Dialogues: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series

I sympathize with Mrs Wigwe and Dr. Wigwe. They are dealing with something beyond them: murderous selfishness. We Christains call it, sin or carnal nature.

I don't understand why we decieve ourselves to believe that selfish persons who are concerned with serving their own interests would bound themselves into a relationship that demands selfless commitment to the other. Apostle Paul puts it clearly, Husbands must love their wives as they love themselves and lay their lives for them. Wives should love their husband the same way. I doubt if persons who love selflessly can do this to themselves. People can bound themselves together in such self-aggrandishing manner but should not call it mariage the way we understand. Selfish persons can not be happily married.

The truth is that marriage should be reserved for those who are ready to love the other in an unselfish manner. Even the Christains often show lack of such capacity. Pity for the Wigwes and the rest of us who are married when they should not

Sam Amadi

Dr. Sam Amadi
Abuja, Nigeria
234-803-329-9879

From: Iheoma Obibi <iheomaobibi@yahoo.com>
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wed, June 8, 2011 5:01:05 PM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: I believe Dr. Wigwe

I have read this thread and really stunned by the responses to Dr Wigwe's diatribe and that of his son, who is really stuck between two warring parents. However, we are a people that love the pretence of marriage and apperances rather than happiness and therefore not surprised by the response of our intellectual elite. It is always the woman's fault.

Let me begin by adding that I am the daughter of the survior of domestic violence and when I read the Dr's response it took me back to a time that I thought I had forgotten and if we are all honest, there are others on this list who are too pained to respond. The excuses for why my mother was battered serially from my earliest memories included being the devil, she was a bad woman, she had a boyfriend (really, they all say it), she is selfish, greedy, does not behave like a true igbo woman, yada, yada. My mother survived because her father and uncles decided that enough was enough (after several family meetings, discussions, broken agreements you name it) and took their daughter back with all her kids. Otherwise, my mother would still be there today, making excuses for a bad marriage and a sorry ass husband.

All am saying is this, some of our men have anger management issues and no amount of family intervention, negotiation, submissiveness, being the good wife can way lay the volcano within. Added to this is the notion of marriage and how it is constructed in our cultural setting and all the baggage that comes with it. Once married we as women are expected to loose our identity and become one with someone who may or not be on the same emotional and planning page with you. If you raise issues he deems as unsuitable he just might hit you because YOU raised it and not him. It's a complex situation affected by our cultural norms and values.

Dr Wigwe clearly has beaten his wife before and his diatribe illustrates that he sees no problem with it - even expressed by their son in his response.

We all need to know that wife battery in our cultural milieu is two a penny as Igbo women. I see women who have been married for barely three weeks and they are being battered from the onset and their families are telling them, to "manage it, they are not the only ones".

My two pennies worth, this woman cannot be a she devil as Dr Wigwe claims because the story is familiar to those of us whose mother's have been battered. The story never changes just the characters.

--------------------------------------------

Iheoma Obibi
Executive Director & ASHOKA Fellow
Alliances for Africa

Mobile: + 234 803 302 0779
Int' mobile: + 44 7713 401454

Skype: iheomaobibi
http://www.alliancesforafrica.org

From: "Oyedeji, Kale" <koyedeji@morehouse.edu>
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wed, 8 June, 2011 15:55:48
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: I believe Dr. Wigwe

Ikhide, there is nothing academic in your response below. You could make your points without those derogatory generalisations. You can ask around, I definitely do not belong in the group of "serial wife abusers". What you just wrote shows a man that is angry with the rest of the world. It is amazing to me that you are writing as if you knew this family and you were present at every episode of the family dispute. Why must everybody see things your way? Why must you call anybody with opposing view names? You wrote "Every one of you who just found time to respond egging on wife beaters and children abusers should be ashamed of yourselves." Why should I be ashamed of myself for expressing my view? You are the one that should be ashamed of yourself for your intolerance of opposing view. Some of my children live in Maryland with you, you can ask them what type of father I have been to them. Ofcourse you may not believe them. Ask them also how I treat their mother. You have met me, I am not a savage man, by the standard definition, ofcourse, you have your own definition, so I have nothing to hide.

'Kale Oyedeji

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ikhide
Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2011 10:09 AM
To: USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: I believe Dr. Wigwe

Our people,

Why am I not shocked by the savagery displayed in the responses by many on this issue in this forum? Why am I not surprised? Because these are the men and their friends, serial wife abusers like "General" Olusegun Obasanjo who misrule much of Black Africa today. Women and children are their punching bags, every day. Yes, I am expected to say the usual patronizing clap trap about how not every Nigerian man is a wife beater as if we are supposed to thank them and give them medals for not crunching up their wives and children. People are writing and behaving like sabages in suits. Every one of you who just found time to respond egging on wife beaters and children abusers should be ashamed of yourselves. There is nothing African in what is happening all over Nigeria today: Women and children are being abused as they toil under a society that is paternalistic in the worst way.

What you have all just witnessed is intellectual dishonesty. They have read that disgrace of a response - that shows up what "Chief" "Dr." Wigwe really is - an abusive sniveling possibly crooked official (all those Rolexes, all those trips ferrying the son's girlfriends back and forth, and whatsup with the bizarre statement about the wife having a boyfriend from the "Yoruba tribe"?) buffoon. They know that no lawyer would have allowed such an incoherent incriminating rant to see the light of day. From she poured ketchup on herself, "the Ketchup Defense" under worldwide outrage, he changed his tune to a tree in our bedroom hit her" and now Ms. Lavonda Staples has come up with bizzarre babblespeak about what I have absolutely no idea. I am not even going to go there today, life is too short jare. The son weighs in, taking a break from playing video games and counting his Rolex watches, he writes nonsense about well, there was not a lot of blood and why, it is not as if she was paralyzed by the incident. What a family. m

You all ought to be ashamed of yourselves. When the DSK issue came up, we were all jumping up and down trying to outdo ourselves, yelling racism, etc, our own sister is bludgeoned and there was quiet everywhere, in "Africa" men can do as they please and if a woman is mauled it is her fault, na pms, na witchcraft, etc, etc. Why, the Father of all these Serial Abusers , Aremu Obasanjo is a world "statesman." If Obasanjo was a white man he would be a statesman in prison. We call that reverse racism.

So now, we have a new defense: The woman deserved whatever happened to her. Shame on all of you savages who feel this way. I have said it over and over: Africa's continuing demise is as a result of her intellectuals dishonesty. And I repeat it today.

I ask you: Is this man fit to be the ambassador of a hut? Is this man and his family fit to be envoys of any nation that takes herself seriously?

What is African about marital and child abuse? I have news for all of you: With these cave men attitudes of yours, do not come to America. If you draw blood and the Police is called, you will be arrested and sent straight to jail. And you deserve to be in there. And if you are a public official, you lose your job immediately, as you should. This has nothing to do with whether she deserves it because she did not serve you water to wash your hands before eating eba, this has to do with the law. The law serves to provide clarity to issues ike this: No hitting, absolutely no hitting. I mean, all we do is mimic parts of laws that we want, we want the pleasures, we don't want the work. And who gives a damn what the bible says; the holy books are great works of fiction designed by men to control women, children and slaves. And they spread bigotry and prejudice to boot.

A snake is in the house; we are babbling crap about how not all snakes are poisonous, blah, blah, blah! You people are just too much!

- Ikhide

From: "Oyedeji, Kale" <koyedeji@morehouse.edu>
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, June 8, 2011 8:12 AM
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: I believe Dr. Wigwe

I am a father and with a daughter in her thirties, so I have a taste of feminism, especially when she got to college. I have also seen how some feminist groups helped to wrongly put African men in jail. I have seen how some immigration lawyers, in desperate efforts to save their clients from deportation, have turned some culture on its head to portray African men as the worst human beings God had ever created. So, reading through Ms. Staples' write-up, I didn't see anything disingenuous in what she had to say. She never gave any percentage to characterise the number of people she referred to. I admire her sincerity and candour in presenting her case. Ms. Joan.Osa Oviawe could make her case for some percentage of African women that fit her description. True, there are a lot of African women capable of setting their own standards, but there are those also that are incapable of doing the same; especially the younger generation that come to the US at tender ages. Ms. Oviawe can not deny the fact that some African immigrants, not just women alone, are influenced by the rhetoric western media. This is not only true in the US but in some African countries where western culture is most preferred. Ms. Oviawe, people that still have respect for their culture fit into your description "… they have now elected to discard the wise counsel of their mothers, grandmothers, aunties and elders for the eternal words of wisdom of Oprah." Most are even ashamed of their culture.

I doff my hat for Ms. Staples.

'Kale Oyedeji

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of joan.Osa Oviawe
Sent: 08 June 2011 02:53
To: USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com; NaijaPolitics Forum
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: I believe Dr. Wigwe

Dear Ms. Staples,

As an African woman (Nigerian to be precise), I find it rather disingenuous on your part to be propagating the myth that African immigrant women are so influenced by the "rhetoric of western media" that they are incapable of deciphering the nuances of Western Culture from their own African-ness. You make it look as if they have now elected to discard the wise counsel of their mothers, grandmothers, aunties and elders for the eternal words of wisdom of Oprah. You seem to want to attribute some of the newly found 'enlightenment' of African immigrant women- to watching shows like the "Real Housewives." I am glad you didn't also add that these women now expect their beleaguered African husbands to fete them lavishly on a regular basis, garnished with the kind of rambunctious lovemaking that are the staple of fabled relationships on American Soap Operas.

Are African women incapable of setting their own standards of how they want to be treated by their spouses and by society at large? Must their existence be so condescendingly interpolated with Western Feminist or African American Womanist thoughts? When it was still legal for American husbands to beat their wives, African women already had leadership roles in their pre-colonial societies. Whose values are influencing who here?

Your tale of the marital plight of African American women is incomplete at best. You gloss over the fact that many African American women are unmarried not by choice, but due to the shortage of upwardly mobile African American men. Precipitated by such factors as the dire impact of the Prison Industrial Complex on the African American male population, emasculating effects of racism, as well as the self emasculating pathological behaviors of a sub-section of the African American male population who seem to not want to befriend the responsibilities that come with being a man.

I am not saying that all women are good, neither am I espousing the myth that all men are bad.

Saludos,
joan.Osa Oviawe

On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 6:46 PM, Lavonda Staples <lrstaples@gmail.com> wrote:

From St. Louis, Missouri

La Vonda R. Staples
University of Missouri St. Louis
Psychology and History (Contemporary Europe) Alumna

I have devoured every inch of this issue and I was especially touched by the letter written by Dr. Wigwe's son. A son defending a father against a mother? There seems to be a biological imperative for sons to hold their mothers in highest regard. Even a mother who is no better than a cat can find a lifelong friend in her son (especially the youngest son.

The other peripheral information I examined was the extent of Mrs. Wigwe's injuries (I didn't examine her personally I looked at the photos). Before I attended college, graduate school, and taught in the university and community college systems (five years altogether) my career and occupation was at Lancome. I was a make up artist, cosmetics salesperson, and a skin care consultant. Mrs. Wigwe is an abuser of a chemical called hydroquinone - a skin bleach. The highest concentration that can be bought in the United States is 2% chemical in a cream that is 98 percent of package contents. From a dermatologist the highest concentration is four percent in a 96 percent cream. Walk with me, this has a point, several points.

Women who abuse hydroquinone develop two conditions directly relative to the integumentary system. First, there's the "sunburst" look on their faces. Now that I've told you what it is you'll know what it is immediately. On darker skinned women their skin will appear ashen. The second effect of over-use of this chemical in women who are of the age of Mrs. Wigwe (and me) is crepe-paper thin skin which ages quickly, especially around the eyes. Internally the product causes severe problems in the lymphatic system and I suspect it is at the root of Mrs. Wigwe's yellowing of the whites of her eyes.

Now here's the point. We look at those photos and imagine an hour-long beating. I don't think anyone who knows anything at all about these chemicals would conclude that Dr. Wigwe didn't open a can of whoop-ass on his spouse. But, I'm offering a reason why (other than the beating) that Mrs. Wigwe appeared as if she had been beaten by SEVERAL people! There's also a psychological component. For those of us who use these things (yes, I bleach as well and have done so for several years) there is, at one end, a tacit admission that one doesn't like oneself in order to simply participate in this act of racial self-hatred. Do you think this only played out in her skin-care regimen?

I recently relocated back home from DC. In my entire life (and if God wills, insha'Allah I will be 45 in October) I never KNEW that there are products geared to African women which enable them to apply hydroquinone ALL OVER THEIR BODIES! I went into "African" stores and found products called, "Bleche Blanc" and "Le Klair" and so many, many more products marketed to Francophone Africa. Beautiful women on the bottles and jars and the instructions in English, French and Portuguese. So, the beating Dr. Wigwe gave his wife is more than likely a drop in the bucket compared to how she feels about herself. I'm not in her mind and I can't say how she feels. I'm going by that sad, sad, tremendously sad letter written by her youngest son. "My sister had to use her credit cards to get food." "My daddy has always taken care of our needs." I felt like the worst voyeur reading such a mournful discourse.

Going to another point. I'm also a mother of five sons aged 19 to 26. Ask me how many times they have been assaulted by a girl, told a teacher or principal, and then after handling a situation correctly were informed that somehow, a woman/girl has a right to use physical violence against a man and a man cannot defend or retaliate? Give me a dollar when you ask the question and I'll have enough to return to DC. I'm a mother of very large men (they are five foot eleven to six foot four) and I'm telling you that men have feelings to. Men have rights. Men are not punching bags for out of control females. If we, in the United States, have an actual legal defense which is colloquially known as "fighting words" then why do we want to participate in the fantasy that NOTHING a woman says or visits upon a man can compel him to an immediate act of physical rage? Here's the caveat to that: it is possible to defend and run without beating the hell out of someone (as it appears to have gone with Mrs. Wigwe).

Going to another point. Was it not possible for Mrs. Wigwe to leave Dr. Wigwe without interrupting his income and therefore the income of the family? If they had a row on one particular day why is she showing herself, like an American talk-show participant, to every camera with batteries and a lens? Especially when one thing is true: neither party comes to the court with clean hands. In the words of my 95 year old grandmother, "bof uh dem was actin' a fool." Shake hands and walk away.

Finally, in response to the posts regarding wife-beating in Islam. I would like to gently remind you all, my colleagues, that Shari'a law is Semitic law. It is the law of nomadic peoples. It is also the laws created by a Jewish and later Christian book. It is in the Old Testament in the Book of Leviticus. The same chapter we use to beat up on the Muslims is also in the Holy Book of Christendom, be ye Protestant or Catholic. It is the self-same book which castigates homosexuality and allows for wife-beating and honour-killing. The same book also says that masturbation is an abomination in the sight of God (as a lateral and not a lesser) along with "man lying with man." To come out of religion and to go to the United States Department of Justice. The most dangerous place for a White, Christian woman is in her own home. The person most likely to be shot with a legal handgun is the spouse and/or the children of the owner. Infanticide, in the United States, to a 90 percent degree of efficiency is a crime of a single racial/gender demographic: White females. The same is true of spousal contract killing.

Into this violent western panorama comes the African immigrant and his wife. At the worst possible time to be educated and no experience which can be verified in this country. With massive influence by Western media outlets which give an absurd interpretation of what a wife should or should not have (see any "Real Housewives" television broadcast and you'll think every divorced woman or baby momma is pushing at least one Benz). Put this knowledge in the mind of the struggling immigrant wife. I'm not being condescending. In the 1960's and 1970's Black American women also committed this grievous error of believing the rhetoric of western and White women's movements. Although I have been blessed with two marriages and a possible, my sisters have not fared so well. Most educated Black women will NEVER marry. Three-fourths of all African American children are born illegitimate. That television, those movies, and that music are more powerful than a ball of crack and heroine soaked in a bottle of 100 proof tequila. Our media distorts minds and ruins marriages and brings cultural practices to a standing, fatal, unchanging halt. I put to this forum my hypothesis marital violence in the homes of African immigrants has something to do with economy but also the psychological effects of American media and American individualism and American porcine consumption.

In the end. I can sit back in my chair. With my sons sitting around me in various stages of the itis (the lethargy you get after consuming soul food) and say, "that poor family." No one is going to hit me in my face. I keep my skin bleacher at 2%. I don't ask for things I can't have and I try to make all of the children (my 13 year old wears her hair in braids that I braid with my own two hands) on what we have to spend. I don't participate in fronting or flossing. I learned that lesson and paid for that experience a long time ago. I'm not a "real" American. I'm not like the women on TV. I wouldn't be any fun to watch, kneeling on the floor cleaning the bathroom in my makeshift apron of Igbo cloth), cooking, reading Dr. Falola's books, or re-writing a paper for Dr. Emeagwali. I should delete this post for fear of deportation. I wouldn't let some sorry man use my face for a punching bag without a trip to the hospital for him and a trip to the police station for me (oh didn't I tell you, sympathy for battered women is reserved for the small, old, and White - I'm not any of those things). I also would not have allowed that beating to make that man lose his job. As I said before, it appears that both parties failed to wash before they went to the world court. They should have kept all of that wahala to themselves.

Thank you and I encourage responses and feedback.

On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 6:04 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com> wrote:

Please excuse me. I posted the wrong link.

Here is more compassionate light on how Islam deals with domestic
violence:

http://www.google.com/search?q=Domestic+Violence++in+Islam&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

On Jun 8, 12:33 am, Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelb...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> I believe Dr. Wigwe and according to Dr. Wigwe's testimony he has
> been suffering as a hen-pecked husband over a long period of time and
> this is not a side issue:
>
> http://www.google.com/search?q=Domsetic+violence+against+men
>
> It's the sort of issue that is surely being addressed by people like
> Pastor Adeboye, the Rev. Commander Pastor Ebenezer Obey and perhaps
> more importantly, the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social
> Development.
>
> Fortunately, Dr. Wigwe is not a Muslim and so is not under a cloud of
> suspicion that he was acting under legal cover, to some extent
> provided by Sharia and that he had merely exceeded the limits set by
> Islamic Law. And by the way here the Islamic law is not being
> vilified but explained in a more compassionate light:http://www.google.com/search?q=OIC+Fatwa+on+Domestic+Violence++in+Islam
>
> So the question that remains is what does Nigerian Law say about
> domestic violence?
> And Kenyan Law?
>
> To Abdul Bangura: you talk about Italy and and the widely perceived
> to be gentle Swedes, but what can you tell us about the African
> Diaspora in the United States with regard to violent wife-husband dis-
> agreements?
>
> And apart from Islamic education and respect for Sharia etc. what
> global remedy do you suggest for the majority of people who are not
> Believers?

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La Vonda R. Staples

Adjunct Professor, Department of Social Sciences

Community College of the District of Columbia

314-570-6483

"It is the duty of all who have been fortunate to receive an education to assist others in the same pursuit."

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Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: I believe Dr. Wigwe

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