The Artificial Nigger

Psychological Hypergamy on Steroids (If You Cannot Beat Them Then Join Them).

Here are some of the DOGE-esque demands that our youthful protestors put on the table when they were protesting last year’s tax bill:

Withdrawal of the tax bill because it is International Monetary Fund (IMF) controlled.

Withdraw/recall the police force that has been sent to Haiti because the whole program - which is miserably failing - is all about United States imperialism around the world.

On top of all that some said:

Kenya shouldn’t repay its international debt obligations

Kenya should ask for debt relief, again, despite the fact that President Ruto had already asked for it in early 2024. (Subtly saying that we should push the debt forward to our kids’ kids).

I laughed when I saw these proposals.

I laughed at these proposals not because these proposals are bad, but because we seem to have been lulled to sleep -through our education system as a whole- on how the world system works.

And the question I was left with are:

Is our educational curriculum now teaching that IMF and/or World Bank are charity organizations?

If they are not charity organizations, then why are we pretending and behaving as if they are?

Why are we asking the President to do something that he truly can’t.

By asking him to recall the police he had sent to Haiti, was the U.S. really asking for permission when it made the offer to Kenya?

On top of all this chaos, Kenya’s opposition chief, former Prime Minister, and recently defeated candidate for AU chair, Raila Odinga has decided to hypergamous-ly join the government by linking arms with President Ruto’s ruling party and agreeing to work together with him.

This has thrown some - if not most of - our learned and esteemed parliamentarians into catatonic conniptions. They have gone into these catatonic conniptions because the absurdity, incoherence, and impossibility of this dystopia is too hard for them to take in.

I guess you are wondering how this all connects to the mental health discussion.

The one thing I agree with Darwin is that the world system operates on a “dog eat dog world”, “survival of the fittest” mentality. Those at the top eat those at the bottom for breakfast. And that you had better align yourself with the “big ape” before you get chewed out!

(There has only been one Guy that tried to do the opposite, and we are all still debating whether that was a Godly, crazy, misleading, dumb, empty and/or legendary¹ move.)

Many have seen my posts [as my statistician tells me]. And my constant lament has been, and probably will always be, at how the West - and slowly but surely the East- is controlling the mental health debate in Africa. And I have been pointing throughout my articles to some of their sources as evidence that they might be no good and some of our sources as evidence that they might actually be bad for our health.

But I have been waiting for someone to laugh at my posts and point at my absurdities [even as I seem to be pointing out the absurdities of others]:

I write on a Western made platform.

I post on a Western made platform

I was taught Western ways of looking at mental Health.

I speak with a Western tongue.

I speak to a largely Western audience: if not, then a Western educated audience.

I could go on, but I know that you get the point.

In simpler words, I am fully engaged in educational, social and economic hypergamy² while grating and gritting my teeth in the-whole-process!

Therefore, the question that I am asking myself and my fellow Kenyan and African counselors, therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists (etc.) is:

IS OUR WHOLE ENTERPRISE AN EXERCISE IN PSYCHOLOGICAL HYPERGAMY or do we truly want to help our fellow Kenyans, Africans, with mental health conundrums?

DO WE HAVE ANY REAL AND TRUE KENYAN - AFRICAN - MENTAL HEALTH SOLUTIONS or are we just parroting our Western compatriots?

if all we have are artificial ones, what makes them better than our home-grown ones?

and why are so many Kenyan - African - women drawn to this field, while men are giving it a wide berth?

and is this contributing to the psychological hypergamous scenario that is unfolding all over Kenya-Africa?

and is this psychological hypergamy going to heal our Kenyan - African - societies or are we headed for a collision of cultures³(a phenomenon I see every day in the counseling room)?

and if we hypergamous-ly adopt these Western - and Eastern - mental health constructions, will we now be considered worthy to sit at the “big boys” table or will we have forfeited our place at the diversity, inclusion and equity table?

Simply put, why should anyone respect what I bring to the table when I bring nothing to the table?

Mr. Head opened his lips to make a lofty statement and heard himself say, “They ain’t got enough real ones here. They got to have an artificial one.”⁴

For an in-depth exploration of this topic be on the look-out for my upcoming book The Love of Christ Jesus and Mental Health.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

1. See Man, Myth Messiah: Answering History’s Greatest Question by Rice Brooks.

2. According to ChatGPT, hypergamy is the practice or tendency of marrying or forming a relationship with a person of higher social status, wealth, education, or other advantageous traits. The term originates from social science and is often discussed in evolutionary psychology, sociology, and gender studies. It goes on to add that there are three types of hypergamy: social; economic; and educational hypergamies.

3. See Conquests and Cultures: An International History by Dr. Thomas Sowell

4. The Artificial Nigger in Flannery O’Connor’s The Complete Stories