Egyptian-Sudanese-American novelist and poet Kola Boof has been an agent for Sudan’s SPLA and was the National Chairwoman of the U.S. Branch of the Sudanese Sensitization Peace Project. She has written for television and her many books include, “Flesh and the Devil,” “Long Train to the Redeeming Sin,” “Nile River Woman” and “Virgins In the Beehive.” She blogs at Kola Boof. comAs the wife of a Black millionaire, bestselling author and mom Kola Boof lets it rip about gold diggers and the Hip Hop community’s double standards on denoting who is and is not one.
___________________
Everybody’s been in Kim Kardashian’s mouth. Just as Ray J. stated in a recent television interview, that’s her claim to fame. And Kim Kardashian’s men, Black as they want to be, have to be rich enough to afford her—yet there’s no song on Black American radio that disses and degrades her. To the contrary, she’s written about as though we’ve been descended upon by Elizabeth Taylor.
O.J. Simpson’s famously dead wife, Nicole, was an uneducated “waitress” that he purchased Breast Implants for—then married and put in a five million dollar mansion. But there was never any song castigating her for being a skank and gold digger. Jennifer Lopez rose from a Solid Gold dancer and got all her breaks in life by sleeping with successful Black men who could further her career (Keenan Ivory Wayans, Sean Puffy Combs)…at which point…she took her “stardom created by the Black Community” over to White man Ben Affleck, then to her Puerto Rican husband’s bed; mission accomplished! Kimmora Lee Simmons, a rather pretentious phoney that I “viciously” slapped in the mouth several years ago—supposedly because I’m jealous and bitter about her Cabbage-Patch Face; Bread Box Shaped Body and don’t forget—her spectacularly flat ass, girdle-controlled tummy and butt pad supported photo shopped Ebony magazine layouts—started her gold digging in the African-American community, where she knew her failed Chinese model status would command top dollar. No Black officials greeted her with the words “skank” and no rappers berated her skin complexion or accused her of being a gold digger—as they did the singer Usher’s dark skinned self-employed Black millionaire wife.
Kimmora married Black hip hop Tycoon Russell Simmons, declared herself a “black woman” (as anyone in America can do at will; the Black Americans are ex-slaves and have no standards) and eventually launched a clothing line using Russell’s money he made off the Black Community (purporting this to be a “talent” in Essence Magazine); then after being dumped by Simmons for a more exotic even less Black-looking bombshell; tacked herself onto Djimon Hounsou (who, of course, I’m jealous that she stole from me; sarcasm intended). For this new gig, Kimmora had a baby despite the fact he wasn’t about to marry her—and, in my opinion anyway, dutifully produced the “lighter baby with good hair” as a holiday mascot for his skin-bleaching minions back in Benin, West Africa.
Fuck Kola Boof! (Oh he will sugar, he will).
Of course—nobody in the “Hip Hop Culture” refers to women like Gary Coleman’s White wife or Kobe Bryant’s video hoochie turned wife—or Kobe Bryant’s “rape accusing” Blond in Colorado with the SPERM of three men on her panties—as “bitches, Ho’s or gold diggers.” Black men just don’t disrespect the White Man’s Mother like that.
A few years ago, Kanye West and Jamie Foxx had a huge hit with a song about Gold diggers. This caused, at last, a music video that focused on beautiful child-bearing age Black women—the Black Man’s mother. At the end of the song Kanye announced, “I’m going to leave you for a White Woman!” And all of Black America and the White Pop music world laughed, applauded, cheered and drove the song to #1 on the charts—despite the fact that almost none of today’s rich and famous Black men being exploited for their money are getting bilked by Black women.
It was a totally different reaction than Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall got for starring in the 1950’s gold digging blockbuster “HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE”—an all blond Hollywood celebration of beautiful women’s right to be paid “at the altar” just for being bombshells. And there’s tons of other films that cheer and celebrate the entitled White gold digger from “GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES” to Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love Hewitt’s affectionate comedy “GOLD DIGGERS”—to all those celebrated Larry King Live and Anna Nicole Smith tabloid weddings. Amazingly, no one ever writes songs berating these types of women for marrying ugly rich men old enough to be their ancestor.
For beautiful Black women who want to be the rich man’s bombshell wife, however, it’s a whole multitude of double and triple standards.
Thirty years of rap stars, Black, White and Latino have singled out the Black man’s mother as “an innately born gold digger” and “nagging shrew” unworthy of love or respect as a woman. The message on nearly every single CD is that Bitches and Ho’s (which is how the Black Man’s mother is openly referenced on the public radio or at cookouts in the back yards of Black households in the United States) are to be used as sex mules; suitable for freaky sex, preferably discarded afterward and routinely impregnated.
You’re just a punk (according to many in Hip Hop culture) if you even think about taking her to a candle lit dinner or reading poems about her majestic dark shimmering face.
If you study songs recorded over the years by T.I., Polow da Don, Young Berg, Dr. Dre and even Jay Z…the lightness or darkness of said Black female’s skin is what these men encourage young boys to use for measuring how soon said Black Woman is to be discarded after receiving her 2-Live-Crew inspired beast fucking. On those same CDs by artists like Polow da Don, T.I., Young Berg and even early Jay Z, you’ll find songs celebrating Mixed-race Brazilian girls; the prized “Biracial” beauty; the European Hottie—but the slutty things these women do in the lyric are related with affection and not rapped about in a contemptuous hateful manner as when the subject is a “brown girl” or “Sista girl.” Even the “Red Bone” songs are no longer complimentary. High Yellow-skinned Negro women who once denied Colorism, benefitted from it and looked their noses down at Real Black Women are now beginning to get the Dark girl treatment in lieu of the White or Mexican fantasy she was always the “stand in” for in the first place. But skanky whorish gold diggers or not, the White and White-like colored women are promoted by Black men as “wife” material.
Whatever you think about me writing this commentary; I’ve already heard it. I’ve heard it all my life. Dark skinned women like me deserve to be on the bottom of the food chain and we’re just “bitter and jealous” if we dare raise issue with the double and triple standards.
It simply isn’t true.
I’ve had the most wonderful Black Man on earth love me, marry me and give me two beautiful sons (granted, he’s not American, but he’s still a Black Man). My ex-husband became a millionaire five years after we married, and we were together for ten, so no one can claim that I was a gold digger. Additionally, I’ve dated my own share of rich and famous Black Men. So I know that beneath the veneer of California’s Colorstruck sun-brine, the phenomenon of Black on Black love defiantly exists. I’ve had a plethora of interracial relationships as well. Yet still, most often in my life in America, I experienced what the majority of Black women experience; a kind of “color coded target practice”—Black men asking me if I’m dark skinned or light skinned over the telephone…Black men hyping me up to think I have a chance with them; taking advantage of our eagerness to love them, which many times includes food and living space by way of working class and inner city Black girls who often financially support and harbor unemployed Black men for years. And of course the endless Camel Shit about how being enslaved and raped hundreds of years ago by White invaders was in fact a “love affair” that Black (slave) women enjoyed and not the result of a brutal slave culture. Therefore, the attitude goes that modern Black women don’t deserve to heal and be happy and that they owe Black men a supernatural loyalty based on all that power and freedom these nappy Cotton patch goddesses wielded and shared with the White man back in the Black Queen’s good old slavery days.
A friend of mine on Twitter named Shine (@nativenotes) claims that it’s not fair to make this case regarding “Black men’s tolerance of Non-Black Gold diggers” using high profile Black men—“they’re not us” he claims. But I know multitudes of Black male Waiters, Lawyers, bookstore owners, Professors, Afrocentric gurus, traffic cops, bus drivers, security guards, bankers and dentists—and it’s the same story on every class level—they break their backs to wine and dine anything that’s lighter than Tapioca while disparaging, exploiting and publicly condemning any woman who looks like their Mother, or symbolically, the Black man’s mother. We won’t even get on the African-looking woman; our real true blood berry and original Mother. The hatred turned on her “deep dark skin, thick features and nappy hair” is proof positive that more than half of Africans worldwide has a grave waiting for them in hell. There’s no way that God created a whole race of women to be scorned, hated and lied on like this. There’s also no way that Black people can rationally “explain away” or “look the other way” any longer.
White women think that I hate them. But I honestly don’t. I idolize and love dozens of White women. I have love and support from many of them in my real every day life. There are several that I call family and am grateful for.
But in a general, National sense—there is also enormous justified resentment on my part. And I have the right to that resentment; to honor and respect it. Anyone who disagrees can get on their knees and ask God if I give a damn (there’s a good chance you might not get back up). Because I do not ask permission to feel what I know is true. Unlike the majority of Black American women I know, I feel enormous “entitlement”—the same sense of entitlement that White, Other and Biracial women seem to naturally exhibit. I am beautiful, brilliant and powerful. I expect to have the best and to be treated equally.
So when White women make the claim that we are “Sisters”—then deny that Colorism exists or that they benefit from White Supremacy often more than White males do; or that Black men have a specialized historical contempt for their Blackness which translates to an epidemic rejection of his own seed—that’s when I know that we’re not sisters. When White women, Latino Women, Asian women and all other “light brite flowing haired” so called Women of Color join in applauding National images of Black men spitting on the image of their own mothers—then I know that we are not sisters. When White Women say that it’s not important that Black children be born, that mixed babies are prettier and more valuable than Black babies and that “any child” can be Black—that’s when I damned sure know that we’re not sisters.
When all you can do in the face of my degradation is “feel sorry for me”—then I know that we’re not sisters. That is no part close to God—feeling sorry for someone. Either you believe in justice and equality or you don’t. And the fact is most females are selfish and just as greedy and self-serving as men are; so in the midst of the White Feminist “sisterhood” speeches, the Black women’s sassy cum intelligent Oprah-like passivity and the White and “Other” women’s soothing “sympathetic” blank stares—nothing ever changes; the hierarchy stays the same. The biracial woman is sent forth to act as a kind of “less threatening” Black image, but in reality, regardless of what she wishes to exhibit, her light image ends up reiterating that Whiteness is superior by virtue of her being something other than Black. In other words, no matter what the society says, she’s not really Black. She’s an “extraction” of Blackness (like Vanilla extract or Rum extract)—an extraction that Whites/Others can claim credit for whenever it’s convenient for them.
Biracial American women take this as a rejection, but it’s not a rejection of them. It’s just the truth about Post-Colonial/Post-Slavery society and how, ultimately, their lightness is used against authentic Black women.
Worse than all that—Black American women mistakenly think they have a stake in the establishment here. Though they have nothing to lose by completely rebelling against the social boxes (Christianity; our sons; her slave history; sexism’s male privilege; Islam)—they actually lose more and more of their genetic authenticity with each passing decade, because they’re still serving the larger plantation. As much as the Black woman is hated, she’s the one upholding and passing on the stereotypes about her inferiority and lack of human reproductive value. She doesn’t know how to fight back, and despite being famous for a “smart mouth,” she’s too intimidated to rock the boat…or compete. Her main obstacle is the Black man, because in general, he doesn’t give a shit what happens to her and she doesn’t have the courage to kill him off and giving birth to him over again—she’s no longer the Tulat Queen. And since she’s never cultivated and demanded her own unique physical “right to be” (a completely Black; un-mixed aesthetic)—she is unable to assert or have anyone (including Black men) back her image as a viable competitive brand amongst the rest of America’s garden. She only challenges the gaping lie that she is inferior via “sound bites” and “rants”—rarely significant tangible action.
What would be “significant tangible action”? Ten thousand Black women throwing “saved bloody tampons” at BET headquarters and chanting “Kill BET!” would be tangible action. Ceasing to purchase hip hop music that even suggests you aren’t being affirmed and celebrated would be tangible action. Ceasing to support videos and films that don’t perpetuate and flatter our public image would be tangible action.
The Black American woman is big and bad enough to shank me, her adopted African daughter, but not brave enough to SHANK the Black Man and White America. She makes excuses “Well it’s not all of them”…”I don’t want to be seen as bitter and evil”…she can fight for the Black Man to be respected as a man…or fight for her “son” against racist police…but it’s too painful for her to fight only for herself or her daughter’s image when those same sons casually spit back in her face or dismiss her valid complaints as bitterness.
Many Black American Female Scholars, Writers, Feminists and Public figures have a serious problem with Kola Boof. They feel that I’m obnoxious, out of control and that I exhibit a threatening attitude. To them, I’m an Uppity African woman—a flamboyant attention seeker. And I say Camel shit! What I speak…is pure fucking truth. And I speak my truth for the love of these Black American women (symbolically, daughters of my womb, Africa); I speak it on behalf of my own womb; my people’s authentic African beauty and my children’s right to exist and exist as themselves—Black children. I speak my truth because….I am not a Nigger. White America and Black America can take that however they want—but truly; you cannot dismiss truthful people as merely “bad attitudes,” “Angry,” “frauds” and “jealous nutcases” just because the breath of God is upon you.
And though quite a few Black American Scholars, Writers and Feminists will not be able to accept the following admonition…I say it anyway and I say it loud…I don’t have to be nice!
That’s a huge part of the problem, the silencing of the rage in Black girls by elder Black women who basically instruct us to stay in our places as we wait for change to come…and from where, I don’t know. It damned sure isn’t coming from Oprah Winfrey, the Church or nice, safe apologetic India.Arie. “You don’t want to be seen as angry”…”you can’t act ugly and expect people to care about you” (we won’t be cared about anyway, so where is the loss?)…but we never told Martin Luther King or Malcolm X that shit. Men have a right to rebel against their oppression and mistreatment. The room gets silent with respect when males refuse to be demeaned and hated on.
Somehow, I don’t believe that Harriet Tubman or Joan of Arc would tell me that I have to be nice about the color-based double and triple standards that pervade American culture. Standards that are now, slowly but surely, are infecting African culture. Just this week, we’ve got Gary Coleman’s White Wife (who looks like a life sized Chuckie Doll; not an angelic White savior) pimping his death by selling hospital photos and pitching a T.V. movie before there’s even been a funeral. Let’s see if the Hip Hop community will produce a rap song about that typical trick-ass White bitch! And let’s see how many White women purporting to be our “sisters” will cheerfully dance to it.
Yes, America. My Egyptian Sudanese-American ass is out here in sunny California producing Black babies and teaching them all kinds of “Kola” nut wisdom. You have to admit, I’m as hard as any rapper you’ve got—so how come you don’t like bopping your head to my profane Kola messages? Well, as we say in Sudan….bana/banu! (I came to stay). And whenever you feel like you want to kick Kola Boof’s ass—just get in line, take a fucking number and wait your turn.
