Mistaken Identity

Truth is having its morning coffee

I didn't want to put this on my sister’s elegy because it seemed disrespectful, but it needs to be publicized if only for surrealism’s sake. 

The Kenyan Media have been reporting that it is me that died. The reason that they know my name: back in 2016, I visited Kenya for the first time and met my biological father - a famous man in the country – after a 50-year gap. It was a big media event there. 

But they seemed almost totally unaware that my much more private and similarly named sister had immigrated to the USA.

Two of the media entities have deleted their articles, but this one has not. To add insult to injury, that link features my sister’s photograph, but uses my biographical details. My father, who strove for journalistic excellence during his lifetime would probably raise up from his grave and slap them all upside the head, if he could.

It is hard to feel anything other than anger about this compounding mistake and it reminds me of another falsehood which affected the Kenyan side of my family. 

Many of you know that my father, Philip Ochieng, was of the Luo tribe of Kenya – the same tribe as that of Barack Obama, Sr. Because Former President Obama’s family is/was Muslim, a blogger named Kenneth Lamb constructed a fable that the entire tribe is Muslim and that our tribe had been the slavers of every other tribe in the region. This happened back in 2008, during the former president’s first presidential campaign. Additionally, Mr. Lamb postulated that BHO, Sr. was mostly Arab which would mean that his son – whose mother was a white American – was not black African at all.

Barack Obama, Sr. 

When I first read this foolishness, I laughed. Not long afterward, however, I began to see this story repeated everywhere. Many of my friends repeated the story as fact, but the most jaw-dropping thing was listening in real time as the late Rush Limbaugh repeated it. (In fairness to him he did say that he didn’t know if it was true.) I also saw Larry Elder assert it repeatedly on his Twitter feed. 

Whenever I read/heard this, I tried to push back with the truth, but bullshit had the same head start that it always has. 

Related to this fiasco, was the American perception of the Kenyan Civil Conflict that happened in that same year. I watched as other self-styled Kenya-experts tried to frame it as a clash between Islam and Christianity, with the Luo allegedly being on the side of Islam. Heck, I’m no expert on Kenya either, but I knew that the Kenyan Luo are approximately 90% Christian. (For the record, my family consists of Seventh Day Adventists and Evangelicals. Many others, however, are Anglicans, with Kenya once having been a British colony.) 

Now that BHO Jr. is no longer president (yes, I know), no one cares much about his ethnic background – real or imagined. But the last time I saw some portion of these elaborate lies repeated was just a few months ago. 

What was the purpose of Kenneth Lambs tale? I think it was an attempt to sever the racial and religious connection that many black Americans had and have to the former president. We all know that it was mostly a futile endeavor, however. And, before someone reading this gets the wrong idea: I haven’t voted for a Democrat since the previous century. 

My lesson and yours: it doesn’t matter which media it is, they – we – will take the lazy way when setting reportage before the public. Big Media? Of course. Social Media? For sure. We of the New Media? Sadly, yes and I include myself. We will play toward our preconceived notions and prejudices. And we will blindly pass on information if it agrees with what we thought all along. 

That is because we are flawed and delusional to a certain point. How to minimize it? Keep it in mind every time we hit the publish button. Remember, the father of lies is always looking for an opening.

Rest in Peace, Father and Little Sister. God knows your names.