{"id":41161,"date":"2015-08-11T21:48:21","date_gmt":"2015-08-11T20:48:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/?p=41161"},"modified":"2015-08-11T21:48:21","modified_gmt":"2015-08-11T20:48:21","slug":"what-did-we-do-to-deserve-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/articles-opinions\/what-did-we-do-to-deserve-this\/","title":{"rendered":"WHAT DID WE DO TO DESERVE THIS?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1439324976521_6710\" class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Sometime last year I watched the Hollywood blockbuster titled &#8221;12 Years A Slave&#8221; starring Brad Pitt and the Nigerian-born actor Chiwetel Ejiofor.\u00a0 After watching the film I was at a loss for words. It was a masterpiece. It was a powerful rendition of a true and heroic story.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1439324976521_6717\" class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">After watching the film I could not help asking myself the following question: what did the black man ever do to deserve such wickedness and suffering? What did our forefathers do to deserve such barbarity and mindless torture in the hands of those that held them captive in a distant land?<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">May God forgive those that brutalised and enslaved us. I cannot hate them. I can only love and forgive them because only love and forgiveness can drive out hate and heal the wounds that they inflicted on the souls of our people.<\/div>\n<div id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1439324976521_6718\" class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">What they did to us was far greater, far more damaging and far more devastating than the Germans ever did to the Jews. Though we are compelled to forgive by scripture, we must never forget.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">And never must such a thing be allowed to happen again. No minority, whether he or she be black, brown, yellow, red, white or in any other way &#8221;different&#8221; should be allowed to suffer like that or to feel the pain of humiliation, indignity, servitude, persecution and the denial of the most basic and fundamental rights because we are all God&#8217;s children.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">It is incumbent on us all to stand up for the weak, the vulnerable, the deprived, the despised, the enslaved, the voiceless, the &#8221;different&#8221; and the persecuted wherever and whoever they are because to love others as we love ourselves is God&#8217;s primary law.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">They must never be allowed to walk alone because it was that spirit of standing up for others and fighting for the weak and helpless and the display of such love and selflessness that eventually freed the so-called &#8221;slave&#8221; from his hideous captivity in the film titled &#8221;12 Years A Slave&#8221;.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">It was the goodness, love, kindness courage and inherent power of those who refused to remain silent and who were ready to take a risk and stand up for truth and justice that caused the man to regain his freedom and to be returned to his family in Washington after being enslaved for twelve long years. What a man. What a film. What a great and powerful rendition of truth and what a testimony of man&#8217;s inhumanity to man.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">What compelling evidence and confirmation of the eternal truth that tells us that no matter how dark the night may be, &#8221;joy comes in the morning&#8221;. What an affirmation of the undeniable fact that ultimately good always triumphs over evil. What a magnificent example of God&#8217;s power, grace, manifold blessings and great mercy.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">I urge as many as possible to find the time to watch &#8221;12 Years A Slave&#8221;. You will never be the same again.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Having watched this film I believe that the case for reparations for the slave trade must continue to be made. If the world can give the State of Israel back to the Jews as compensation for persecuting them for thousands of years and killing 6 million of them during the Second World war alone why can&#8217;t that same world pay reparations to the African for enslaving him for thousands of years and for killing at least 30 million of our people over the ages.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Why can&#8217;t the western powers be made to pay reparations to Africa for what they subjected our people\u00a0 to even after the institution of slavery and the slave trade was formally abolished and particularly during the colonial era?<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">As a glaring example of the sheer cruelty of the Europeans during that period, King Leopold 11, who ruled Belgium from 1865 to 1909, actually owned the Congo and all that was in it as part of his personal estate.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">By virtue of his supposedly blue blood, one man owned millions of Africans and all their land and chattels even though he resided thousands of miles away in a distant Europe.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Such was this man\u2019s inate brutality and monstrous power that he orchestrated and directed the slaughter of no less than 15 million Congolese Africans whilst he ruled from Brussels. This was so even though he never set his foot in Africa throughout his long reign.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Yet the world sat by silently and did nothing. As a matter of fact many of his fellow Europeans actually applauded his actions and described him as a good example and indeed the epitomy of all that was noble and all that ought to be expected from the very best of European royalty. I ask again, what did the black man do to deserve this?<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">What about Cecil Rhodes, the Englishman man who, according to European historians, &#8221;literally and lawfully bought&#8221; a large part of southern Africa and all that was in it and who named that new frontier after himself by calling it &#8221;Rhodesia&#8221;? He also sent millions of Africans to their early graves. This is the same Cecil Rhodes who established the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship for Oxford University and whose money has helped, and still helps, to educate some of the western world\u2019s most distinguished and celebrated leaders by paying for their fees at Oxford. One of those leaders was a young man by the name of Bill Clinton who took immense pride in being a Rhodes Scholar and who later became the President of the United\u00a0 States of America.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Little did Clinton and all those other \u2018\u2019great\u2019\u2019 future leaders of the western world know that the money that was used to pay for their \u2018\u2019Rhodes scholarship\u2019\u2019 at Oxford was in fact blood money which had it\u2019s origins and roots in the suffering of the tormented souls, wasted lives and barbaric slaughter of millions of dispossesed and enslaved southern Africans that were bought, sold, maimed, enslaved and butchered in the diamond mines of Cecil Rhodes\u2019 De Beers company.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\">It was this pernicious state of affairs that provoked Mr. Ronald King to post the following words on his Facebook page on august 3rd 2015:<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\">\u2018\u2019Every black child in grade school is taught that Adolf Hitler killed 6 million Jews and is the worse human being that ever lived. On the other hand our children are taught that the \u2018\u2019Right Honorable\u2019\u2019 Cecil Rhodes, the founder of the De Beers diamond company in South Africa, who killed ten times that number of Africans is a hero and a statesman and if they study hard and do well in school they may win the Rhodes Scholarship, the oldest and most celebrated international fellowship award in the world. They don\u2019t mention that those scholarships are paid for by the blood of their ancestors\u2019\u2019.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Such was the power of Rhodes\u2019 sinister, evil, pervasive and malevolent legacy that it took over 100 years and a bitter and prolonged 15 year civil war (from 1964 to 1979) for the black Africans of that country to secure their rights, to be recognised and acknowledged as being human beings, to win the right to vote and to install democracy and majority rule.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">It was only after all this was achieved, in 1979, that the name &#8221;Rhodesia&#8221; was dropped like a hot potato and was changed to &#8221;Zimbabwe&#8221;. I ask again, what did the black man do to deserve this?<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">We need not go into the sufferings of our black brothers and sisters in apartheid\u00a0 South Africa at the hands of the white Boers from the day that the Dutchman, Van Riebek, arrived on the southern African coast in 1604 and saw what he graphically described as &#8221;stinking black dogs&#8221;. We need not talk about the humiliation and enslavement of our fellow black Africans at the hands of the Arabs of the Sudan, whether it be in Darfur or Southern Sudan for over 500 years.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">We need not go into the sheer barbarity and inhuman suffering that our brothers and sisters were subjected to in the sugar cane fields and the coffee and bannana plantations of the West Indies and South America for many centuries.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Everywhere we look throughout world history the story is the same: Africa and Africans have been pillaged, raped, tortured, humiliated, enslaved, butchered, wrenched from their families, scattered, bought and sold, considered as chattel and treated with the most explicit and extreme forms of brutality and violence by those who have a different skin color to us and those from outside our shores.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Yet still there have been no reparations and no formal apology.\u00a0 Instead what they have given us today is the the &#8221;second slavery&#8221; of foreign debt and humiliating servitude by every single African country to the western monetary agencies such as the IMF, the Paris Club, the Bretton Woods Institutions and the World Bank.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Those evil and opaque bodies and their paymasters and agents are today&#8217;s slave masters and they have turned successive African governments into little more than desperate pimps, shameless prostitutes and indebted and pliant little beggars.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">They have squeezed the very life out of our people, destroyed the future of our respective nations and blighted our collective destinies. This is neo-colonialism in it&#8217;s most primitive and raw form. I ask again, what did the black man do to deserve this?<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Yet thankfully there is still hope and God&#8217;s power still remains sure and ever present. He is ever faithful and His promises are ever sure.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Nothing drives that point home more than the fact that despite all we have suffered over the centuries in the hands of those that enslaved us and that viewed us as nothing more than worthless chattel, today it is a black man of free African descent, whose forefathers were never slaves and whose proud ancestry can be traced to modern-day Kenya on the east African coast, that is the most powerful man in the world.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">That man&#8217;s name is Barack Obama, President of the United States of America. The fact that such a man with such a heritage can be President of a nation that once prided itself on slavery and that once regarded the black man as nothing more than a glorified chimpanzee is a testimony to the power of God. Yet the African is not alone in this respect.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Apart from the Jews, the Red Indians of North America, the Armenians of Asia and the Aborigines of Australia there is only one other group of people that have suffered almost as much as the African in the hands of other races in human history.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Those people are those that were once known as the &#8221;serfs&#8221;- the slave under-class of slavic Russia. Like the African, the serfs and peasants of Russia were also treated with disdain, regarded as chattel and viewed as being sub-human by the Tsars and ruling class of the Russian Empire.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">They also suffered immeasurably in their millions for thousands of years under successive Russian governments and rulers. Like the African, they were also &#8221;owned&#8221; by their rulers and they lived or died at the pleasure of the nobility.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">It is yet another irony of fate and another testimony to the awesome power of God that today the second most powerful man on the planet \u00a0is a proud, confident and strong-willed Russian whose ancestry can be traced directly to the serfs of mother Russia and who comes from equally humble origins. His name is Vladimer Putin, the President of the Russian Federation.<\/div>\n<div id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1439324976521_6729\" class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1439324976521_6728\" class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1439324976521_6727\" class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1439324976521_6726\" class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1439324976521_6725\" class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">The world has indeed been handed over by God to the seed and lineage of those that were once oppressed and that were once treated as sub-human by others. The meek and the once despised have indeed inherited the earth. Yet that is not good enough. We have far more to do.<\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1439324976521_6721\" class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">The case for reparations can and must still be made for Africa and Africans in particular and we must begin to make that case without fear or favor right from today. We must pick up the gauntlet and take over the baton from where others \u00a0left off. We must acknowledge the fact that if we, as men and women of color, do not do it ourselves no-one will do it for us.<\/div>\n<div id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1439324976521_6722\" class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1439324976521_6723\" class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1439324976521_6720\" class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1439324976521_6719\" class=\"yiv4496144492MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">May the souls of all those that suffered and perished as slaves continue to rest in peace. God bless Africa.<\/div>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Related Posts generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sometime last year I watched the Hollywood blockbuster titled &#8221;12 Years A Slave&#8221; starring Brad Pitt and the Nigerian-born actor Chiwetel Ejiofor.\u00a0 After watching the film I was at a&hellip;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Related Posts generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions","category-femi-fani-kayode"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>WHAT DID WE DO TO DESERVE THIS? 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