abs, who is pregnant with his second son, and two months later they wed.

He Departs

One month after that, his parents collect all their savings and use it to help their son fly out. Billy departs promising that he will not only repay every penny but eventually support his ma and his pa like they did him.

He has no clue what he’s going to do abroad, all he knows is he is coming back to Abby, his parents and his two sons when it’s all said and done.

Arrival

He arrives abroad with only his first semester paid off and without guides like tDA (well, that IS why I started this blog after all) Billy has no clue what on Earth he should do. His friends can advise him, but much of their advice is so disjointed and contradictory that ultimately he really doesn’t know who to trust.

The Rat Race

So he tries to make it on his own, working harder than a donkey from 9-5 in school and putting in some boring hours at the factory from 7pm – 6 a.m. every night and catching up on sleep on the commutes.

With all this stress on his back, Billy dedicates his weekends solely to escapism via alcohol and carnal delights.

The Lion Spots His Prey

One night, while stumbling around in a drunken haze looking for the next damsel he can wax lyrical to, he happens upon Fiona.

Now Fiona is a very shy introspective girl who has a wonderful rich world inside of her. Unfortunately the richness and beauty of this world is either not coming out as it should externally or is being covered up by all the layers of excess fat.

It’s Not all Roses and Butterflies

Billy has been on the hustle – weekend escape – hustle hamster wheel for 3 years. The wheel was rotating at such a fast pace all around him that he forgot to renew his Visa and is now in the country illegally.

As a result of sleeping in class and on the train one too many times, he has also failed all his classes and was forced to drop out.

So now he is doing double time in the factory trying to raise enough money to see if he can renew his visa AND pay to re-enrol in school. And through this lens he looks at Fiona yet again, and boy, all of a sudden she gives Gabrielle Union a run for her money.

The Paper Negotiation Begins

He has walked through the routine many times before so he isn’t too nervous as he approaches her with his game face on. Fiona is simply smitten.

Sure, she always gets attention from boys when the beer goggles hit at 3 a.m., but never has someone been so smooth with his game and to be honest she doesn’t know what it’s like to be hit on before 2:59 a.m.

The Plot Thickens

Floating on the wings of pure unadultered lust she ends up in bed with Bill over and over again over the next 3 weeks.

“Ooops, we forgot to use protection,” thinks Fiona

“Yes! Thinks Bill. We forgot to use protection”

How Can Something So Innocent Be Used Like This?

3 weeks later, the bump that can only be a wonderful seed of life can be seen in Fiona. Fiona is scared. She doesn’t want to raise this child alone. She is still in school. One day she wants to work as a park ranger and doesn’t want to be derailed from that.

Paper Engagement

Just like that first night in the bar, smooth-Bill is back, with a ring in one hand and an “honest” declaration to love her forever on the other. She says, “Yes,” and before you can count all the countries in Africa they are wed.

Is this Nirvana?

Billy feels like he just had the weight of the world taken off of him. He can’t believe it. No longer does he have to go to school and work in the factory every day to make ends meet. He cuts down work at the factory to part time hours and requests government benefits to help him support his seed.

With all this spare time, Billy needs something to do. He can’t call Abby because he has forgotten which lie he last told. He can’t spend time with his wife because he finds her personality about as interesting as paint watching itself dry and finds their bedroom romps beyond lacklustre.

So Where Does Our Protagonist End Up?

So this is where, Mwangi finds him, in an African night club about to impregnate the latest 19 year old girl that’s fresh off the boat.

Makes you think, doesn’t it.

My Hope

Is that this blog will help us as a community completely get over and have no need for paper marriages? I think until we can present more viable alternatives for people in dire circumstances who are here on student and visitor visas, the habit will still continue (here in Oz, there are even night clubs that women are advised to visit to snare themselves husbands for the papers). So I can’t judge or advise until then…….

Anyway that’s my quick blurb about that. Share any thoughts, tips or ideas you have on paper marriages and how we as a community can evolve beyond this form of exploitation?

The Newsletter

If you are a fan of this article or blog, I encourage you to join and give me feedback ( ) on my Immigrant Survivor Guide Newsletter by putting your first name and email address in the boxes below.

In newsletter, once a week I send you short emails that give you actionable tips that you can immediately apply to make your immigrant experience better including tips on making friends, finding employment, how to stay healthy on the run, things to prepare before you immigrate, staying in touch with people from your home country etc etc.

So please join, and give me feedback, by putting your first name and email in the boxes below:

Be blessed and bless others,

Mwangi

Over the course of my time here in Australia I have lost my fair share of friends. Now granted, I have reconciled with many of them, and am in the process of being disconnected by some others, but still, I feel that perhaps I would best serve you by writing an article on how to keep friends from someone who is currently losing a few.

1) Reciprocity: If they feed you, feed them. If they pay for things for you, pay for things for them. Always assume that when they do something for you, they expect it to be returned. This isn’t necessarily selfish on anyone’s part, it’s the law of reciprocity that keeps relationships running.

2) Inform People of Major Life Decisions: If I were ever to redo what I did when I packed up my things and changed cities from Melbourne to Sydney, I would have done one thing differently: I would have informed all my friends and family of my decision and why I am doing what I am doing. Why? Courtesy.

My general state of being apathetic and quite oblivious to other people’s pressure dos and donts combined with a complete obliviousness to social rules and conventions mixed in with a little bit of my always assuming that by default I don’t matter to other people (quite a sentence full that was) meant that I never really saw how my moving affected other people’s lives.

Other people had probably built plans or at least thought of a future of which I was a part. At least do folks the courtesy of telling them when to change their plans.

3) Follow People Up: Here to this day, I absolutely suck. If you want someone to be your friend or relate to them in some way, PICK UP THE PHONE/TYPE THE FACEBOOK MESSAGE/SEND THE EMAIL = JUST GET IN TOUCH. Don’t wait for the moon, stars and planets to align before you just pick up the phone and reach your hand out to somebody.

4) Friendship Comes Over Lust: Let’s be honest. A huge number of modern day relationships for people below the age of 30 are either just an odd variation of friends with benefits or “mutual-flirtation agreements” as opposed to any deep friendships and relationships. Especially in the early stages, DO NOT ever put your pursuit of members of the opposite sex above your friends.

This one needs to be heard especially by the women, y’all are always so willing to throw away relationships or ignore your friends just because some man could whisper sweet nothings in one ear while convincing you to disrobe in the other. You’re friends know you and care about you more than the man. They will clean up the tissues/bedsheets with you once he leaves.

This one doesn’t apply much to men (though stealing from strangers and acquantances is an entirely different story), but speaking as a man who has done this on a few occasions………to use a technical term, not cool, not cool at all.

I loved this version of this song, check out the frog with soul at the end.

5) Give: Don’t give them what you think they want. Give them what they really want and especially what they need. Give them that thing they keep talking about. Don’t get them what people are supposed to get other people. Listen and get them and provide them with what makes their heart sing.

Any more to share? Got any stories of how you lost friends? Leave a comment below and let me know. Before I leave though…….

The Newsletter

If you are a fan of this article or blog, I encourage you to join and give me feedback ( ) my Immigrant Survivor Guide Newsletter by putting your first name and email address in the boxes below.

In newsletter, once a week I send you short emails that give you actionable tips that you can immediately apply to make your immigrant experience better including tips on making friends, finding employment, how to stay healthy on the run, things to prepare before you immigrate, staying in touch with people from your home country etc etc.

So please join, and give me feedback, by putting your first name and email in the boxes below:

Be blessed and bless others,

Mwangi

This blog post is about one of the first articles in the history of this blog, Jungle Fever: The Relationship Between African Men and White Women

A couple of things happened this week, that made me think about the Jungle Fever article:

1) The Direction of the Blogging

I am almost at the end of my blogging course, Blog Mastermind. As such I am thinking more and more about just what I will do once I have laid the foundation for this blog and have fully determined what this blog will be about.

After being in the blogosphere for a while I have seen that there are a few categories that are almost always guaranteed to get a lot of readers:

1) Sex and relationships: You can’t go wrong with this one on the Internet, you just can’t. Sad to say, but the cruder and more graphic you can be, the better.

2) Politics: I believe that if the Devil were to spit bile and mix it with the intestinal stew of a skunk, it would look a little bit like tribalism and irrational hate filled discussions about politics. However, there is no doubt: you want faces to come to your blog, talk about a controversial political issue.

3) Religion: This one surprised me. People love to talk about religion whether Eastern, Western or lack thereof.

4) Money: The key component to this one appears to be credibility. Once you have built credibility behind a particular brand and begin to talk about how people can make money or hustle a little smarter,  you will get face time.

Back to the Set

Anyway, there I was sitting in a bookshop reading a book about blogging (I hope the irony of my spending my offline time studying the online world has not escaped you) I started to think about just how popular the Jungle Fever and other relationship articles had been.

I have talked in the past about spinning off the Displaced African and starting up a blog which is dedicated entirely to the exploration and discussion of foreign and mixed race relationships. I started thinking about this again, and thought it might be a good idea. Who knows? Watch this space……..

2) I Sent a Letter to an Editor

I have been sending emails to newspapers and online magazines and radio stations to try and get some publicity to the blog. I am not too proud to admit, I am doing it all wrong.

My microtest of about 15 media houses has produced below-mediocre results. If anyone has any tips on how I can approach African mass media right and get some publicity for the blog, hit me up on masmilele(at)thedisplacedafrican(dot)com

Anyway, one of the letters I sent to an online publication proposing that we discuss the Jungle Fever article on their publication. Their very courteous response in short was:

Thanks for the email. We think your article is a little too offensive and one sided for a publication like ours.

And so just like I responded to them, let me say to all of you:

It is BECAUSE the article is so offensive and one sided that it must be discussed

I Was Surprised

No one was more surprised than me by what the reaction so far has been to that article: whereas many white women have stopped by to tell me how narrow minded and stereotype-supporting the article was, the reaction from the African community can only be surmarised as:

a) Quite agreement

b) Outright support

Does that mean that we all agree that African men are pretty much scraping from society’s barrel as far as relationship and sexual partners are concerned?

Did I just verbalize something we all knew: that on the totem pole of society, African men are kissing the lowest part of the pole?

It’s one thing to stereotype and it’s another to point out the truth. So, read Jungle Fever now and you tell me, is it true? Does it resonate with your experience?

Secondly, how does the idea of a foreign and mixed race relationship blog sound? Does the blog exist? Leave a comment below with the link.

Have a great day/night,

Mwangi

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