In a recent release by Sudanese womanist poet, Kola Boof, she announced that on Friday, March 3, 2006, she would be launching a new magazine 'Proof',
Here is her release in full:
PROOF Magazine
a new online journal for authentic black people (and those who respect authentic black people).
The debut edition will explain EXACTLY...what is "authentically" black, in detail, from an African perspective. We will no longer accept the U.S. slave master's definition.
After so many generations of blatant exclusion of the darkest among us--and after being disgusted by the niggeris self-hate promoted by BET...I decided to launch PROOF.
There will be a salute to Octavia Butler and a report on today's Black Egyptians.
The legendary Nigerian Scholar Chinweizu just gave a lecture in LAGOS about the future of the black people--it caused quite a stir--and he is allowing me to reprint the entire lecture for my debut edition.
For those who don't realize it, Chinweizu is like the Cornel West of Western Africa.
A very controversial figure whose only peers are his good friend Chinua Achebe...and his faux enemy, Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka.
Chinweizu wrote the classic book "The West and the Rest of Us", which was edited by Toni Morrison.
Although I consider Chinweizu to be decadently sexist and outrageously homophobic....I do agree with the Lagos newspaper that claimed: "if we could set Chinweizu as King and Kola Boof as Queen, therein would lie the balance of a perfect mother and father for the African people."
There will be regular articles by myself, poetry, short stories, depictions of black love via photos, love for black children, public commentary....
Black Masculinity, Womanism and all forms of sexuality will converge and be represented...
...and the purpose of "PROOF" will be to provide clarity and messages of self-esteem and set a "new revolution" for authentic blacks (those of us who love all human beings, but don't want to become mulatto or mixed race, which is what America forces upon black people).
Eventually...this will become a print MAGAZINE, very similar to JET...but much more substantial in content and featuring beautiful blackentric people with natural African hair on the covers.
KOLA BOOF
You can now read proof magazine at www.proofmagazine.i8.com
Sounds like incendiary stuff from Kola Boof, Nnorom. Let's wait and see what she does with the magazine.
ReplyDeleteA lot of people seem to have this suspicion about her, that she's on a constant self promotion trip. Let's hope she avoids that with this venture.
If she's going to have people with 'natural hair' on the cover, then personally, I hope she ditches those extensions she has in many of her photos. Charity begins on one's scalp, is what I always say.
M
Kola Boof wears African hairstyles.
ReplyDeleteShe doesn't wear blonde and Euroopean hair looking like an idiot, so I have no problem with her extentions, because she is still honoring an African based cultural look that is glorifying natural hair.
I agree she's a genius at promoting her books and promoting her causes for the Sudan people. She is truly a blessing at drawing attention to the issues that need to be discussed.
Her work is incendiary only because it's so full of truth and black people are ashamed for the world to see what hateful, self-destructive behavior they indulge in as a matter of course.
God bless Queen Kola for having the courage, beauty and the brain under the right scalp to do so much more than jealous haters like MW. It's time for the issues to be raised and Kola is the only one doing that. She honors our African identity without apology.
More power to the Queen.
My God, look what I've gotten myself into!
ReplyDeleteI accept Kola Boof wears braids, as I've seen in every photo since my remark above, so I'm happy to be corrected in that regard.
I certainly didn't read the rest of my comments as being the criticism of a 'jealous hater'. If I say it 'sounds like incendiary stuff', that is not necessarily a criticism. What is incendiary is not necessarily bad for you.
As it happens, I've already done a link to Proof on my blog, and I've been there several times to read this and that.
I hope no more Bernadette Stephi misreads me.
I'm outta here