I can be hard to understand!

But I'm a straight shooter. That is, if you ask me a direct question, you will get a direct answer.

My apparent deceptiveness is totally related to the inability of quite a few people to ask me what I think directly. Then some do ask, and cannot imagine that the answer I give is the right one. They suppose that the opposite must surely be true -- and so they go on the happy way, wilfully self-deceived.

Ask me a straight question, however, and you will get the correct answer all the time. That is, unless you have given me very strong reason to distrust you. There are those, for instance, who will become outraged at an answer that does not conform to their needs and expectations. To those who feel so strongly in this way, I give the answer that they most need to hear, or the one that will keep them at the greatest distance from me, (whichever is more justified by reason).

But -- ask me a question and I will give you a straight answer.

If you are wilfully self-deceived because you think that being a white person and coming from Zimbabwe makes me conservative, or dull of wit, or necessitates me towards a particular point of view without recourse to developing another, then I wish you all the best and happy landings!

If you think you understand me quite enough already because of my gender, or my accent or the colour of my skin, I can only wish you blessings and a happy day!

If you are wilfully self-deceived, though, don't come running after me when a sense of this deception occurs to you, as if I were its origin and cause.

You know.
I isn't.