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Black| Queer| Feminist| Activist| Academic| Poet| Other
Sinoxolo Neo Musangi was born someone else. Years later they became Xhosa and was renamed Sinoxolo by Igbo gods, and Neo by a fold in their heart, in the presence of Tsonga spirits near Mt. Kenya. That was a century and twenty three years after the police had fired at a crowd protesting against the eight-hour work day in Chicago.
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Transgender Day of Remembrance, Nairobi Kenya
"Precarity [...] characterizes that politically induced condition of maximized vulnerability and exposure for populations exposed to arbitrary state violence and to other forms of aggression that are not enacted by states and against which states do not offer adequate protection. So by precarity we may be talking about populations that starve or who near starvation, but we might also be talking about sex workers who have to defend themselves against both street violence and police harassment."Judith Butler
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anJ4t9KOzqw
To be Trans* in Kenya, like in most other parts of the world, is to exist in a space of precarity and transgression. To speak on sexuality in this country, or research- even as a 'mainstream' scholar- the sexual realities of non-heteronormative Kenyans is digressive and carries with it a sense of danger. These lives matter. To me, these lives are worth intellectual and political attention. They, like hetero-cisgender lives, are part of the yarn that makes up the so-called Kenyan fabric. These lives are not made-up. These lives are lived.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVOV9wVmgFs
My account of Transgender Day of Remembrance in Kenya in the link.
http://www.iranti-org.co.za/content/Events/2013-TDOR/Musangi-TDOR-opinion.html
Labels:
Africa,
AfroQueerNation,
Audrey Mbugua,
Bodies,
Cisgender Priviledge,
Gender Identities,
Heteronormativity,
Hilton Hotel,
Iranti-Org,
Jinsiangu,
Kenya,
Nairobi,
Transgender,
Transphobia
Monday, October 28, 2013
All her life she had searched for the truth in being loved
Her heart had been turned upside down
By the kinds of loves she had desiredBut when she found love hidden in the fold of her sleeve She knew not what to do with itLike a whirlwind it swept the fineness with the dirt And trust had escaped with the blowing curtain So when she started searching again She knew it would be a different kind of searching Searching not for love and dreams and fantasies All her life would be spent searching... Just searching for things lost but never had And as the line went dead on the other end To be loved had become empty In the echoes of thrusts between truth and trust
Long lost in distant
Her heart had been turned upside down
By the kinds of loves she had desiredBut when she found love hidden in the fold of her sleeve She knew not what to do with itLike a whirlwind it swept the fineness with the dirt And trust had escaped with the blowing curtain So when she started searching again She knew it would be a different kind of searching Searching not for love and dreams and fantasies All her life would be spent searching... Just searching for things lost but never had And as the line went dead on the other end To be loved had become empty In the echoes of thrusts between truth and trust
She had to teach herself to breath Again.
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
The Child that Died
The child that died
In the shanty-towns of the cordoned heart
No longer lifts her fist against her mother
For they no longer shout Africa! Shouting the breath
Of freedom and the veld
The child that died
In the streets of her slain pride
Cannot lift her fist against her father
In the march of generations
That no longer shout Africa! Shouting the breath
Of righteousness and blood
For the child is dead
In Nyanga, Mokopane, Soweto, Soeding
A child dies again and again
The child stays alive
To her pain and agony
Everyday
The child that died
Lies in her mother’s house cold
With a bullet through her chest
A braai fork through her neck
Lifeless in her mother’s lap
The child that died
Forbids us from calling her name
For how shall we mention her name
In the midst of her mother’s screams
And the government’s silence?
The child that died
No longer peers through the windows of houses
and into the hearts of mothers
For they strike her over, over and over again
In her death they have been killing her
This child who just longed to play in the sun at Nyanga
The little girl who just wanted to love girls in Limpopo
The boy who, in Kuruman, just desired to be with boys
The child dead before a giant journeys over the whole world
That child is nowhere
And we die with this child
We are dead to this child
Everyday
How shall we call your name child of our mother?
And speak of love amidst hate crimes?
The child is dead
To herself
To us
Carrying no hate
Source: Adapted from The Child that Died at Nyanga by Ingrid Jonker
In the shanty-towns of the cordoned heart
No longer lifts her fist against her mother
For they no longer shout Africa! Shouting the breath
Of freedom and the veld
The child that died
In the streets of her slain pride
Cannot lift her fist against her father
In the march of generations
That no longer shout Africa! Shouting the breath
Of righteousness and blood
For the child is dead
In Nyanga, Mokopane, Soweto, Soeding
A child dies again and again
The child stays alive
To her pain and agony
Everyday
The child that died
Lies in her mother’s house cold
With a bullet through her chest
A braai fork through her neck
Lifeless in her mother’s lap
The child that died
Forbids us from calling her name
For how shall we mention her name
In the midst of her mother’s screams
And the government’s silence?
The child that died
No longer peers through the windows of houses
and into the hearts of mothers
For they strike her over, over and over again
In her death they have been killing her
This child who just longed to play in the sun at Nyanga
The little girl who just wanted to love girls in Limpopo
The boy who, in Kuruman, just desired to be with boys
The child dead before a giant journeys over the whole world
That child is nowhere
And we die with this child
We are dead to this child
Everyday
How shall we call your name child of our mother?
And speak of love amidst hate crimes?
The child is dead
To herself
To us
Carrying no hate
Source: Adapted from The Child that Died at Nyanga by Ingrid Jonker
Labels:
AfroQueerNation,
Death,
Hate Crimes,
Homophobia,
Kuruman,
South Africa,
Thapelo Makhutle
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
We Don't Die, We are Killed (or the Grammar of Violence)
I will be walking along Kimathi Street on a Tuesday night
I will have spoken about homosexuality and oppression
On the night they closely walk behind me
Close enough to not be ignored
I will have had a few drinks with the other three
I will have listened to karaoke
the good and the bad
I will be in a good mood
They will keep walking behind me
Behind us
I will start getting scared
walking too close for comfort
And they will be talking about me
As I walk along Kimathi Street on a Tuesday night
They will tell each other about me
And I will remind self that they do not know me
They will say that I am a shoga [gay] and they will swear in God's name
Haki ya Mungu tutamuua
They will talk about killing me
They will keep walking behind me
Behind us
I will quickly run for male priviledge on a Tuesday night
My friend will notice and overhear them
And he will quickly walk between them and I
I will feel safe with him
They will talk about killing me
As we stop to let them pass
I will be dead to myself
When I get home
We wait
I will have spoken about homosexuality and oppression
On the night they closely walk behind me
Close enough to not be ignored
I will have had a few drinks with the other three
I will have listened to karaoke
the good and the bad
I will be in a good mood
They will keep walking behind me
Behind us
I will start getting scared
walking too close for comfort
And they will be talking about me
As I walk along Kimathi Street on a Tuesday night
They will tell each other about me
And I will remind self that they do not know me
They will say that I am a shoga [gay] and they will swear in God's name
Haki ya Mungu tutamuua
They will talk about killing me
They will keep walking behind me
Behind us
I will quickly run for male priviledge on a Tuesday night
My friend will notice and overhear them
And he will quickly walk between them and I
I will feel safe with him
They will talk about killing me
As we stop to let them pass
I will be dead to myself
When I get home
We wait
Labels:
Africa,
AfroQueerNation,
Bodies,
Gender Identities,
Hate Crimes,
Homophobia,
LGBTI,
Nairobi,
Patrirachy,
Priviledge,
Safety,
Violence
Monday, September 23, 2013
One Forty Times Eleven Characters Later
Fatigued and shaken we wait
The smell of death spreading
Caught up in a war of another
The news have nothing new
Imaginary screams of babies
Calls for mama, daddy and god
In a second their eyes meet
His stare fearfully triumphant
Sounds of helicopters
And the loudness of fear
In the sirens of our hearts
I weep for me. You and all.
Tears for unknown friends
and familiar strangers.
The deaths I have died.
Mine and others'. We die.
Your ancestors and mine.
The coffee has been cold A sun and a moon after The cups sit uncollected He was here just yesterday Kofi Awoonor has crossed over
In the shadow of our deaths Kofi We carry life with grace And when the shadow dies We are dead to our own deaths
We have died before
Deaths not our own
And with one death
We offer to you a sacrifice
And in the death of another
We have had our slice
In the death of the everyday
We have become dead to life.
And in our dead lives
We can no longer live
As though we weren't dead
To our own lives
But when our deaths come
We will have forgotten how to
And our tears will be for another
We have been here before
Too much pain mate But not enough synonyms Streaming thoughts of hate And possible antonyms Still I love
Labels:
21 September 2013,
Africa,
Death,
Empathy,
Kenya,
Kofi Awoonor,
Pain,
StoryMoja Hay Festival,
Terrorist Attacks,
Tragedy,
Westgate Mall
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