Kola Boof

womanist novelist poet

Senegalese artist "SINDAWI" created this 2006 portrait of Kola Boof and called it "POWER: Queen Kola in New York". Each photo contains a link to another facet of Kola Boof's amazing life.

I hate it when white people call me "earth mother" and "mother Africa". I'm too young and wet behind the ears to fit those categories, not that any mortal woman ever could. --Kola Boof (2006)

I believe the meaning of life...is that your deeds outlive you. --Kola Boof (1997)

I love all human beings of every race and color--every sexual persuasion. It's totally untrue that I'm a separatist or that I hate anyone's race. My problem in America is that I am not a "nigger"--I do not wish to be white or to have children who look more like white people than like my ancestors in Africa. And anyone who dares to say this is suspect for rejecting white supremacy. Truly, I love all human beings...but white people are nothing special to my African eyes. ---Kola Boof (2005)

It's a lie that I hate Muslims and Arabs. I was born a Muslim and I am half Arab. My war with the Arab Muslim world is because of their incessant inhumanity towards African people and towards women. I don't prescribe any men's religions...not Christianity, not Islam, Judaism, Buddhism...we need to bring back the religion that our mothers had in the river in Africa. And we also need to rescue Africa by getting rid of Arab Muslim Imperialism, which is so much more debilitating than the evils of Western Imperialism. I don't care what anyone says--the Arab Empire is the satan of this earth and me telling the truth is not about hating anyone.--Kola Boof (2004)

My children have a wonderful father...a wonderful beautiful black man who rescued me from oblivion and made me believe that I was worthy of love and that I could be loved. He is the one who rules my house and he is the one who raises my sons. I am not anything like these stupid ass social critics try to brand me. I love men and men have always wanted to be around me. Always. Being a Womanist-feminist does not keep you from loving men. I'm the kind of woman that men like...but just don't fuck with me. That's all.---Kola Boof (2001)

 

The reason that men "rape" us...is to force us to cover our bodies and to relinquish our sexual power and live in shame. They want to dirty our sexuality and outlaw it...so that THEY can own it. American women need to realize that being rape didn't conquer me...it set me free. When men rape me...I get naked, I stay out of men's churches, I fuck who I want. It's my way of telling the rapist..."fuck you". Men have done unspeakable things to me and to all African women, because the black man's mother is the one woman on earth that you can do anything to and get away with it. She is the most unprotected...unwatered flower...on the earth.---Kola Boof (2006)

I am not a "woman of color". I hate that term with all my heart. I am a "Black" woman. And I am not stupid enough to believe that women of other races whose skin happens to have a smidgeon of coloring...feel some kind of solidarity with me. They do not. No one on this earth has been more betrayed than black women have, and so called "women of color" don't give a shit about me. Do not call me a "woman of color"...I am a "Black" woman.---Kola Boof (2006)

The South Sudanese need to form their own nation in 2011. There is never ever going to be peace or even a shred of human decency in Sudan until the Bashir regime in Khartoum is overthrown and removed. I would love to see the U.N., the Western Imperialists ...any damned body...go in there and drive Satan out of his Satan chair, because that is what Sudan has become. The Dinka and Nuer need to secede.---Kola Boof (2006)

When I speak at colleges and with women interested in literature, they always compare me to Alice Walker, Z.Z. Packer, Zadie Smith and these gifted types of authors, but they also have a major problem with my image and how my career proceeds in public as a kind of "circus" to their sensibilities. But what they forget...is unlike Z.Z. and Zadie and Alice....I never went to school or had any education. I don't have a piece of rolled paper with a ribbon to open doors for me. I started as a model and actress and I had to sleep with powerful men to get the position and ammunition it takes to be heard. It's ridiculous to expect me to behave like Z.Z. and Zadie and the other girls. I'm wild compared to them.----Kola Boof (2006)

The Black woman is the meteor that is coming to this earth. ---Kola Boof (1997)

On issues of colorism and anything else that destroys the Black community and erases the Black woman's womb...we should always remember that SILENCE EQUALS CONSENT. And we need more Alice Walkers and Toni Morrisons and black women who are willing to give birth...to a new son. I could really give a damn about people liking me. I want CHANGE for black people.----Kola Boof (2006)

I'm a professional cook and that's really the way I relieve stress. I also write poems and listen to a lot of music for recreation. I like to have a lot of sex. I read the Holy Bible, not because I'm a christian, but because I love the fables and I'm impressed by the Bible's awesome literary merit. No other book in creation is in a league with the Bible.----Kola Boof (2003)

My career has been most adversely affected by powerful White women in the publishing world and by Mulatto or Yellow blacks who were afraid of the raw truths in my work and my messages. These White women and Mulatto blacks did everything they could to stop Kola Boof's work from reaching the public, and there were a lot of insecure sell out Black men who stood against me as well. It wasn't that I didn't exist...it's that people didn't want me to exist. So they lied on me and they did what they could to make me invisible.----Kola Boof (2006)

I am NOT...a strong black woman. Please don't call me a strong black woman. I am a LIVING woman. I live my life.---Kola Boof (2003)

I learned English as a kid by watching soap operas. "Days of Our Lives", "The Doctors" and "Another World". Later I watched "Young and the Restless" and "All My Children" a lot, but I was really an NBC girl. Because I'm a writer, I love watching the mechanics and rythms of how soap operas are put together. It's always fascinated me. I think there was enormous literary merit in the writing of Agnes Nixon, Harding Lemay, Douglass Marland, Henry Slesar. I study soaps when I watch them, and that was a shining moment in my life that shocked me---being hired to write for "Days of Our Lives", a show that I learned English watching. I'm very proud to say that I wrote for a soap opera.---Kola Boof (2006)

Having my sons has been the gift of my life. Bringing them into the world was really the only dream I ever had. Everything else I do is from sheer calling. But my sons...were the only dream I ever had.----Kola Boof (2001)

The American media despises me and I hate their pot-smoking asses right back. I'm never going to be the kind of artist that people like. The people who will really appreciate "Kola Boof" probably haven't even been born yet. It takes enormous courage to acknowledge an artist like Kola Boof. I'm no rooty-poot like most.---Kola Boof (2006)

I've had a very hard life...and I just pray that the Universe will allow me to live long enough to see my sons to adulthood ...and hopefully to have a little quiet time to myself. I want to live, I do, and I want to have peace in my life for once. I used to hate being alone..but now I realize it's better that way.---Kola Boof (2006)