[Telvin]

I don't think our problem is genetic at all because we do have examples of great black people around the world and in Africa and also because there is no scientific evidence for this. What I do attribute our problems to is culture. Even different Kenyan tribes have different values for eg. education, even female education, roles in society, land etc. Didn't you just hear of female political candidates who were battered in their own campaigns just because 'a woman cannot lead a man'? This is a learned attitude and there is nothing genetic about it. This phenomenon is merely cultural and it can be changed, even within a generation. That above was just a single example but I believe you can have enough individuals with these negative attitudes to retard a people. Think about odd attitudes eg. about rule of law (example:-most Kenyan politicians don't think they are subject to any laws), attitudes about money, government systems, life and death, family etc. eg. in terms of government systems Africans are mostly communal but it clearly doesn't work these days because community leaders take advantage of people and steal wealth instead of sharing. We, unlike people of European origin love large families historically for wealth and labor source but this hurts you in 21st century unless you are independently wealthy. I will point out that all African attitudes are not unhealthy but you can have enough of them to pull you down. Example of a good attitude we have is in marriage- at least most people don't think divorce is a cute word like most westerners (this is changing though).
Someone once said that a black man in America may have to jump higher and run faster to compete with whites and it may be the same for Africans. We are obviously young nations (almost all less than 50 yrs of independence) and still recovering from effects of subjugation and new threats of neocolonialism as well as negative attitudes from rest of the world. This means we may need to work harder than some other countries that may not share our burdens. My earlier post pointed though that it has been done before specifically by Asian countries and therefore I can't understand why we can't. I am not ready to submit that we (Africans) are a useless people because we were once colonized [Kenya 1890-1963]. If we continue to have failed governments and die from curable diseases as we breed poverty just because we were a former colony, then I will agree Africans are stupid or mentally inferior! I say this because we need to move from attitudes that don't offer solutions. We need to stop blaming colonization because it cannot be undone, at least until we get a time machine!