The (im)possibility of a symmetrical comeback?

Wendy’s, Cannibals, Modernity, and the Boy from Ghana
(article by Pius Adesanmi)

"We were about to place bets when his eight-year-old son stormed out of his bedroom screaming: “dad, turn on the Tee Vee!” My friend reached for the remote control and flicked on the television. Wendy’s new commercial was on. The lad asked: “Dad, why do the tribesmen want to eat that innocent man?” A hush fell on us. The palm wine turned stale in my mouth. My friend looked at me in exasperation. I looked at him in exasperation. Oro p’esi je! All the answers one could have given the boy have been devoured by the question, as the Yoruba would exclaim in circumstances such as this. How do you explain the discursive politics of Wendy’s new commercial to an eight-year old?

.....

“How do you do that when the cards are so thoroughly dealt against us”, my friend ventured. He continued: “We don’t even have the pedagogical resources to counter Wendy’s narrative at age-appropriate levels. Take the case of your countryman, Chinua Achebe. Things Fall Apart is a great material. Do we have abridged, Children’s versions of that great African book? If my son had encountered masquerades in age-appropriate versions of Things Fall Apart, perhaps his question today would have been: Dad, why is Wendy’s making those masquerades look bad?”"

I have no idea that so recently Wendy's had such an abominable commercial, but then again, i shouldn't be surprised at this manifestation of a colonial discourse that is much more pervasive and deep-seatedly archived than Wendy's. Along with this stale surprise - yes, stale is the word -, I share the exasperation of having all the cards so thoroughly dealt against us! What do you do when "all the answers that could've been given have been devoured by the question"? I'm talking about the difficulty of personal encounters (be it with friends, classmates, genuine inquirers, etc.), but of course, this preemptive-gagging situation is ubiquitously beyond the personal. What do you do when what you say will inevitably be reduced to being "too emotional," "resentful," "bitter," "extreme," "one of those (nuts)"... while what is being said/asked/assumed on the other side is universally backed up by History, by Reason, by "Humanity"?! Not that this suffocating asymmetry will/can stop you from expressing whatever you want to/need to/must/can't help but express, but i just wonder, how do you shut the nonsense up effectively? How do you block - at least temporarily, at least in your presence, at least from your bleeding ears - the stream of obscenities that have been invading, killing, pillaging our worlds since conquests? How do you respond ethically when you can't respond symmetrically (yet?)? Rage? Calm? Silence? Maybe your body reacts before you do. Maybe you don't have that much control no matter how much you try to strategize about it. I know there's no one answer, no formula, no easy this-is-what-you-need-to-do, and perhaps no adequate countering weapons to hold beforehand... I just wanted to hear from you, my dearest friends, mis compañeros y compañeras, about your experiences/thoughts/feelings..... What do you do when you are asked "why do (you) the tribesmen want to eat (us) the innocent man"?