Interview with Kola Boof

It's no wonder that bestselling author Kola Boof is now openly referred to as "Sudan's LEAST favorite daughter". In August of 2002...Arab Muslim gunmen attempted to kill Boof outside Los Angeles but found themselves on the run when Kola Boof pulled out her own gun and shot back at them!

JANINE: "Hi Kola. First of all..as one Black woman to another, let me applaud you for your courage. I am literally in awe when I read about you. You truly bring to mind the words African Warrior Queen."

KOLA: "Thank you so much, but I am not a warrior and I am not a Queen. I am a good daughter and I am a womanist. I believe that the meaning of life is that your deeds outlive you. But I am not a superwoman."

JANINE: "And so modest, too!" (they both laugh) "Kola, listen...this is really serious. These people who run your country are saying that you are such a traitor to Islam and to Sudan that you need to be...eliminated from this earth. Aren't you scared?"

KOLA: "Well, ofcourse I am. But I would not be the first person who was killed or imprisoned or beaten for speaking out against slavery and Arab Muslim oppression in Sudan. This is a chance I had to take for the Black African people."

JANINE: "I am so shocked that in this day and age we still have slavery in the world. Many of us Americans aren't familiar with what's going on in Sudan, so can you talk about that?"

KOLA: "Slavery...is just a terrible sympton of a horrible disease that has been in Sudan for centuries now. You know, we have ethnic cleansing in Sudan. The lightskinned Arabs are the elite, the ruling class. Everyone wants to be them, look like them and be accepted by them. But what everyone doesn't want--is to be Muslim. This is what causes the civil war. My country is divided into the Arab Muslim North, which is where I am from, because my father was an Egyptian Arab Muslim...and then the South, which is very African and populated by charcoal Black people, the original Kushites as a matter of fact, the Dinka, Nuer, Shilluks and others. In the middle we have the people who are my color--dark brown--but most of them are mixed and they do not consider themselves African. Even as dark as me, they will slap you if you call them Black or African. They want to be considered Arab. Many of them are Nubians who mixed with light Arabs. These Nubians straighten their hair and they go to Turkey and marry White street prostitutes and bring them back to Sudan and try to pass them as respectable women--all because they want to breed lighter children who can pass for "Arab". That is the goal. Many Nubians who can become my color will turn on their own families and run away and embrace Islam. So this root of colorism is what causes the ethnic cleansing in Sudan, the civil war."

JANINE: "Boy oh boy. You know this reminds me a lot of the color issues in America. I heard that your Egyptian grandmother put you up for adoption because of your skin color."

KOLA: "Oh yes. My Mahdi Pappuh was killed when I was a child because he spoke out in public against the Arab Muslim government in Sudan. His mother, my grandmother, she had always hated that he married an African woman, but such a dark charcoal black one--that is what made him settle in Sudan instead of Egypt. So when my parents were murdered, my grandmother put me up for adoption. Yes."

JANINE: "Wow. I think you're beautiful."

KOLA: "Thank you. My charcoal Black mother was a Gisi-Waaq Oromo. They are extremely beautiful Black women. Very graceful and petite. She never walked on ground, she glided."

JANINE: "What about the Black African people, Kola, who have accused you of witchcraft? Oh, I know...but seriously. Because you have publicly stood up for gay rights and called it 'normal behavior' and because you refuse to be covered up, you're naked on your books."

KOLA: "My breasts are bare to honor the Nilotic Goddess religions of the Nile River, I refuse to explain that again, I choose Africa not Islam..and as for homosexuality...I am not a homosexual. I am a straight woman. But why should I be afraid of homosexuals? They are normal, yes, I believe that. I also acknowledge that we have ALWAYS had gay people in Africa, the gatekeepers and dance people were gay--some of our greatest Warriors and Queens were homosexuals. What's wrong with saying that out loud? And why do we have to stone women to death just to prove that we accept Islam."

JANINE: "So this is why they want you dead...because you are saying these things out in public?"

KOLA: "I believe that religions are man-made..they are NOT God. God is God. Religions are just institutions that men came up to have power and control. I would like to see us women start our own religion, but anyway, I have scorned Islam...which is punishable by death, that's the nature of the religion you see...and I have revealed that all over the Arab world, Black African people are enslaved and treated like cattle--mainly and foremost, because they are Black. The Arabs have a word that's like Nigger, it's "Abeed", which means 'slave race'. This is what they reserve for Blacks, even the Arab Blacks with socalled good hair and brown skin are called "Abeed". Have you ever seen dogs chained up to the back doors of houses...dogs who live outside and eat outside?...well in Arab countries, there are Black men's children chained to the back of houses this way. There are Black women who work in Arab kitchens--their tongues cut out of their heads. Sudan's Arab government, the NIF, they actually finance this satanic evil. Why don't you just ask Minister Louis Farrakhan? He's good friends with Sudan's Arab Islamic President, Al Bashir. Farrakhan loves the Arab Muslim governments of North Africa. They're his biggest supporters."

JANINE: "My God. Now that's deep."

KOLA: "Not only deep, but true. In Sudan, the Black Africans have a name for Minister Farrakhan. I use it, too. We call him 'The White Bastard'."

JANINE: "Well, Kola, I'm not about to go there with you girl."

KOLA: (laughs) "I know. He might have us killed, ha? Murdered in the name of Allah. You know, it's a shame Malcolm X had to die. In Africa--we really loved Malcolm X. We called him Red Rooster. He was an authentic Black man, a King among men. Him, I would like to give birth to again. He was every Black child's dream. It's a shame that the Arabs only showed Malcolm their livingrooms when he visited their world. Their mosques. If he had seen what they had tied up in the bedroom...or pacing the kitchen...or tied to the back door, he would not have been fooled by those Arabs who so love and court American blacks and call them brother to their faces, but NIGGER behind their backs."

JANINE: "Girl, this is deep."

KOLA: "Yes, let's talk about something else. Cowardly hypocrites like Jesse Jackson and Minister Farrakhan make me sick to my stomach. This is why we Black women must give birth to some real men. Men of honor."

JANINE: "I have heard that the Black Southerners of Sudan call you QUEEN KOLA--but how do the Northerners react to you? You're a Northerner yourself."

KOLA: "Well, the Northerners mostly hate my guts. But not all Arab Muslim people are prejudiced, evil Nazis, you know. There are many Northern Arabs who have written to me with their love and support. Many of them are also oppressed by Sudan's governments for other reasons. Many Muslim people believe in peace and goodness, but the religion is just too violent and too masculine for goodness to dominate it. And these people are good people...but they're cowards, because they know what is being done to Africans in Sudan and Egypt and yet they do nothing about it."

JANINE: "You have expressed a desire to see Israel triumph in the middle east, a position which is not popular with Black American leaders."

KOLA: "Well, that's because Black Americans are ignorant to the true picture in the middle east. Certainly, the Jews are not brothers to us, either. Israel is not a friend, in my opinion, to Africa. But the Arab nations are like parasites against African humanity. They exploit us, degrade and dehumanize us, enslave us and teach us to hate our own skin and hair. Amiri Baraka had a controversial poem inwhich he asked...WHO HAS KILLED MORE AFRICANS?....he's such a fool, to me, because he doesn't realize that the Arabs have enslaved and killed African people for thousands of years. If I had to choose between the White man and the Arab...give me the White one. Atleast he can be manipulated and impressed. Atleast he is not as psychotic and blood-thirsty as the Arab man is. The White Caucasoid, the Arab,the Jewish Caucasoid, the Asian and the African...all of these men are DEVILS...but the worst of all is the Arab...and because the African has almost no real power in this world, he is the lesser Devil. But still, the men are the ones who make our lives unbearable and filled with joyless, numbing stupidity".

JANINE: "What do you think about the peace talks and the peace agreement they're trying to sign in Machakos?"

KOLA: "I think it's meaningless, because it won't change the lives of the oppressed Black people of Sudan. To be honest, I don't see much hope of North Sudan ever having peace and harmony with South Sudan. And I completely blame the Arabs for that. Perhaps if we could have a real African hero, a true Black leader as the President of Sudan with a democratic government--then we could have unity and justice in Sudan."

JANINE: "You have a book out right now...a really good collection of short stories called LONG TRAIN TO THE REDEEMING SIN: Stories of African Women...I loved this book."

KOLA: "Thanks."

JANINE: "But there was a character in one of the stories, a Black supermodel who said, quote....the black man is the biggest disappointment since GOD....."

KOLA: "You know what...I truly love Black men...the love of my life, the only man I have ever loved...is a Black man. Anyone who reads my work knows that I love Black men...but when I wrote that...[that the Black man is the biggest disappointment since God]..I meant that. I truly meant it. Many black women write to me and tell me that's their favorite line in the entire book..."

JANINE: "But why Kola? I felt sorry for brothers when I read that line."

KOLA: "Well I don't. I get so sick of these women who refuse to hold OUR poor black men, OUR men...accountable and responsible for their actions. I have seen this in Africa where the men are so catered to, so spoiled and the women are second class citizens, invisible doormats. Look at me--my vagina cut and marked with tribal markings(!) so that Black men can proclaim me "pure". What bullshit is that? And look at the epidemic of RAPE in Africa..look at how the Black man judges us Black women on the color..the shade..of our skin instead of the content of our character. Look at how he hates the natural God-given African hair of African women and prefers the hair of the White man's mother--then he calls the White man every name but GOD, which is what he should be calling him considering the condition of the Black race. Look at this evil that we Blacks do to our own mother all over the world..these hip-hop pimps with their toxic rap videos, spreading their self-hatred to black children all over the world...these Black men in America who think that racism only effects Black men and have dishonored their own mother's history just to be VALIDATED by the White man's WHITE mother. Oh, yes...Black women are doing it, too, you say..interracial profiling...but everybody knows from Nairobi to Seattle, that we Black women never wanted these White Caucasoids. We love our Black men, but they don't deserve our love. They are the ones with the power and the freedom--to be selfish and insecure. Look at the way our men are breeding our African children off the planet...in exchange for Tiger Woods, for Vin Diesel, for Jennifer Beales. Look at this weak shit. Look at how they lie constantly on the Black woman, throwing mudd upon her character--almost always based upon how Black she is and how African the hair, how African the facial features--only they fail to mention that those are the real reasons they hate her. They hate her because she's black..and Black women..WILL make you black. Niggers don't want to be Black if they can help it. In America, the vast majority of Black children are raised by Black single mothers, which wouldn't be so bad if these women weren't so mentally and emotionally damaged. We have a community that coddles and spoils the Black male, but fails to develop Black daughters at all. It is that way in Africa, too. The society caters only to the men. On the law books, the women have no rights. Everyone talks of the poor Black man, the slavery that only HE went through, the racism that only HE faces, the discrimination and social abuse that only HE puts up with. It's such a load of bullshit. This is the disgrace of our entire race and Black men must not be allowed to degrade and dishonor us. We must not tolerate it."

JANINE: "Wow...I never thought of it that way, but I cann't deny it, either."

KOLA: "Look--it's time for us Black women to give birth to a new King. That is what I am saying. We women need to become competent and stop being delusional, stop being co-dependent doormats who allow this cycle of self-destruction to continue by trying to pretend it's not there. WE hold the power, because we have the WOMBS. Now let us women come together and use our spirit and nurturing, our inate goodness--we need to give birth to a new Black child. One who loves himself, accepts himself and respects and honors his own goddamned mother. It is time for the niggers...whether they be in Sudan or in Seattle...it is time for the Nigger men to be put to death. We cannot afford to keep giving birth to such worthless sons. A worthless son is like a pet rock. Have you ever noticed how the Black man asks for what he is not willing to give in return? They want love and loyalty, they want someone to stand beside them through thick and thin--but as an African woman, I ask you--Who did THEY ever stand by? It certainly wasn't us Black women. God knows we carried the world on our heads for our men, but look at how we are repaid. With disrespect, contempt and utter slander."

JANINE: "Do you worry that Black men will miscontrue your disappointment in them for...not loving them?"

KOLA: "I love Black men...and if they cann't see that, then they're stupid. But no, I don't care what Black men think about me. I am my own Queen. My loyalty is to my womb, to my children. As usual, we Black women have the important task of saving the race--and that includes the human race."

JANINE: "You know Kola, I was just watching your face, the pain in your eyes..and I wondered...how does she cope with being Kola Boof? How do you relax when all this mad drama fills your life?"

KOLA: "Ah...I cook. I love cooking."

JANINE: "Oh, that's right. Your editor was raving to me about your cooking. I hear you're like a Chef."

KOLA: "I've also started working out...now that I'm in my thirties. I meditate and I love to read good books. I cope by writing down my thoughts and cooking. I would like my own cooking show."

JANINE: "A lot of people say that you and your fiance had the perfect chemistry, the perfect love affair, and let me tell you, he is one gorgeous hunk of Black Brotha...but they also say that as soon as terrorists started shooting at you, he ran for cover and left you alone."

KOLA: "That's not true, and I really don't want to discuss him, but there a lot of factors in why we broke up."

JANINE: "Now, I heard you guys haven't really broken up. It's like he's been in your life for eternity."

KOLA: "Yes we did break up..but we still really love each other. That doesn't change just because you part company. He's the only man I ever loved. Our problem is that we have trouble accepting one another."

JANINE: "In your new book, DIARY OF A LOST GIRL, which is your life story and comes out in January of 2003...you did this beautiful essay that pays tribute to some of your favorite Black men. It's called THE LIGHT THAT I BLESSED, I loved it. Some of the men saluted are Ousmane Sembene, Spike Lee, Derrick Bell, Kalamu ya Salaam, Keith Boykin, Malcolm X and Denzel Washington. What is it about these men that makes you praise them?"

KOLA: "Well...the sad thing about being Black is that you must always think of yourself that way..for the sake and good of your children. It is the only way to achieve a clarity which can protect them, you see. The men that I praised fully understand that."

JANINE: "Now also in DIARY OF A LOST GIRL, you talk about losing your virginity to your Black American high school sweetheart who really dogged you out..but then...you become the mistress of a 40-something year old White man..at just seventeen he sets you up in your own condo and gives you a Fiat. You have an abortion, the details of which are so upsetting that I won't discuss it with you...but you were a White man's mistress for five years, Kola. Why did you stay?"

KOLA: "Because I didn't belong in America and I wanted a place to hide and he took care of me. I liked him a lot, too, he taught me how to be powerful...but it was the biggest mistake of my life. I should of never betrayed his wife and children by allowing him to exploit me the way he did. But I was young and..well not stupid, but I was angry and I wanted to be alone. He allowed me to be alone and to have power over that being alone. I wasn't lonely, I was alone. I lived like a Queen and slept like a whore. I thought it was great."

JANINE: "One of my favorite essays in the book, "WHITE DOLL", talks about your spiritual love for White women, as sisters, but it also discusses how you feel so disappointed by them. I was really impressed with how well you wrote about the historical relationship between Black women and White women, you really broke it down in a way that I don't think I could of. Your writing has this relentless honesty and yet it's very magical and pretty."

KOLA: "Thank you."

JANINE: "I was sad to learn about how White women in the publishing industry have made it so difficult for you to get published. They really don't want you to be heard."

KOLA: "No, they don't. They feel that my work should transcend race, and it bothers White women editors that I don't transcend race, because they want me to be...HAPPY". (Laughs) "I've also had them accuse me to my face of being uppity and arrogant."

JANINE: "In DIARY OF A LOST GIRL...and just let me say that I am nervous for this book to come out, Kola. I mean, honestly, I think it's a masterpiece..it made me cry quite a few times..but it's also incredibly confrontational and controversial...I know average Black folks and I'm not sure how they'll react to this kind of book."

KOLA: "The real Black people will love it...they will "get it", you know. But yes, the ones who are in that gray area between Blackness and delusion, the runaways, they will have a problem with it. Still, this is my soul book. I had to write it and I fought hard to have it published just the way that I wrote it. It's a controversial book, but it's a book that represents me well."

JANINE: "Girl, I'm not even gonna mention how this book ends. I have to tell you...that shocked me, Kola. The ending just left my chin right on the floor. I was speechless."

KOLA: "I wanted to end the book in an African way. Like my bare breasts on the back cover, I wanted to affirm my ancestral mothers. It was fitting the way it ended. And I meant the shit, too."

JANINE: "Who inspired you to be a writer?"

KOLA: "Tons of people. Toni Morrison, Richard Wright, Egypt's Nawal El Saadawi, who is my hero as a woman. She and Alice Walker, who created the term "womanist", are the women who made me create myself in confidence. Sherwood Anderson and Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin and Senegal's Mariama Ba. I loved Gloria Naylor, Audre Lord, I like Pearl Cleage and Nuruddin Farah...Gayl Jones inspired my writing style in fiction, I think. I'm brutal like her writing is and masculine, bitchy."

JANINE: "You're supposed to be making a movie I heard. It's about that Nigerian woman who's set to be stoned to death for having a baby out of wedlock. I heard it stars you with Djimon Hansou and Alfre Woodard?"

KOLA: "Yes, I was supposed to star in it, it's called SINS OF A LIVING WOMAN..Russom Damba was trying to cast those people you mentioned. Unfortunately, because of the "fatwa" (death contract) brought against me..the film's investors cannot insure me, so my role will probably be recast. They haven't fired me yet, but I feel it coming any day now. I'm hoping they still make the movie, though. It's such an incredible story and N'Bushe Wright would be perfect as my replacement..Yolanda Ross would be even better, actually."

JANINE: "SINS OF A LIVING WOMAN..what a perfect title for anything that features Kola Boof, I think."

KOLA: "Well, I am different, yes. I just pray that DIARY OF A LOST GIRL will reach the young Black women that I wrote it for. So many of them have no interest in books nowadays, and modern, know-it-all Black women are always hard to reach, but it is crucial that we begin to reach them. My being African makes it all the harder, because Black American women have so many issues of self-hate and they tend to avoid African women."

JANINE: "Aren't you fearful of how people will react to this book, though? Girl, I would be scared for this book to come out!"

KOLA: (In tears) "I meant everything that I wrote. DIARY OF A LOST GIRL is my soul book. This is Kola Boof. I have so many enemies who are very powerful. So many lies are told on me, so much cynicism is used to degrade and discredit my life. Ofcourse, Black women are used to that treatment. But I must speak my own truth. I must set an example to show that it's alright to speak ones own truth. Black women need to wake up from their delusions."

THE WOMEN TAKE A SHORT BREAK

JANINE: "Kola, I was laughing about you last night...because someone told me that as a teenager, your dream in life was to be a housewife."

KOLA: "Yes, that's true. Really."

JANINE: "But girl you out here shooting people's back tires off their cars and cuss'n fools out left and right, and to see you enter a room is like watching Queen Nefertiti come to life, you're so naturally GRAND--how could you have wanted to be a housewife?"

KOLA: "My mother back in Sudan was a housewife. All the women that I knew as a small child in Omdurman, that's what women were--housewives. It is the thing that I had so much respect for. So that was my dream, yes. The reason that I love to cook so much is because if my African mother was alive...that is the thing that would impress her. Not my books, not my political opinions or my womanist beliefs. She would be impressed and pleased that I can cook very well. I still set the table and use all the right serving bowls, the Ebrig is used. I have honored the clean house that nurtures. To African women, that is extremely important."

JANINE: "Kola, I really want to thank you for this interview. I am so glad that I came to know that you exsist. Everywhere I go, I am hearing Black women talking about this sassy chick from Africa." (They laugh)

KOLA: "I'm so glad that you liked LONG TRAIN TO THE REDEEMING SIN--everyone seems to love that book. Those short stories are very dear to me."

JANINE: "That was really one of the best fiction books I've read in a long time. But I think when DIARY OF A LOST GIRL hits the shelves, you're going to really have your hands full. Now that book is going to become a classic, Kola. It's one of the most unique, most entertaining books I've ever read in my life, and it changed me...it changed how I see myself as a Black woman in this world. I thank you for that."

KOLA: "I'm glad you liked it, thanks. tima usrah."

JANINE: "You be safe, Kola."

[tima usrah] means "through fire comes the family."

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