"African men do not talk about kitchen issues in public."

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Someone wrote a comment to this effect in response to a post by a man about the elevated prices of maize meal (a Kenyan staple): "African men do not talk about kitchen issues in public."

Now, under normal circumstances, I would have dismissed the comment as the silly opinion of one person. But these were not normal circumstances. To see what I mean, check out this article, which was published the other day: http://www.nation.co.ke/…/Hey-were-men-we-dont-discuss-the-…

As hard as it is to believe, it appears that a noteworthy proportion of Kenyan men actually subscribe to this way of thinking. The sentiment was obviously designed to silence those who would criticize the government of the day. But it points to a larger problem in our society: People are actually conditioning themselves to be stupid in the name of preserving "African culture/masculinity."

What kind of society tries to censor people who want to express concern about the accessibility of food, one of our most basic needs? We're talking about food, not an afternoon of golf in a country club. Without sufficient access to affordable food, people experience malnutrition and some die. These people include the most vulnerable among us: children. Yet some among us are actually telling men to shut up as some of our people face starvation or struggle with malnutrition because it is the "manly" thing to do.

You know, there's only so much we can blame our politicians for. At some point, we have to accept that we, the people, are the worst kind of idiots.

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