Religion is good, as long as you know it’s performance and performative. It is how you dramatize your spiritual being if you believe you have a non-material aspect to your existence. It should be beautiful, releasing, profound, personal, communal, needing no defense. It is a sacred story that you perform through ritual. These stories can…
*First posted on March 23 2021. Listen here Asian people. Here’s my dry-eyed truth. All week long, I’ve had a case of empathy deficiency. Like one forced to empathize with an abuser who is suddenly the victim of abuse. I acknowledge your humanity and will actually defend it, but I accuse you of lacking the…
There was this little girl in one of the elementary schools I taught for a semester in NY. Same place in Brooklyn I told you about last time. Tough neighborhood, didn’t know what the little capsules carpeting the streets were then, from the bus stop to the school. Crack vials, I learnt. The girl. 2nd…
A story is told about a simple man in the village who came home and found his dear wife in the copulatory embrace of another man. He said nothing. The next day, and the next he still said nothing. He would come home, have his dinner quietly, sleep peacefully, wake up, sharpen his panga, and…
This story is dedicated to my Mombasa people. Hawayuniii! Abdel Nasser Rd stretches from just beyond Allidina Visram to the Mwembe Tayari roundabout where I remember drinking the most quenching fantas as a child meandering through the drenching Mombasa heat. The air in Mwember Tayari was always sweetened with the smells of the day’s fresh…
So Kenya’s retired 24-years-a-dictator president is dead. Daniel arap Moi. From my observation of the people getting caught up in a strange euphoria of Moi nostalgia and the unfolding deification, I’d say it’s not the continued worship of Moism gagging people from speaking the truth. It’s people themselves. You’ve got 3 groups: 1. The hoi…
Yesterday was hair day. I opened the door to the Salon and stood there for a while drinking in the festive sight. The place was packed with black women getting doodied up for the holidays. A delightful Christmas tree stood at one corner with lights and gift-boxes at the bottom. My nose followed the welcoming…
When someone with inherited privileged chooses to experience the struggles of those the privileged class looks down upon, it is called class appropriation. Especially if that person proceeds to make that experience part of their public story. They create an imaginary “hustler glory”, and they do so for their own strategic gain. It is like…
I was speaking to a fellow linguist early this week and he said- I understand you have many dialects in your country… I interrupted him before he could formulate his question- No, languages- I said. O.. is all he said after that. I caused him to swallow his question before it reached his lips. Questions…
There was this day I got a zero in Home Science. ZERO! Really, Mrs. Mungai? Form 2, 14 years old, my first and only zero ever. You need to hear this. This was the practical exam. Mrs. Mungai had taught us how to make two sets of decorative stitches around the hem of an apron….