Mother's love or daughter's hate

Mama cannot take it

Reading that a mother had taken her daughter to court for libel [1] in relation to her memoirs that stated she was abused as a child was enough to get my interest.

The daughter is a 50-year old successful barrister and part-time judge, her mother who is 73 has asserted that the writings of her daughter are pure fiction.

The judge in the case read the said book which was titled Ugly [2] and it narrated aspects of mental cruelty meted to the daughter and other aspects of abuse done by her step-father.

It is necessary to note that the recollections in book go back to when the lady was just about 5 or 6 and it gives air to the possibility of false memories, fantasies and vague recollections that might appear as reality.

We must not however discount the possibility that a child of 5 can and will recollect events that have become indelibly marked in the psyche of the child who has become an adult.

They had an opinion of me

I cannot say that I was abused by my parents to any extent that I feel seriously impaired, but I do remember that I seemed never to be able to find anything my mother sent me to get from her room and had to try many times before I succeeded – each failure attracted enough verbal scolding to almost feel worthless.

My father said when I was born I could hardly fit in his palm, and somehow as I developed into a child, that thought of my premature birth became a forgotten memory but I always seemed to be too slow at doing things, he coined a phrase for that slowness – die-die (sounds like dee-err spoken in quick succession).

Beyond that, I witnessed events that I cannot seem to forget and much of what happened in our home as the servants took liberties for their satisfaction and none of that ever got out to our parents except once.

Obviously, if one were to talk about those things now, including the sexual abuse at 7 [3], I could very well expect a legal mayhem invading my doorstep. Now my parents did so well to provide us a safe and comfortable environment but the people they trusted and mentored were not necessarily pious eunuchs and virgin Marys.

The lay of probability

But if one were to look at the circumstances depicted by this lady, her mother had married another man who became her step-father and I can say that it takes a level of vicarious adjustment for a man to accept another man’s child as his to love, to cherish, to mentor and to raise.

There are many circumstances where women in trying to keep a roof over their heads and have a modicum of comfort have expected their children from another marriage to bear the cross as they suspended motherly concern and love for the purpose of keeping their man regardless of what he may do to the children.

This is not to say that all the recollections of childhood are true, but it does not make them entirely false either, there is a probability that a good deal might well be true but children are up against a societal notion that suggests that children cannot have long term memories that they can recall in adulthood.

Between facts and opinions

Now, children may not necessarily have opinions but there are facts of what those children might have experienced. The mother might well have the opinion that whatever happened in the home she tried to keep together was all for the good of making her daughter the success she has become, but the mother’s opinion of her motherhood may not necessarily be the overriding fact of the child’s experience.

We should however objectively look at the situation, the circumstances and events, including the cultural settings of these kinds of allegations, the mother who might well be a pillar of society in her outward appearance might not be as angelic as she purports to be.

She doth protest much

I would contend that she doth protest much as she has brought this libel case, but if in the end the jury finds in her favour, I do worry for the case of other adults who have been unable to speak out about childhood abuse and those who would never see justice and the decent objective scrutiny of their allegations because the weight of societal prejudice seems to give the parent the benefit of the doubt and the child the epithet of the evil and ungrateful spawn.

It would be easy to prejudge this case because the facts are difficult to ascertain, but any advocate should work on determining the difference between the opinion of the mother and the facts of the events; somewhere in the cross-examination, the truth can be prised out to give either the child or the mother victory – we know for one, this is no happy family and who would be to blame for that?

Sources

[1] Mother sues barrister daughter for libel over 'neglect memoir' – Telegraph

[2] Amazon.co.uk: Ugly: Constance Briscoe: Books

[3] My Sex Post [akin.blog-city.com]

Training for hours

Still better here

I would still contend after my experience of getting to work this morning that train travel in the Netherlands is still considerably better than travelling in the UK.

Cost, comfort, convenience and consideration are keys elements of why that service here is better, I have not had to travel 1^st class and share my leg room with a German shepherd dog or seen my full price ticket completely devalued by an announcement that anyone could upgrade with a paltry GBP 10 supplement.

However, when the trains get messed up in the Netherlands, they really do get messed up big time.

That 7:57 jinx

I have the choice of 2 direct trains to Apeldoorn from Amsterdam at 7:27 and 7:57 every morning; I prefer the first and sometimes end up on the second which also means I am able to pick up the morning paper without stress.

Looking back over 12 weeks of making this journey, I think the 7:57 seems to have the most problems, it is probably jinxed, I only have problems with this train being cancelled, the journey cut short, the train delayed and sometimes it takes 50% longer to get to my destination.

If I did my assessment of train services based on the 7:57 to Enschede which calls at Hilversum, Amersfoort and Apeldoorn my stop, and to other stations beyond, I could conclude that the service in the Netherlands is absolutely rotten, unreliable, and inefficient, below par and not value for money.

The fat train can’t move

Today, I got the 7:57 train and just managed to get a seat, something seemed to be wrong and how right I was, the train had fewer coaches that most people were standing, in fact, a lady or rather a woman was sitting on the floor. Perhaps, if it were a lady, chivalry would have allowed to give her a seat.

An announcement was made which had an excuse and an apology that the train is so full and advised people to get off at the next stop and catch that later train.

There are usually 2 stops to my destination – Hilversum and Amersfoort, but a few minutes later, another announcement expressed the danger in travelling on such a fully laden train; the fact that speed limits would be lower and hence cause backlogs for other trains – we were told we would all have to get off at a minor stop - Weesp, take a stopping train to Hilversum, then board another stopping train to Amersfoort and then change for one going on to Apeldoorn and further.

The colder breeze of Amersfoort

When I took the stopping train from Hilversum to Apeldoorn, I had to stand and even suffer the discomfort of standing in the rudimentary class carriages to an intermediate stop.

So, when I should have arrived in Apeldoorn at 9:04, I was waiting for the connecting service from Amersfoort which would have left at 9:10 but was running 15 minutes late.

In the middle of November, the weather is hardly sunny and warm so one would expect a short wait in the station waiting rooms only to find that some bird-brained idiot had allowed for a full floor buffing service in the middle of the rush-hour on a cold November morning.

We all had to stand outside for the 20 minutes it took for the train to arrive and it was just coasting 7ºC – Brrrrrrgh!

Red lighting taxi

I finally got to Apeldoorn at about 9:50 and took a taxi to the office which was without event till I had to upbraid the driver for running a red light – “That was a very bad thing to do”, I said, he laughed it off and much as it resulted in a cheaper fare, what is the cost of getting caught if it really went wrong?

I cannot bear to think of the consequences, but work resumes with the dramas that makes you feel you could not find a better place to get stressed out.

It is going to be a fine day – at the races.

Save the children - II

The terrible life of Baby P

The real life pictures have to be too distressing to see that the wax-like models of the toddler are evidence of how gruesome a life he must have lived.

By the time he died at 17 months, there was a catalogue of injuries that would make a despot’s torture chamber look like play school.

His mother, her boyfriend and lodger created a collage of bloody clothes, blood that came from severe wounds all around the body including a cracked ribs and a broken back – some experts suggested those types of injuries were typical of being involved in a serious car accident.

A most rotten Haringey Council

But the Social Services were satisfied that the toddler was well cared for in that family unit that the sadistic pleasure those adults derived from inflicting the most grievous pain on the child leaves us all far short of our humanity.

This was the same council that 8 years ago was derelict and obviously criminally negligent in protecting Victoria Climbie [1] from a most harrowing existence that lead to her death and all sorts of inquiries – lessons have just not been learnt.

To learn that this family was visited 60 times over the space of 8 months during which the toddler was registered as at risk, child protection personnel were involved and even a paediatrician failed to make issue of evident inflicted injuries leaves one stone cold – the only hope is that the toddler is now at rest and at peace from a most wicked and evil world [2].

His name was Baby P [3].

Policing a maternal mental health stabbing

We had not had enough time to take in the news when up north a seemingly distressed lady who had two sons caused her doctor as much concern as to have him call in the police to check her out.

The police arrived, pussy-footed around her neighbourhood, spoke to neighbours and relations but the lady herself and by the time they got to see the lady she was the murderer of her two sons [4] by stabbing in the abdomen – all in one afternoon.

This family was also known to Children’s Services of Manchester but someone must have thought the mental health problems of the mother did not warrant taking her children into care.

The extended family were too distressed to appear on television, their only message was that they hoped the children were at peace.

They were Romario Mullings-Sewell aged two and his brother Deylano who was just 3 months old.

Mother abducts daughter for reward money

Just the same time, we have the trial of Karen Matthews [5], the mother rabbit [6] of 7 children from 5 different men who hatched a plan with her ex-boyfriend’s uncle to abduct her daughter Shannon for consequent reward.

Maybe, that last paragraph was not clear enough, a mother decided to have her daughter abducted, raise alarm, milk the attentions that allows for the reward money grow before releasing her daughter and eventually sharing the reward money.

To keep the girl subdued, they drugged her and kept her harnessed to limit her movement and this charade continued for 24 long days and we all were captivated by the horror of child safety in England.

Children should trump political correctness

These tales highlight difficult social topics that need to be brought into the open for discussion without any deference to political correctness.

There appears to be an underclass of people who unfortunately have the ability to bare children but have no inkling as to how to care for them.

These people have no social responsibility; they are propped up by social security, and having no jobs, prospects or sense of community, tend to survive on instinct and are basically incapable of rationalising their actions or the consequences thereof.

It is just impossible to fathom how a mother would allow her child to be brutally maltreated, be driven to murder or children regardless of her mental state or mind or for the love of money arrange to have her daughter kidnapped for reward.

It makes you wonder what they were thinking.

The welfare of the child is paramount

Beyond that, even though children protection services do not have the best qualifications for the proper welfare of children, these children would no doubt have been better off in care than with these rotten scum of the earth.

No child in this day and age should have to live through these dreadful circumstances and end up dying in the hands of the people we naturally think should be lavishing love and care upon them.

If for any reason any child or family comes under the scrutiny of the children’s services it should implicitly mean that they should be monitored more closely – frequent physical, medical, psychological and mental evaluations should be carried out rigorously.

The welfare of the child must be foremost, paramount and sometimes be to the exclusion of the parent if the child is considered to be in any danger – we cannot risk the notion that the love of the parent endures beyond wanting to harm the child.

More prejudiced more judgemental

We have to be more judgemental in those circumstances though there have been injustices in taking children into care as in the Orkney Islands episode [7], things should not be allowed to deteriorate to the extent that lives are seriously threatened and lost.

The fact is, some people are just not deserving of their children and they should be relieved of that burden before they unburden themselves through unspeakable cruelty to the child.

Our society cannot bear the thought of another heinously gruesome story like this, the people in charge of children’s services must be held to a standard of professionalism and care that is required of anyone in care of children and where it is clear that they have failed so woefully, saying sorry should just be the beginning of the severe sanctions exacted on them including the possible charge of culpable homicide where a life is lost.

Adoption and fostering better managed

This world cannot be that bad, but for the evil, hate, neglect, selfishness and apathy all these kids have suffered from their mothers, I am so sorry that they did not arrive into better homes and those homes are about character and relationships rather than preconceived and bigoted notions of traditional family units.

Adoption and fostering laws should be flexible enough to be a broader church for all sorts of family units be they heterosexual or homosexual couplings, children need homes where care, concern, attention and hopefully love can help them become productive members of society.

Just on the matter of probability, one can say more children have been abused in many ways in so-called traditional family units than the insignificant number of alternative family setups.

Carers should be positive role models

These homes should have responsible, intelligent and able people who are doing their part in society and can serve as genuine positive role models to their wards.

Children should not be props of worth that confer of the jobless, hapless, uneducated, ignorant and unambitious people some sense of existence – if these people are not worthwhile members of community, letting them keep their children just spawns another hardened generation of people who think the society owes them everything and they owe no one anything.

Thankfully, Shannon lives to tell the tale with the bruising knowledge that her mother was unconscionably wicked in her scheme to profit from her abduction, for Baby P, Romario and Deylano, I only pray that you have entered into repose and rest in peace.

God save the children, most especially from their so-called parents – a difficult, hard and painful prayer, but one that needs to be voiced in deep supplication and fervent desire for an answer.

Sources

[1] Victoria Climbié Foundation UK - Home

[2] BBC NEWS | UK | A short life of misery and pain

[3] BBC NEWS | UK | England | London | Ministers 'warned over Haringey'

[4] BBC NEWS | UK | England | Manchester | Inquiry into deaths of brothers

[5] BBC NEWS | UK | England | West Yorkshire | Shannon mother 'Jekyll and Hyde'

[6] The moral dilemma of mother rabbits [akin.blog-city.com]

[7] South Ronaldsay child abuse scandal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Center for Adoption Policy

Save the children - From their parents? [akin.blog-city.com]

Nigeria: Image allows immigration humiliation

Get out for protest

Naturally, as a person with Nigerian heritage I should be incensed when dignitaries from my country are humiliated by the immigration officers of other countries.

I should be waving placards in front of their embassies, launching campaigns in every forum I can find, burning flags of the outrageous countries and setting alight the effigies of the leaders of those countries.

After all that, even a grovelling apology might not suffice, we would get all our allies to embargo their goods and services and send them all to Coventry – but which time all their diplomatic corps would be persona non grata and our diplomatic ties would be at the lowest ebb as you look for a theatre for war.

Indeed, there might have been a time in the history of Nigeria when such righteous indignation might have been justified and fair.

Give them hell and more

But as I read yesterday that a former High Commissioner to South Africa and his entourage of two serving senators from Nigeria were humiliated by an immigration officer [1] in South Africa, I felt no sympathy for the Nigerians.

Nothing should warrant getting that kind of treatment from any immigration officer where it appears the lady clearly voiced her prejudice, disdain and disgust of Nigerians – especially for a country that is about to host the World Cup in 2010.

However, to think that the problem is with the immigration service in South Africa rather than with the poor international image of Nigeria and Nigerians is to entirely miss the point completely.

Now, they know

I am glad that the ex-High Commissioner and senators were roughed up and humiliated, it goes to show first all the kinds of problems ordinary Nigerians go through without the epithet of being some important dignitary whilst hurdling and running the gauntlet of immigration services all around the world.

Such first-hand knowledge can only be useful in another worthy cause, the improvement of Nigeria’s image at home and abroad – these people are in positions where they probably can begin to influence issues about Nigeria and how she is presented to the world.

If we did do good

Now, if Nigerians had really hopped on the bandwagon of dealing with corruption and nefarious activities that include fraud and other dishonest activity, I doubt the immigration officer would have said, “I do not care whether they are high profile personalities. These Nigerians need to be taught a lesson when they come here.”

This seems to be after the intervention of the Nigerian Consul-General in Johannesburg and that is because a majority of our so-called high profile personalities are people who appear to be wealthy and hedonistic to boot, but for all their wealth and clout cannot subject their fortunes to internationally acceptable audit scrutiny.

Meanwhile, people in Nigeria ignore their sources of questionable wealth and confer an aura of respectability and dignity on the self-same bandits as they roam around the world as very important Nigerians but are seen by foreigners as hardened crooks.

Connections counted for nothing

It is no wonder that with a diplomatic passport and high office a lowly immigration officer in South Africa cannot seem to trust the documents presented and all the name-dropping just incenses those immigration officers the more.

It is sad that these people could not see themselves through on their own self-recognisance that even after exhausting their connections as many self-important Nigerians do, they were still humiliated.

Our image needs some work

The job of sorting out how we are perceived abroad must be dealt with from home, the anti-graft agencies should be able to do what that they have been licensed to do, every whiff of corruption should be investigated and properly pursued to the just conclusion – people in positions of power implicated in any suspect activity should and must be relieved of their offices until proven innocent.

People who exhibit a desperation to attach themselves to political office or gain pecuniary advantages beyond what is their lawful entitlement should be exposed and denied access to their goals.

The press should be free to explore, investigate, ascertain and publish all public interest matters without fear or favour and those who feel they have been slighted should seek redress in an appropriate manner.

The little things that matter

Our armed forces should be leagues of gentlemen answerable and accountable to our political leaders, they should be of exemplary conduct and be the examples of discipline, order and professionalism that other nations of the world seek to emulate.

Our electoral processes should be informed, free, fair, just and available to every competently assessed Nigerian who pledges not to abuse the system for their own ends such that when the results are declared as a fair assessment of the unadulterated will of the people, winners can assume their offices and losers can gracefully concede.

Those who besmirch the good name of Nigeria at home and abroad should be exposed, disgraced and made to pay some restitution in rehabilitating themselves and undoing the damage they have done to Nigeria – this includes all those well-connected ruling party politicians, ex heads-of-state, corrupt business men and state governors whose names heap disgrace on our country.

Project Nigeria

In other words, there is a Project Nigeria that has been impeded, assailed, corrupted, abused and made ineffective, yielding the results of roughed-up dignitaries in foreign airports and lands.

We might well see a time when our president suffers such an indignity and it can only be because we have not honestly committed ourselves to the activities that would make others trust, respect, honour and favour Nigerians whilst holding us all up as examples of good virtue and conduct.

Next time, I expect some minister or Very Important Prick to suffer a cavity intrusion search, maybe then we might have enough people to embark on a serious mission of getting Nigeria a better name through our actions at home and abroad.

So far, I am not ready to sympathise with the senators or the high commissioner, you reap what you sow.

Source

[1] The Punch: S’African immigration official humiliates Nigerian senators, ex-envoy

Putting Obama dreams into perspective

Trail-blazers are not templates

If I see another inane blog that tries to ride the Obama success wave into passing the need to achieve to the next generation, I would most probably become violently sick.

Senator Obama in his achievement is a trail-blazer that reveals just another opportunity to achievement, he is not the way or the path to success – in fact, his path to success was so unlikely, there were unbelievers up till the very moment that victory was declared.

Why not you?

I find it mischievous and silly that suddenly most parents who have written about their child being able to reach the heights that Senator Obama has reached are probably much younger than Senator Obama who is 47.

If I recall, Senator McCain at 72, was about to become the oldest ever first term president, so it goes without saying that those parents might well aspire to high office rather than already conceding to a defeatist complex and immediately passing the mantle of high ambition to their children.

Now, if those parents really do see their kids aspiring to the highest office, I hope they are already breaking their backs giving their kids the best education in the best development environment, having them mix with leaders and commoners alike and charting a clear course to this high office since they can now see the future – unlikely.

So, who came after?

We dream but rarely walk or run towards that dream, we are full of fantasies and hopes which are fine for determining a course but never really engage on that course, rather we hope that we would be translated to the new place by miracles, accidents, luck or chance.

What am I saying here? There are many English mothers who would have dreamt when Margaret Thatcher became the Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1979, their daughters could become great leaders too, but 29 years on, there is no woman in the horizon going for that post.

Role models are just stars

Imagine how many pathways we would all be looking down if for every first and highest achiever we decided our kids would one day become one and every of those achievements.

A good example is in the week that Senator Obama became the first African-American President-elect, Lewis Hamilton became the first black F1 champion – I should think parents would now enrol their kids in presidency and F1 School?

I do not think so, people like Tiger Woods, Venus & Serena Williams, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Nelson Mandela and many more who are high achievers and first amongst equals are role models, but being a role model does not mean that they are ready for cloning – they are not templates for success, they are revelations of possibilities.

When Tiger Woods won, I would not have been surprised that some parents might have booked golf lessons for their kids without knowing if a birdie or a bogey was a bird, a score or a joke.

They are stars, they allow us to look up, see an array of lights in the sky, point to significant situations and aspire. They are not dies through which we can force our kids so that the resulting mould is a clone of the role model.

The open doors is usually far off

These possibilities only become realities to individuals who capture a vision of what the successes of their role models mean and find a way to work harder and excel at whatever they do.

These trail-blazers might open doors, smash glass ceilings, bring down hurdles and reveal what is possible, but they usually do not have hordes riding right behind them through the openings they have created – we can all aspire to be president, we would not all become president.

The danger is not getting sucked into a do-or-die ambition where the quest for great achievement takes away our humanity and turns us into cold and calculating malevolents.

We can and dream and should dream, we can ride the waves of the successes of those who have gone before us, but one man’s great success does not suddenly confer that victory and status to every child who witnesses that day.

At most, it reveals what is possible, what happens in a lifetime might not get us to the gates we have aspired to pass through, the ability to re-evaluate and reconsider our situations in relation to where we are should lead us to become the best we can become – nothing is impossible, but do we know what is possible and what we can make possible for ourselves?

Nigeria: Living on the Slave Coast

The need for civilisation

I have been unable to allude any of the historic events about the election of the first African-American to the highest office in America to any parallel or pending event in Africa.

Many have written about scenarios where an Obama might rise up amongst the people especially in Nigeria and I have come to the conclusion that we are too far off the mark for that kind of expectation.

Some are clamouring for a civil rights kind of movement, but we are yet to attain the level of civilisation that allows for the core of society to be persuaded of the higher ideals of the protection of rights and the enforcement of rights.

We live in the Slave Coast

In fact, the country might be Nigeria but it has yet to have a state of affairs apart from its original name – Slave Coast [1].

The Slave Coast is where people in power so reminiscent of slave owners can own the citizenry like slaves, deny them their rights, hold the whip hand and herd them as cattle whilst committing heinous crimes with impunity.

Fairness is alien, justice is an aberration, legal recourse is out of reach and none of the other slaves can raise their hands in protest without being whipped down, shot down and probably lynched by a cabal of other slave owners and their dogs.

At independence we had our emancipation proclamation [2] that attempted to reveal and assert our claims to responsible government but it is still like the wild West, a jungle where life and property has little value and the slave owner class are oblivious of how they lay waste human life and humanity for pleasure as they hold sway in power and abuse of privilege.

Slave owners rights of impunity

In Nigeria we assume that all men are created equal [3], but some are more equal than others, in fact, some portend to own the rest and seek to dominate the citizenry with the retribution of hard labour, poverty, sickness, corruption, nepotism, graft and every single activity that takes humanity into a dark rabid animal kingdom of dog-eat-dog, dog-eat-vomit and worse, because it is the Slave Coast.

This does not begin to depict the realities of the Slave Coast today, but the cry is going out loud and soon and very soon, maybe a Moses shall rise out of the slave owner class to deliver the slaves from this outrageous bondage.

Make way for the slave owner

The regression of Nigeria back to the Slave Coast is depicted in a most disturbing story that has been in the news for about a week.

A Rear Admiral in a convoy with a Bantustan-mentality complex tried to evade traffic by escort for whatever business he had to conduct when inadvertently a driver seemed to block their way [4].

The navy ratings in the convoy got out and accosted the driver who happened to be a lady, she was beaten with horsewhips, gun-butted, stripped naked and left for dead as the convoy went on their way – See the iReport recording [5] and weep.

I think I have made my case for the fact that a country where that can happen is far off from civilisation to even consider civil rights.

Inequalities and impunity

Now, I do not know what business the very important slave owner Rear Admiral was going to conduct that required that traffic be cleared off the road for him – if we had a decent transport policy, there would be no need to these big-man convoys which are a clear abuse of privilege.

We all urgently need to conduct our business; but it makes one wonder why because a person is a senior military officer, that person automatically has a greater right of way than other Nigerians except of course if we live in the Slave Coast.

The story says one of the navy ratings came out with a horsewhip – this was not a race course full of horses but a main road in the Slave Coast – I am amazed that military personnel are so readily primed for unnecessary aggression in service of their masters.

Apparently, the lady made a grab for the horsewhip and in the process, 6 men of the Slave Coast naval service beat her to a pulp, left her for dead, in the middle of the road and went on their way.

Between the law and lawlessness

In Nigeria, one would expect if someone obstructed an officer in their lawful access and duty, that person would be arrested, charged and arraigned before a court with a jury of peers to determine the case, but this is the Slave Coast where jungle justice is rife and barbarians in uniform run riot in seemingly civil society.

Meanwhile, where an officer and a gentleman who holds the exalted position of Rear Admiral would have prevented his underlings from indiscipline in a civilised society, this slave owner enjoyed the spectacle of meting out punishment to a helpless slave and could not have a care in the world for who she might be or if she survives the episode with her life intact.

Slaves do not have a right to life, if they live, they do not have a right to dignity, if they protest, the slave owner overrules and sets his dogs after the slave to be mauled to bits – it is the way of the Slave Coast – that is life.

The colour bar

The “colour bar” signs that segregate the slaves from the slave owners abound around the country – Officers Only, No right of way, Oil Money for the leaders, Free Speech at your peril, Hospitals closed to the poor, Power never available, Merit counts for nothing etc. etc.

We need a civilised country for us to get a Martin Luther King to lead civil rights marches before we can have a Barack Obama that inspires the people of one nation rather than discord of tribal savages to the greater goal of nation building.

Sadly, the Slave Coast is more than a haunting ghost in Nigeria; we are lead by uncivilised, uncultured and uncouth brigands whose slave owner mentality leaves Nigeria deeper in the Dark Continent than we thought we were.

Sources

[1] Slave Coast - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[2] Emancipation Proclamation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[3] All men are created equal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[4] The Punch: A Rear Admiral and his boys’ shameless conduct

[5] Is this Democracy??? - iReport.com