More than four decades after "independence," Africans continue to suffer from a feeling of inferiority to the race that colonized us.

Their brains are useless at home, but because they are white they get jobs abroad. A friend of mine, a distinguished professor at the University of Nairobi, told me a story of one such moron hired by the Kenyan government to oversee road construction in Nyanza. When local engineers told him that his design of a bridge to be built in a flood-ridden lake basin was flawed, he disputed them.They built the bridge to the Mzungu's specifications. Need I tell you what happened? Okay: the bridge floated on the raging waters of the floods like a piece of dry bark.

The colonial-era thinking that white people are smarter than were are is still haunting us. When I was a child growing up in rural Gusii, I used to look up to the sky and marvel at planes flying by.

"I wonder what human being is flying that plane?" I asked my cousin Wisi one day.

"It's not a human being; it's Omosongo (Mzungu)," Wisi answered, proud to have corrected his older cousin.

Although he was younger than me, Wisi was an authority on such matters. He had travelled extensively and lived in several parts of the country with his father, a policeman. He had seen cinemas and learned a lot about Wazungu. His narratives of the supernatural abilities of James Bond and Chuck Norris supported his argument that white people were superior.

This colonial mindset still exists and we have not done enough to end it. Those of us who have spent many years in the West especially have a greater obligation. We know that not all white people are "miraculously intelligent," as my father used to say, or clean as my mother still believes. We have done little to dispell these myths.

Last year, I spent the summer in Kenya and while talking to my brother, a recent university graduate, I mentioned that in the previous semester I taught a writing class at a premier U.S. university.

"Were there white people in the class?" he asked, genuinely.

"Yes," I answered. "And they were not the best students."

You had to see his face.

This complex of inferiority perpetuates neocolonialism. It is what makes a Kenyan bank official rush to the door to take a white man, who just walked in, straight to the teller's window while blacks stand in line, too scared to complain. It's why the cashier at the supermarket thanks the white man in front of me, but hands me change without looking at me. It's the myth that makes a Kenyan driver fail to stop for Kenyan pedestrians, but do so in a heartbeat at the sight of a white person. It's the reason a cop will ask me to stop taking pictures in Nairobi while white tourists go unrestricted. It explains why I have to dress in a suit and tie to see a Nairobi City Council official, whereas the white Canadian student walks in clad in a T-shirt, cargo shorts and sandals. It's this false illusion that makes me think I'm better than anybody -- other than the white man -- that doesn't belong to my tribe.