The Kola Boof Hoax?...The Kola Boof Fraud?

no, make that....the SILENCING of a Black Woman

by Simon Jenkins.

Amazingly, one of the most interesting women in America gets almost no press whatsoever, and in the six years that she's now been known to us in America, many have accused her of being a "Hoax" or a "Fraud"--yet in those six long years, no one has been able to come up with or has presented any proof whatsoever that she is indeed a hoax or a fraud.  

What has, however, been proven is that she is one of the most demonized black writer activists the literary world has produced in a long time.  But why?

Joseph Landis, a GREEN PARTY Political Analyst says, "Kola Boof presents a real quandary for leftist liberals in the USA and for African Americans who are Islamic, because she herself is undeniably a Liberal Democrat, therefore she can't be accused by the Left of being a cheerleader for the Right. The militants like Farrakhan risk alienating potential Black recruits if they start catering to the Arab cause too much, and Boof's presence highlights that.  The really sad thing is that if Kola Boof was Pro Arab and Pro Palestinian, she would be feted by the media and applauded by Susan Sarandon, Amy Goodman and Streisand types . But notice the silence. She is probably laughed about at white liberal social gatherings. They are so clouded by their own self conceit."

"More than that", says historian Claude Bell, "She's a black woman representing a part of the world--Egypt, Sudan and the Niler River--that the mainstream doesn't want to see represented by a black woman.  Her skin is dark and her looks are pure African.  She isn't olive complexioned with Arab features and the general whiteness that one would expect of that region.  She's also saying things that are hard to support--such as calling for the abolishment of all Men's religions, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddishm, everything.  Her work focuses on unpopular topics like colorism, black men's betrayal of the black community and she calls White American women 'bitches' and flaunts her bare breasts in public, but then claims that she's a feminist.  She's just not what people are used to, yet as an 'artist'--she's one of the purest ones we've seen in a long time."

Pure artist or not----the New York Times attempted to neuter Kola Boof in a 2002 article (the author refused to cooperate with the story).  The editors and reporters darkened an old movie still from one of Boof's Arab film appearances and called Boof a former "prostitute" (a charge she denies).  They suggested very broadly that she doesn't really exist and even quoted Kola Boof as saying: "I can't deny I'm a conniving person".  Strangely, this is the only statement that Boof makes in the entire article.  Miss Boof, for the record, says that she would never say such a thing about herself and that she was very shocked when she read that.  She claims, "I would never say something like that about myself to a national newspaper.  I can't believe that people didn't pick up on that."

As if the New York Times attack wasn't brutal enough, Kola Boof found herself roundly laughed at by most whites in the media in 2002---journalist/reporter Neal Pollack wrote nothing about the death threats against Boof and her children, but instead wrote a lascerating piece making fun of Kola Boof's name (read here: http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:Mpygpj5kxakJ:www.nealpollack.com/cgi-bin/blog/do.cgi/200212102317/permalink+Neal++Kola+Boof&hl=en&start=1). 

Connie Chung meanwhile (and producers at CNN) questioned whether or not a man of Osama Bin Laden's wealth and stature would have a "black" mistress and questioned whether or not Kola Boof was "pretty enough" to be chosen by such a powerful man---a slur that Kola Boof has painfully recounted as often as possible, because Chung wouldn't return her phone calls when she tried to enquire why such a statement would be made.  Boof contends that Bin Laden likes his women "circumcised"--not necessarily white or beautiful in a Western sense.

Members of The Nation of Islam besieged Kola Boof with harassing telephone calls during her appearances on numerous Radio Broadcasts (such as KJLH, WPFW and Pacifica Radio) and threatened not only Boof, but those who supported her in picketing against the FATWA death sentence that was placed on her head by the Sudanese government (according to a 2003 report at the United Nations).  And of course, the ESPAC (the official public relations unit of the Sudanese government) erected whole websites to declare that Kola Boof was a "hoax", a "fraud" and a "liar".  On many of these websites they rearranged or re-tooled actual news reports to perpetrate their portrayals of Boof as "non-existent" and "fraudulent", even to the point of claiming they'd never heard of her---despite the fact that Sudanese Government Officials had previously written entire Articles about Kola Boof in Arab newspapers in both Europe and Egypt.  Figure that one out.    

Through it all, however, there has been little justice for Kola Boof or her dilemna as an artist struggling to be heard, and many times, Boof made matters worse by viciously attacking her detractors and spitting back at them in loaded email blitzes.

"When she stands up for herself", says Los Angeles radio star and Boof supporter, Jamaal Goree, "It seems that people hate her even more." 

Industry Executive Mavis Hemphill says, "A lot of the Black media like ESSENCE magazine and Black Issues Book Review and JET need to be ashamed of themselves, because it's a sin that they haven't even mentioned this woman's name after all she's been through.  I've written letters and called these publications, asking them why they don't cover Kola, and their basic attitude has been that she's African--not one of us, or that her story sounds fraudulent, yet they don't have any facts that she's a fraud and they don't have any proof of anything bad about her.  I think the truth is that Black Media won't touch anything until White Media says it's O.K.  A lot of the Black Press don't like Kola Boof because she tells the truth for Black women and stands up for Black women.  She's the most truthful, straight out black woman I've read in a long time.  After I saw the interview she did in Africana. Com, I loved her to death, and nobody can deny she's a powerful writer."

Book buyer Antonia Madison says its because, "Kola Boof is not like the homegrown  Black women that Americans are used to.  She feels entitled to the same level of consideration and attention that White American women feel entitled to, and because she doesn't receive it--she acts outlandishly, hurt and bitter that she isn't being treated like a human being or valued as any other woman would be valued.  Not only has Kola not been valued, but her children have been dismissed as unimportant right along with her, and because this is a Black African woman, nobody really cares about her story or the wonderful books she writes."

Powerfully Gifted Writer Indeed.

It seems that everyone from radio hosts Bev Smith and Nkenge Toure to Nigerian scholar Chinweizu to American Author-Law Professor Derrick Bell to activists Keith Boykin and Joe Madison to publisher Jaime Foster Brown to novelist Stephen Elliott ("Happy Baby") and even THE NEW YORK TIMES itself....can't rave enough about what a talented, naturally gifted writer Kola Boof is, and this despite the fact that she's never had any formal education.

"It's amazing", says Buffalo,N.Y. book critic Chris Stevenson (Black World Today), "that a person can write so beautifully with so much depth and emotion--and yet they never went to school.  Sometimes I can't even believe that Kola Boof has no education.  She's so well spoken and just this incredible writer.  Her novel 'Flesh and the Devil' is on a level with anything written by Alice Walker, Z.Z. Packer or Toni Morrison, and that's no exaggeration.  This girl is a really brilliant writer and on top of that, she's totally original.  There's nobody else out there like Kola Boof."

Kedar Zimmerman, a White college student who started a Kola Boof Fan Club and sold "Queen Kola" t-shirts before graduating in 2003 says, "Kola Boof is like this totally underground rock star--only the hip people know about her."  

But Why Does the Negative Image of Kola Boof Persist?

"It's easier to call her a Hoax or a Fraud than to cover her story, to care about her life and her children's lives", says Black Voices Writer Damien Cole.  "I hate to say it, but people really don't care about certain kinds of Black women in general, and even many black women don't care about Kola Boof, because they can't relate to her.  Nobody cares and that's really what it is.  Period.  She gets called names and dismissed, basically, because nobody feels like dealing with all the issues and truths she raises.  She's the new Zora Neale Hurston, really representing black women in this moment, and like Hurston--people are too ignorant to recognize the image and message as it's standing before them." 

"You have to remember", says Publishing Executive Nafisa Goma, "that even when FOX NEWS profiled Kola Boof and confirmed who she was and that she had been the mistress of Bin Laden---that was not originally what they set out to do.  What they had set out to do---was to discredit her and to disprove her story.  But their fact checkers found out that Kola's story was true and so they had to report it as factual.  If you watch the footage from FOX NEWS---they darkened her image on screen just as the NEW YORK TIMES did in their article in 2002.  The people at FOX NEWS were very mean to her---even after they proved her story was true, they treated her mean."

"Kola isn't liked at all by White women in the publishing industry" says White book trade analyst Kate Wilson.  "And that really matters, because they wield the most power in women's literature and in the print media world, but they don't feel comfortable with Kola's books or with her boldness.  She's not like Oprah, she's seen as being very uppity, arrogant, difficult and unpredictable." 

Others, like the Afrocentric Bookstore in Chicago (which is one of several African-American bookstores that purposely do not carry Boof's books) claim that Boof's work brutally and unfairly attacks Islam, Arab people and "black men".  A worker at the store complained about a famous line from one of Boof's books in which a character states, "The black man is the biggest disappointment since God."  Yvette Gordon, a black media research analyst in Ohio says that the blunt themes and realistic treatment of social issues is what terrifies black men and white people about Boof's work.  Says Gordon, "She speaks up in a very profound way about what is the truth for so many black women, and because she focuses on the dark black woman and portrays them positively, black men and white people---mainly white women---don't like it.  They deplore the bitter truths in Boof's novels, but I love it.  I think she's the most fabulous writer I've ever read, but I do have this constant fear that she's going to be killed.  There's just too many people who hate her, in fact, I can't think of one group other than black women that doesn't hate her.  It's very scary." 

This Woman Is Dangerous

In the meantime, those of us who admire and respect Kola Boof's courage, beauty and boldness will have to make due with new death threats against her life (read here: http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2005/5/emw238965.htm) and with more of Kola's own stylized propoganda---including a new video documentary about herself that debuts ONLINE July 1st (see here: http://doorofkush.50megs.com/about.html) and a powerfully written autobiography "Diary of a Lost Girl" that promises to be even more controversial than the books that were already firebombed.

Though there are so many who hate the D.C. girl from Sudan...this reporter's love and prayers and best wishes are with her and I maintain that the real hoax is how the Media, both black and white, try to make this woman invisible.

British News--Kola Boof:

http://money.pacificherald.com/fullstory-insight-money+finance-newsID-8483.html

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