Kola Boof (1972- ) is a Sudanese-American writer who is best known as the one-time mistress of Osama bin Laden.
She says that one night in Morocco in 1996 she went out to eat with her date. Later Bin Laden and his men arrived and he saw her. His men told her date to leave and brought her to Bin Laden’s table. They talked. Later that night he and his men came to her hotel room. He raped her. A Moroccan prince later backed up her story.
In fear for her life she became Bin Laden’s lover. He flew her to Medina and put her up in La Maison Arabe for six months. She last saw him in 1998.
Peter Bergen of CNN says she is making it all up: Bin Laden was never in Morocco in 1996.
She has also helped to get guns for the SPLA, which was fighting for the independence of southern Sudan. The Arab-speaking Muslims in the north have killed millions of blacks in the south and sold others as slaves. (Alek Wek fled the violence there.)
Boof is from Sudan but not from the south. She was born at Omdurman, across the Nile from Khartoum, the capital. Her parents were both foreigners: her father was an Arab from Egypt, an archaeologist. Her mother was blue black, as she puts it, an Oromo from Somalia.
Her parents stood up against how blacks were kept down and made into slaves. They were killed for it. Boof went to Egypt to live with her grandmother. That did not last: her grandmother thought Boof was too dark to fit in and sent her to live with an Ethiopian couple in England. Her new parents in turn thought she was a witch and so she wound up in America in Washington, DC, brought up by a Black American couple:
I knew that I was special and that I had been placed with very special people in a very special paradise. I felt that something magical was going to happen. You must understand that the Black Americans are very magical people – because their hearts are broken.
She had to deal with American black self-hatred, something she writes about in her book “Diary of a Lost Girl” (2007).
She learned English in part by watching “Days of Our Lives” and other soap operas on television. She would later write for “Days of Our Lives”! To this day she loves soaps but thinks they have fallen behind the times.
When she read Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” it changed her life:
It planted art inside me and it possessed me, because at 14, it was the first time that I had heard somebody tell the truth in America.
She sees writing as a “constant struggle for ‘sincerity'”, as a way to express the painful truths that have been killing her inside all her life.
As a writer she is not well known but she has her fans, like Derrick Bell and Chinweizu, who speak highly of her writing.
See also:
Abagond 
I’ve known about Kola Boof for some time now.
I have always wondered if she was for real or just some weird fabrication. Her entire back story is very over the top and there’s no proof of her ever doing the things she’s claimed she has done or being connected to the people she claims she’s connected to.
She’s an enigma, I guess.
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Right, it is hard to know how much of it is true.
That she picks on a cause as unfashionable in the West as southern Sudan makes me think that she is not simply trying to seek attention or sell books.
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Regardless or not if she is a spoof, she raises sooooo many important issues about the african diaspora, i feel that her messages about black self image are very powerful and because she challenges so many things in society that is why many people are working so hard to prove she is a falsehood.
very powerful thinker in my opinion, stumbled across a website with her on and well, she really opened my mind. i don’t accept everything she says but it’s worth listening to her views.
Remember there are people out there who are still working to prove eloudah equiano is a liar who was born and raised in south carolina, but that i very much doubt.
we must always be aware there is a motive for everything, when people seek to support or disprove so we must be absolutely assured that we believe what we feel in our guts to be truth.
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It’s not very hard to check who she’s connected to.
I wrote to Francis Bok and he claims to know Kola Boof very well. He claims she is the VP of his organization the SSPP. I’ve written Derrick Bell the author and college professor and he knows Kola very well. The Prince guy in Morocco has said he knows her and that she was with Bin Laden. She wrote for “Days of Our Lives” not “One life to live”. All this stuff is pretty easy to check.
I don’t see what she has to gain by claiming
all these very unpopular causes and connections (such as bin laden).
What I think is that people don’t like her for personal reasons so they just want to wish her away and pretend she don’t exist. That’s what I see.
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Oops! Thanks for the correction.
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She does seem a little delusional to me.
Then her tirades against Black men is getting a little old also.
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Thank you so much! 🙂
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mynameisnyname Says:
“I’ve known about Kola Boof for some time now.
I have always wondered if she was for real or just some weird fabrication. Her entire back story is very over the top and there’s no proof of her ever doing the things she’s claimed she has done or being connected to the people she claims she’s connected to.
She’s an enigma, I guess.”
Mynameisnyname, my reaction to Kola Boof is similar to yours. I first read about her a few years ago and I now take what she says with a grain of salt.
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This sister is still around? I have to give her props for that.
I have very mixed feelings because I didn’t
believe a word of anything Miss Kola Boof had to say in the beginning.
It was after I heard that white reporter on Pacifica Radio a few months ago state out of his mouth that he had been paid to make up lies about the woman by oil companies who try to control the fields in Sudan that I started rethinking my position.
For a reporter to go on the radio and admit something like that even though he didnt take the money really upset and offended me.
After that I tried to purchase one of her books and was told by a black bookseller no less ‘we dont carry her books she’s always putting down black people’ and that to me is just flat out CENSORSHIP. I cant get down with that so that bothered me a lot because I’m an artist myself.
On the other hand Kola Boof’s tirades and crusades are really not popular. She just asks for trouble.
She’s a one woman war against Black self-hate, colorism, shadism, whatever you want to call it and that doesnt sit too well with black media or black men. lol! Ohwell
Then she doesnt consider very mixed race people to be ‘black’ and that pisses off the whole black middle class. Then she loves the Jews because she’s on am mission to stamp out Islam and the Arabs but she’s half Arab herself.
How anybody could claim shes out to make a fast buck is beyond me. She really does believe in what shes doing very deeply. That is obvious by the way she puts herself out there to look like a fool. But let me tell you something. I know a whole lot of young folks who dont think shes a fool at all. They like what shes saying and they dont like that people are trying to censor her. I know I don’t.
I would dare any person of any race to read her biography book ‘Diary of a lost Girl’ or the other two ‘Flesh and the Devil’ or ‘Long Train to the Redeeming Sin’ and then try to claim this chick is crazy. Naw. Mad maybe, but she aint crazy. She got good dmmn sense and a lot of what shes talking about is ahead of her time but its spot on too.
Her presentation and her wild attitude is what turns people off but shes right about a whole lot of stuff and very talented too. I see her behind is still around. lol!
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Googled the reporter interviewed on pacifica radio and its Steve Milner that was offered money to make up lies about Kola Boof. Thanks for that because I hadn’t known about that. Censorship is alive and well. Luckily the smear campaign against this woman isn’t working. She certainly does bring a non-conventional non-conformist perspective and she has a lot to say that I think benefits all of us. It would probably be fair if people check out her books to get a better understanding of who she is.
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I did not know that Steve Milner. But it makes sense: southern Sudan gets so little attention in the West, compared to like Darfur, Somalia and Rwanda, and the only thing that makes sense is that the oil companies are behind it somehow.
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I’ve worked with her personally for a SHORT period of time. She isn’t to be trusted and only take what she says with a grain of salt. She’s also a people-user and a manipulator. I don’t care much for her and there are other Black men and women raising the issues she raises without the delusional and self-important behavior she has.
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abagond have you read any of Kola Boof’s books? I’m thinking of ordering her book: either Flesh and the devil or long train to redeeming sin? If you have can you do a post on the book review?
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I am reading her “Diary of a Lost Girl” now. I will post a review on it when I am done.
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If half of what she says is true, damn, what a story! Maybe I’ll get her book too.
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I don’t know why some people have a hard time believing this woman had an affair with Bin Laden. It’s not like those men are known for being monagamous. They do use black women for sex. Of course he wasn’t going to marry her anything, but sex? Yes.
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i can’t wait for the review. sometimes i think she’s crazy like i’ve googled stuff and stumbled upon a post by her on Thumpers Corner and some stuff sounds like she a little crazy or has PTSD or something. The other times she is so on point with stuff. I guess I don’t know about her yet.
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http://www.nathanielturner.com/tobeinvisiblekb.htm
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She is very pretty…nice cheekbones. I have never heard of her before. You have peaked my interest Abagond.
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KOLA BOOF presents TODAY’S BLACK EGYPTIANS
An Essay through PHOTOS
http://poetwomen.50megs.com/about.html
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@ Shani: There was an interview with Kola placed on YouTube. There was, I believe, a female Asian interviewer and a white female interviewer who basically in so many words didn’t believe Osama Bin Laden would want someone like Kola because he could have his choice of women, and surely ANY MAN WITH A CHOICE WOULD NOT CHOOSE A DARK SKINNED BLACK WOMAN. Kola shut them both down by stating something like “I don’t know many tall,blonde, blue eyed trophy beauties who are infibulated, do you? He likes his women cut.” She understood fully what both women were implying, “Why would such a rich and powerful man want someone that looks like you? We represent the preference of such men.” I think most people don’t believe Kola was Osama’s mistress because she IS a Black woman.
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I first heard about Kola Boof in the early 2000’s. After doing a bit of research on her it quickly (and disappointingly) dawned on me that she is a charlatan. While she does make some good points about certain issues (yes, as it’s far easier to digest lies if they’re mixed with the truth), neither that nor some company’s attempt at discrediting her can be taken as proof of her own sincerity/honesty.
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Oh cool! Me too!
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Bulanik,
here is Kola Boofs rant about Soledad O’Brien show “Who’s black in America” :
A White Woman (Soledad O’Brien) is given the power to DICTATE to Blacks what “blackness” is….she of an Irish name, white skin & everything but the burden.
She is to define an entire race of people from AFRICA based on the 1 drop
rule invented by the KKK and we’re supposed to listen to her and not our
own continent. It’s so typically arrogant and AMERICAN RACIST.
____________________ __________
I don’t give a fuck what she’s “PART”. ….she’s WHITE.
This country, America, has got to be the most racist place on earth that she can be called ‘black”
but cannot be called what she really is….WHITE.
And fuck you ****** motherfuckers that don’t like the truth.
You can’t possibly love Blackness/Africa yet sit up claiming this is a “Black” person. FUCK YOU
____________________ _
She is **LITERALLY”….Whit e. Her skin is White, her hair is European.
Barack Obama is NOT white. His skin is tanned, his hair is nappy.
____________________ _
This PROVES how **RACIST** the American people are (including the Blacks).
Not a single Black person would dare claim that “anybody can be White” (even when they LOOK White). But they will claim that Africans are so inferior that just any 2% mattress-fuck can be a Black person.
____________________ ___________________
The KKK invented the 1 drop rule….to encourage Blacks to breed themselves into bastardization.
Blacks try to uphold this rule for dear life. They are still slaves. And it’s a disgrace. But most of all, it shows their UTTER contempt and hatred for Africa and for Black people. The blanket hateful disrespect of claiming a White woman is “Black”—-because she feels like it and we’re nothing anyway.
FUCK *******!
____________________ _____________
Any nation….that can sit up and claim that Soledad O’Brien and Mariah Carey are NOT White Women….is RACIST as fuck. Think about it.
____________________ ___________________
TELL ME fucking American!!! ….when you see “Blue Eyes” in a Black person’s head, do you sit up and claim they must be WHITE???
NO. ******. You don’t! The only people you know how to disrespect are Black, because that’s what you learned on the plantation!!! TO HATE AFRICA & YOUR ANCESTORS.
____________________ ________________
This country thoroughly HATES Black people.
They have no respect, no love, no acknowledgement ….of BLACKNESS.
____________________ _______________
How in the fuck do you see Soledad O’Brien as a “Black” Woman??? What kind of SelF-hate allows that? …how do you not question it?
I just feel SO INSULTED; so fucking insulted
____________________ ____________________
No wonder the Black race is on the bottom.
They actually let White Racists define what is Black?????
____________________ _________
I have a few drops of TURKISH blood–why can’t I do a “White In America’ tv. special. Explain that
____________________ ______________
Barack Obama just as his Kenyan family taught him is “Half-Caste African Luo” …..he is African, but he is not Black. The other Africans on this thread have told you the same thing. Black is a Color that symbolizes African people—it’s not off white or cream yellow. We don’t accept “kinda black” or “black at certain times of the year” as Black.
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I don’t know what to think or believe about this woman. It just seem so fabricated.
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Why Do You Hate Black Men – Kola ‘the failed somalian Queen of west african featured black women and Black Women Empowerment’ Boof
WARNING–this is going to be an extremely honest commentary. Not for the squeamish. This is truly going to be from the heart.
I don’t hate black men at all. If anything–the Black man hates his damn self.
But since this accusation is constantly aimed at any Black woman who places value on herself and knows the history going back 26,000 years in both Africa and the West….let me tell you what I as a North African Nilotic woman, age 44, living in the West (which is different from Africa)…really feels…about Black men as a group.
I have no interest in “The Black man” and his struggle anymore. I don’t revere or love BM anymore figuratively as symbolic. It’s not hatred…but a loss of respect. I see the BM today as an “annex” from my body. The fact that today’s Black man is “willing” to kill the image of his own mother (his authentic Charcoal African mother)–yet call the White Man a “White Devil”–is a blatant hypocracy I can no longer support. What I think is that the Black man is also innately a “devil”…but he got his ass kicked by the White man.
So now he’s bitter and vindictive about not being able to **BE** the White man and takes that out on Black women and children by claiming there’s some defect in us…instead of where it really is…in him.
I feel that deep down Black men care nothing whatsoever about Black women as a group…we are collateral damage (as my friend Evia puts it). I don’t think Black men see us as Human beings but as “incubation” mules, endurance mules, disposable pussy. For more than 1,000 years The Black Man never protected or uplifted the image of his own mother….but now suddenly….he can protect and uplift everybody else’s mother. This is devastating for the Authentic Black woman and for the reputation of the Black race itself. And we ARE a race, we are by virtue of our phenotypes–a unique and divinely dark-skinned family. I don’t give a F*ck what Westerners have to say about it.
I like to F*ck Black men because they’re good in bed. They are my natural mate (and I wanted black babies, of course, because I’m African). I like having sex with them, laughing with them, conversing and debating with them–and especially I love cooking and love watching any man eat a nice home cooked meal. But I don’t trust Black men. Don’t trust them worth a damn! It’s not because I hate them…it’s because they have no loyalty whatsoever to anyone or anything. They’re too selfish and just like the White man…they’re oppressors.
I feel that the Black Man has betrayed the Black woman in every way that a woman can be betrayed. I don’t think we can ever “come back” from it. Just as slavery and colonialism permanently deformed our race–so has the Black man’s betrayal of authentic black women, black children and blackness itself. Neither Africa nor the Black race can ever be whole again.
Our race is now overseen by WHITE-inflected Bastardized Buffer Race…Colonized Blood…people who no longer know anything about Authentic Blacks and don’t care, because deep down, they’re “running from” Blackness in the first place. They use and exploit our identity because they don’t have one. They are considered “tainted” because of our blood and they’re not allowed to rule anything on earth…but us. So they pretend to still be us…so they can have something to rule…which is us. As I have said about Western Blacks before: “They killed their own mother…and the White people watched.” –KOLA BOOF
What is the fate of a Race of people willing to kill their own mother…for lighter skin? And for how long will we be able to point the finger of judgment and damnation at the outsiders who called our mother ugly?
American people (including Black Americans) have a HUGE problem with me because I’m not [n word]stock and I’m not a fucking fool. I have eyes, ears and a brain. And I can see how this country has performed “invasion of the body snatchers” on African ancestors…turning them from Africans…to self-hating zombies in mass denial. I was adopted and raised by Black Americans, so I grew up understanding and sharing that self-hatred. But I still know better. We are not right-like and we are no longer morally superior to the Whites. We have truly become the Whites. Black Men preaching about racism and the dehumanization of Black males–en masse–need to just shut the F*ck up. Because what the Black man has done against his own mother and his own seed is even worse than what White Devils did. And I for one am no longer interested in making excuses for our self-destruction and self-hate. We should be better than this. It’s 2013. And we’re now worse off than we were in 1945! I totally blame Black men and their fascination, no–their obsession–with all things White; their White God and pattern master (the White man); their White Joke (the White Woman); their “Buffer Race” children (who because of the White Man’s racist slave plantation 1 drop rule are passed off as Black); their cloying, whining, dishonest and altogether “LOSER” rap songs and impotent political speeches.Black men hate they damn selves. And after all these centuries and all the Black women mules who’ve carried them on their backs–they’re still not impressive. Just look at the fact that the most successful Black men on earth are unable to make a Black baby in their own image. Says everything! Do you hear me? But Western Blacks have no “lineage” in their minds–so they don’t get what this image of Rich Blacks always holding White babies really and truly says. It says what’s true–that we’re [n word]stock. And we might as well go back to the plantation because we’re dressed up, glorified [n word]stock. And the Black Man is the world’s MASCOT. A disgraceful Pogo-hopping “Fine mother****er” who has the audacity to call me… THE BLACK WOMAN…..bitter (I spend 90% of my day laughing, I’m hardly bitter just because I see you for what you really are)….angry (NOTE: anytime a Black woman has an opinion it’s because she’s ‘angry’–not because she’s intelligent, observant and has a voice–NOT.) Black women aren’t bitter and angry. We know too damn much and we are truly at the bottom of the food chain. But no one can call us bitter and angry, because the fact is…none of you (white man, black man, white woman, Latino, arab, Foon/Asian, whatever)….could last 2 days in our shoes. You moral hunchbacks have never had to grow unwatered. Black women on the other hand grow virtually unwatered.
And last but not least….jealous (That one really hurts, because with everything we’ve given to the Black man for the last 26,000 years and all that he’s never given us–we deserve to at least be shown respect and the love a boy has for his mother. But we don’t even get that. So you see, it’s beyond something so trivial as jealousy….it’s much, much bigger than that. But being historically such a poor strategist and dumb as dirt, Black men aren’t smart enough to psychologically compute what we (their tired, hungry dark-wet Daughters)…must feel like inside. The darker we are, the more they don’t even care. That’s why I say (and I mean this)–the Black man is every bit the devil that the White man is. He’s a fucking asshole!
And just watch these “Maid-minded” Black American Women file in trying to defend and make excuses for him. That’s 60% of what a Black American woman does with her entire life—defend and make excuses for the Black men who completely hate and betray us. Black American women have suffered and been so unloved for so long that they don’t even know what a WOMAN is entitled to as a Wombbearer and a family member. They’re on “automatic rhetoric dispense.”And running in behind the long-suffering but loyal Black American women to uphold the honor of Black men will be the Typical Two-faced Selfish White-American Bitch. Actual and factual! The “Martin-Luther-King quoting” privileged White bitch. The most selfishly annoying (and did I say Two-faced already?) …haint of all the haints on earth. And don’t get me wrong. There are more than 2 dozen White women in my personal life that I deeply love and would die for, because they have truly been “sisters” to me. I don’t hate White women or dislike their Whiteness. But in general, as a society, with the White woman as your sister in American communities–who needs AIDS? The average White American Woman truly believes (no matter how she denies it)…that she is superior to Black women. And she believes that camel shit lie because Black men are right there at her feet every day telling her so. What else can she think when our own trifling self-hating ass son is making rap songs saying his own mother is nothing but a White woman is everything? Same racist Caucasoid bitch she always was. Just with a Black dick in her mouth–because having no flavor of her own–she thinks black dick makes her overrated Pink ass relevant.
And of course everything is the White Devil man’s fault. None of us (including these 2-faced White bitches who stabbed their White fathers in the back) took part in our own debasement. None of us believed in The White Man (eye roll)…none of us want to **BE** him (eye roll)…none of us actively rebuke everything about him. NO–you want to know why we “hate” The White Man? We hate him because we’ve accepted him as GOD. That’s why. But in reality, we are all equally capable of every evil thing he has ever done….and we want a piece….of HIS pie. We don’t want our own pie. We want exchange–not change. We want to be “Versions” of the White Man and live in his world. Black Men are not against Racism–they’re against not being able to have a piece of that power pie. They want “in” and they will throw their own mothers down a flight of stairs (*for being dark skinned and nappy)…just to be part of that White man’s Power paradigm. No questions asked. You’ve all seen it. Black men lie on, distort and disallow (dis-allow) the image of their Authentic Black Mother every damned day to aquire status!
Black Professors like Henry Louis Gates and Ishmael Reed will tell you that Lena Horne was our Real Mama and that everyone in Africa has always been “mixed-race” (the most racially diverse continent filled with Yellow Tribes and “good hurr”)…..all that Anti-Black rhetoric….that [n word]stock Professors in America like to reel off in their quest to distance themselves from Blackness and the authentic BLACK MASSES on the continent. So I refuse to be told that I “hate black men”….when in reality….it’s always been the other way around.And I refuse to be lied on by American people. I am not bitter, angry, difficult—F*ck you! I am AWAKE, that is what I am, dear American people. I am AWAKE and I have a brain and it’s on. And I’m no better or worse than any of you. Stop lying on Black women just because you don’t understand our situation (because your privileged ass has never been in it!).
Black women don’t OWE…Black men….SHIT! For 26,000 years we have given…and given….and given….and given. No group of Women on this planet have been more loyal than we have. NONE!If you don’t understand Black women and how we feel–then F*ck you! You (the world) came out of our Black asses, we didn’t come out of yours!I don’t hate anyone! I truly don’t. My heart is full of love, welcome & good tidings for all human beings. Doesn’t matter if you’re White, diabetic, Downs-syndrome, Latino, Gay-Transgendered, a Black Man—doesn’t matter what you are. If you want me to love you…I will. But don’t put your camel shit lies on me and other black women.
Ironically, my best friend Posr happens to be Black and male. He isn’t happy about my views, but he truly understands and he shares the same ideology as me. And my ex-husband Simon Palacio (we were married 10 years) was also a Black man and remains one of my closest friends.
My sons will someday be Black men and they are the best sons on earth. My Black American adoptive father (RIP) was one of the greatest men I’ve ever known. He raised 8 of us and was happily married to my Black American Mother for 50 years. People would be shocked to know that most of the opinions I hold about Black men…were implanted in me by my deceased Black American father and by my mentors, the Nigerian Scholar Chinweizu and the late legendary scholar Professor Derrick Bell.
There really is no way to get someone who isn’t Black and female to understand all the conflicting emotions and thoughts that come attached to this subject. The relationship (and war) between Black men and women is very complicated.
What I do know…is that I am proud to be an African Womanist Writer. I am proud of my work. I am proud to be the product of a Black American family–raised by a Black American mother. And I hold myself in extremely high esteem and value. I would like to see other Black women and girls do the same. As the Nubian tribeswomen say back in my country Sudan: “Our loyalty is to our wombs…not the men.”
http://www.kolaboof.com/blackmen.htm
Kola ‘The Failed Somalian’ Boof a failed 6ft tall squared shoulder, giant foreheaded, flat buttocked, transwoman claims to have slept with Osama Bin Laden, thinks light skinned black people like Sanaa Lathan, Jada Pinkett-Smith and Toni Morrison are not black women but however believes a transwoman is just as authentic as a genetic woman, she has stated she is not a black nationalist but a black womanist whose loyalty is to her womb and encourages black women to date interracially despite her hate for mixed raced people and her wanting black people to exist. Kola ‘The Failed Somalian’ Boof hates Runoko Rashsidi for having a Filipino wife but thinks Serena Williams is empowered when she dates white men. This non-West African featured transwoman is trying to make money out of West African featured black women by telling there are droves of non-black men waiting for them who will put their own woman down and raise them up just like they did Sundra Coonquist, Naomi Campbell (see how the white media and men came to Naomi Campbell’s aid when pictures came out of her bald head and stories about blood diamonds), Debra Dickerson and Constance Briscoe.
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I don’t know, she seems like a kook to me. I just don’t know what to make of her.
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Sudan and the Kola Boof Hoax: “Slavery” Propaganda Exposed
by David Hoile/ESPAC
The Sudanese civil war has generated a vast amount of propaganda and disinformation. The intervention in Sudan by foreign powers, especially the United States, and by civil groups with partisan religious and political motivations, has exacerbated and prolonged a tragic conflict by the deliberate and cynical manufacture of blatantly manufactured distortions, lies and hoaxes.
A recent and archetypal example of this process was the manipulation of the image of Sudan for personal and propaganda purposes in the campaign surrounding a woman calling herself Kola Boof. (1) The author of ‘Long Train to the Redeeming Sin: Stories of African Women’, Ms Boof’s “sudden” appearance on the Internet “several months ago” was noted by ‘The New York Times’ in December 2002. (2) Ms Boof came to prominence when she claimed that she had been made the subject of a Sudanese government fatwa issued by a Sudanese diplomat in London, Mr Jamal Ibrahim, and Dr Hasan Turabi, the former speaker of the Sudanese Parliament, allegedly sentencing her to death for being opposed to the Khartoum government and blaspheming Islam. Ms Boof claimed that she had been sentenced to be beheaded. These claims were carried by several media outlets. (3) She claimed that the fatwa had been issued in September 2002 by the Sudanese government, and that this had been conveyed to her by the SPLA, who in turn claimed to have had it confirmed by a Mr Tanzim Wasti, Mr Ibrahim’s secretary and by Islamist activist Sheikh Omar Bakri.
On the basis of these and other previous claims Ms Boof quickly emerged as a darling of the anti-Sudan campaign, and was embraced by activists such as Joe Madison and Maria Sliwa of “FreeWorldNow”. (4) The ‘New York Times’ revealed how impressionable members of African-American society came forward to help her campaign because of having read her claims as publicised on the Internet. Demonstrations were held in her name. The Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWD), for example, arranged simultaneous demonstrations in New York city, Los Angeles and Washington-DC on 7 November 2002 to “protest” the “Sept. 26th death sentence from Sudan ordering that Black womanist writer Kola Boof is to be beheaded”. The AWID protest literature spoke of “our beloved Queen Kola”. (5)
Building on her anti-Khartoum theme, Ms Boof also stated in interviews for example: “I am a political activist, a soldier in Dr. John Garang’s Sudanese People’s Liberation Army”. (6) It subsequently emerged that she had made a number of other interesting claims. She claimed, for example, that she was the daughter of an Egyptian archaeologist and a Somalian princess, and that she had lived in Omdurman, Sudan, until she was 10 or 11, in 1978. Ms Boof claimed that in 1978 “my parents…were murdered for speaking up against slavery and the brutish Islamic government of Sudan”. (7) She claimed that “murahleen” tribesmen had killed them in front of her. She claims that her Egyptian grandmother then put her up for adoption and that through UNICEF she travelled to London and was taken in by an Ethiopian family who eventually gave her up because, she said, they thought she might be a witch. She says she was then adopted by a black family in Washington-DC in 1980. (8)
Ms Boof also claimed that the Sudan People’s Liberation Army was in existence as early as 1977, and that as a little girl she had attended SPLA meetings.
The Mundane Truth
Every one of these claims unravelled under examination. The facts were far less interesting. Mr Jamal Ibrahim, the deputy chief of mission at the Sudanese embassy in Britain, wrote an article critical of Ms Boof and claims that she had previously made, an article published in ‘Al- Sharq Al-Awsat’ in September 2002. In this article he criticised her “falsehood and dishonesty” in previous claims. Ms Boof subsequently claimed that this article was in fact a fatwa, inaccurately stating that fatwa is “a contract for assassination”. (9)
Unlike Ms Boof, ‘The New York Times’ took the trouble to confirm the claims made to her by the SPLA in London. The newspaper spoke to Sheikh Omar Bakri, a senior judge of the Islamic sharia court in London, and someone noted for his forthright views. Ms Boof claimed that Bakri had been party to the fatwa. He stated that “nobody issued a fatwa against Kola Boof”. (10) The Islamic judge went on to state: “I know she was criticized by a Muslim official in London, but he isn’t in a position to issue a fatwa.” This was confirmed by Mr Ibrahim himself, who said the claim was “bizarre and baseless” and that: “My own view is that she wants to make use of this to help her in selling her books. It is a bizarre exercise in public relations.” (11) Mr Ibrahim did criticise Ms Boof in his article, and there would appear to be considerable grounds for legitimate criticism, but as ‘The New York Times’ observed “criticism isn’t the same as a fatwa”. It would appear that the SPLA in London deliberately misrepresented the issue.
Unraveling the Lies
Ms Boof’s claims about her early life are similarly flawed. She alleged that murahleen tribesmen killed her parents in Omdurman. These horsemen are only found in southern Kordofan, several hundred miles away from Omdurman. It is the equivalent in American terms of being attacked in a Washington-DC suburb by a band of Oklahoma cattlemen. She also claimed that the SPLA were in existence in 1977. It is also a simple matter of record that the SPLA was founded only in late 1983. (12) Ms Boof’s claim that her father was murdered in 1978 for speaking “up against…the brutish Islamic government of Sudan” similarly jars with reality. In 1978 Sudan was resolutely secular, governed by President Jaafar Nimeiri, a close American ally whose government was one of the largest recipients of international American economic and military assistance. The present Islamic government in Sudan only came to power in 1989.
Ms Boof made a number of other claims about herself. In August 2002, she claimed to have been shot at outside Los Angeles by Arab Muslim gunmen, and that she shot back. Boof further claimed to be under FBI protection. The ‘New York Times’ reported that the FBI “had no knowledge of Ms. Boof”. (13)
Ms Boof was also said by ‘The New York Times’ to have “told flamboyant stories about her life in Egypt and Morocco, where, she said she was a B-movie actress and a high level prostitute, operating in luxury hotels…” It was during this time in Morocco that Ms Boof also claimed to have had an affair with Osama bin Laden in 1996. She elaborated on this alleged affair in a January 2003 statement when she claimed that it was a four month sexual relationship in Morocco. She had met bin Laden in a Senegalese restaurant “which was the only place in Marrakech where they knew how to cook lion’s meat” (one of her “favorite” dishes). She claimed that she subsequently became “Osama’s mistress” and that she had “lounged about in silk and diamonds”. (14) One of the most watched men in the world, there is no record whatsoever of bin Laden being in Morocco in 1996.
Boof has also made other jarring claims, speaking, for example, about “rich Palestinians who have black women slaves working in their kitchens, their tongues cut out of their heads.” (15)
Ms Boof’s somewhat elaborate claims began to be actively challenged by the end of 2002. The ‘New York Times’ examined her allegations in some depth. (16) In an interview with the newspaper, Ms Boof admitted to being manipulative: “I can’t deny that I’m a conniving person…I have to manipulate the system, and I don’t mind if you publish that…” The newspaper discredited the fatwa claim. Ms Boof was dropped by her publisher at the end of 2002. And, despite having been warmly embraced and extensively publicised by the anti-Sudan lobby within the United States and elsewhere, Ms Boof’s claims soon became even too outrageous for all but the diehard fringe. The SPLA has distanced itself from Ms Boof. The ‘New York Times’ reported that the SPLA “embraced her and then backed away, as Ms. Boof’s personal, if not literary credentials have been called into question.”
Deng Ajak, secretary-general of the anti-government Sudan Commission for Human Rights, stated that he was initially supportive of Ms Boof “but when she said in one of her own e-mails to me that she had a brief encounter of dating Osama bin Laden, I said to my colleagues that we need to pull the plug on this one”. He stated that “This could be one of the most impressively spun and choreographed pieces of fiction that one could imagine”. Nevertheless, Ms Boof claimed that “the Southern Blacks of my homeland” have accorded her the title of “Queen Kola”. (17)
The ‘New York Times’ reported that Ms Silwa has also “distanced” herself from Kola Boof’s claims, quoting her as stating: “I don’t think it behooves our human rights interest to connect ourselves with someone who is inconsistent and can’t prove her identity.” (18) Joe Madison continues to publicise Ms Boof.
Conclusion
Ms Boof and her claims provide a clear example of how patently false and self-serving lies about Sudan have been accepted at face value and publicised by the anti-Sudan industry. She has sold more of her books as a result of these claims. Ms Boof has deliberately sought publicity, both personal and commercial on the basis of these assertions.
The pattern is a sad one. Outrageous claims are manufactured and disseminated widely. Eventually allegations are exposed as either exaggerated or utterly groundless, or collapse in the face of their own absurdity and self-contradictions. All but the most bigoted or partisan of their disseminators retreat into a discrete silence – but never have the honesty or integrity to admit their complicity in a hoax, or to publicise the falsity of their previous articles. The miasma of defamatory claims against Sudan is once again added to, and only a short time elapses before yet another hoax or lie is launched and credulously disseminated by a media that never seems to learn the lessons of its previous blunders.
Notes:
1. There appears to be some doubt as to her original name. On one of her websites, she says that her name is Naima Bint Harith (“The Woman is Dangerous: Biography of Kola Boof”, at http://www.kolaboof.com/dangerous.htm). On another of her websites, she gives her name as “Naima Alu Kolbookek “(“Kola Boof”, athttp://authors.aalbc.com/kola_boof.htm). In an interview with ‘The New York Times’ she states that her given name is Naima Bahri (Julie Salmon, “Mystery Enshrouds Kola Boof, Writer and Internet Persona”, ‘The New York Times’, 11 December 2002). In her 2003 book, ‘Diary of a Lost Girl’, Ms Boof says that she calls herself Kola Boof “in honour of Clara Bow and Betty Boop – I’m a silent movie buff, you see” (http://authors.aalbc.com/kola_boof.htm).
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read all about the Kola Boof fraud here: http://www.mediamonitors.net/espac28.html
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@ Holmes: Comment deleted for use of moderated word and insulting language.
https://abagond.wordpress.com/comment-policy/
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@ Abagond: Sorry I messed up
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Alicia Banks goes in on Kola Boof
ALICIA BANKS
ELOQUENT FURY
ON THE REAL KOLA BOOF:
HOAXES, HYPOCRISIES, AND OBAMA NAZIS
Cowards hint and imply. Warriors call out all enemies by first and last names! On April 9, 2008, Kola Boof sent me a vicious email attacking me for supporting Hillary Clinton. In that email, she claimed our friendship was over. I was indescribably relieved. I have been completely silent ever since.
Kola’s bogus friendship has been an extremely stressful burden to my spirit and a liability to my integrity and conscience since the very first day she introduced herself to me in a letter. At that time, Kola claimed to be a fan of my columns and proceeded to pimp and solicit me to compose ongoing book reviews
I have flagrantly ignored Kola since April. It has clearly been far too long. Thus, today, Kola posted the following blatant lies and thinly veiled libel to a public website:
“I can respect that and though I’ve supported Barack Obama from the minute he declared he was running…I have enormous respect for those who wanted Hillary Clinton.
WHAT I DON’T RESPECT are the ones who lied on and defiled Obama. The ones who tried to make Hillary look good by demonizing and hating on Barack and Michelle.
I lost a very dear friend, who I love very much, because of that dynamic. She basically proclaimed Obama the “Anti-Christ” and revealed to me (in my opinion) a hatred for Black men in general that I found very startling and disturbing—ESPECIALLY since my own critical comments about some black men seemed to be what had attracted her to me. And that was very tragic, because I felt so uncomfortable with this friend’s position and constant emails viciously LYING on Obama that I had to break off that friendship.
It doesn’t mean I don’t love that person. I DO. But I just don’t know what to say
Maya Angelou is a very old woman who has fought tremendous odds to succeed in this very racist nation as a BLACK woman.
Many times her enemies were not just White Men…but Black Men as well. It’s absurd the way so many people pretend that Black men are some “supportive backbone” towards Black women such as Maya in the same way that we, as women, have always been supportive and literally carried Black men on our backs for centuries only to be disrespected and DISCARDED when the Black man…”Got over.”
For that reason, I can certainly understand why an old woman like Maya wanted to see a WOMAN in the White House before she died–even if that woman is, in my opinion, a remnant of Miss Anne.
Please realize that I have been a tireless and passionate supporter of Barack Obama and that I don’t even see Obama as “black”. I see him as another race–a mixed race son.
But I love him and BELIEVE in him and CLAIM the African part of him…because…what he has stood for greatly moves me.
I also support him because of Michelle–because she IS black and because by choosing her, he has given all of us African people a POSITIVE IMAGE for black children and mixed children. Something noble, beautiful, charismatic and purposeful.
I will always, always love and be loyal to Barack Obama because of that…”
I have long ago come to the belated and painful realization that Kola is a pathological liar. She has proven this to be so in countless ways. Unlike Kola, I do not judge people by gender or race. I do not hate all white women as she hates Hillary Clinton. And, I do not worship any human as she worships Barack Obama.
Phony as always, Kola attacked me under the guise of praising Maya Angelou and Hillary Clinton. In private emails, she has attacked Maya’s Arkansas roots, calling her country. And, Kola has repeatedly cursed Clinton as Miss Anne. I am born to native Arkansans, but I am a native of Chicago, Illinois. Still, Kola has even slandered me as country also, simply because I currently reside in Arkansas, where sane voters know Hillary to be a true warrior, beyond the sexist media slayings.
Just as Tavis Smiley, Dr. Cornel West, Dr. Julianne Malveaux, Debra Dickerson, and many others have done, I will continue to critique Obama indefinitely! I will never worship any human, especially no politico. All Obama Nazis have only one option: Deal with that fact!!!
I am a happy and productive person. I live a purpose driven and prosperous life filled with people who love me. I am educated and financially independent. Unlike Kola, I do not have to create constant drama to feel fulfilled or fabricate meaning within my life.
Also unlike Kola, I am a very private, reclusive, and quiet person by nature. While simultaneously claiming to be hiding from an imaginary fatwa, Kola curiously craves constant public attention and incessant global drama!!! I was absolutely elated to exhale from her release and move on silently. But, as of today, Kola has made this private parting a public parade online. So, I am compelled to respond herein.
Here are the facts beneath Kolas newest lies and drama:
Kola’s antics have always vexed my spirit. I have only been attracted to the books of the gifted author within Kola, who once penned unique magic about race and colorism, before her Nazi-like obsession with the yellow skinned, mixed race Obama. I expect that this obsession will taint all of her future compositions, none of which I will ever again review.
Kola’s harassing Obama Nazi emails are laced with ranting profanities and far too vulgar to print herein. But, I have retained and can document all of our correspondences to date. Most rabidly racist black fools dare to attack anyone who does not blindly and unconditionally worship Obama. As of today, Kola has officially become a poster girl for that moronic and racist ilk.
Kola’s selective racism is disturbingly amusing. She hates Hillary because she is a white female. But, she worships Obama, the son of a white female. Such political schizophrenia is typical of racist, sexist, and colorist Obama Nazis like Kola.
It is startlingly ignorant to suggest that one must be an elder to understand sexism in America. I am 45, and millions of very young women joined Maya and I as we supported Hillary. From sexist wages to sexist media, rabid sexism is ageless and universal. Shame on Kola for fabricating such a weak argument as she belatedly feigns support for Maya!!!
I have never penned any lie about Obama. I have never demonized him or referred to him as “the Anti-Christ”. I will continue to say and pen any truth I wish about Obama. I could not care less about what Kola or anyone else thinks of my opinions regarding Obama, ever!
Contrary to the black Obama Nazi code books, a vote for Obama is not proof of racial pride. A vote against Obama is not proof of hatred of all black men. Both are simply political choices and inalienable rights of every registered voter on planet Earth. Handle that!
I adore many black men. They tend not to be politicos. They include: Ramizz Ware, Blair Underwood, Bill Cosby, Ray Lewis, Steven Ivory, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, Rod McCullom, Kevin Powell, Usher Raymond, Todd Wooten, Bryan Cambrice, Duane Cramer, Mark Starr, Herndon Davis, Donell Jones, O. C. Smith, Jeffrey Osborne, Bill Withers, Dr. Asa Hilliard III, Malcolm X, George Benson, Don Cheadle, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Frankie Beverly, Bruce Nesbitt, Nate Banks, Chico DeBarge, Al B. Sure, Huey Newton, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Bob Law, Spike Lee, Ellis Cose, Brian McKnight, Common, Mos Def, Bob Lee, Fred Hampton, Marvin Gaye, Labi Siffre, Levi Stubbs, Eric Benet and many more… Like most sane American voters, I admit that Obama is yet an appealing stranger.
No white person has ever been called a race traitor for voting for Obama. No white person has ever abused another person as Kola has abused me, simply for daring to make my own political choice. True friends never censor each other. And, they always graciously accept choices that could never be their own. Kola has never been a real friend. Real friends are never lost over such silliness as a toxic election.
I do not hate Barack Obama. And, I have never penned anything but praise about Michelle Obama. I have always liked and respected Michelle even more than Barack, because she is not a politico. Words can never adequately express how much I do loathe the vast majority of Obama’s mindless, Nazi group-thinking, rabidly racist, and sexist black fans.
Like Maya, I kept my word and immediately began to sincerely support Obama as soon as Hillary exited from this horrid presidential race. So, why are Obama Nazis like Kola still wilding against me? Because I dared to speak against the presumptive Der Fuhrer Obama. That sin is unforgiveable. For the record, I now vow to repeat that sin whenever warranted indefinitely!!!
Kola is renowned for hypocritically despising race mixing and hating Arabs. Yet, she herself is born of mixed African and Arab blood. She has proven her true multicolors as of today.
I love strong smart women like Hillary as deeply as men and women love all men. I will never apologize for that. It is the essence of my feminist warrior soul. I embrace that love the very same way that racist haters like Kola embrace their bigotry and envy.
I am not mad at Bill Clinton for still being wounded by the legendary and shameless abuse that his wife Hillary received from all media. He watched her image and his stellar legacy be torched for months! He has a right to be angry as we all do. We Leos are loyal. We rarely betray anyone. And, when we are betrayed, we hold grudges beyond our graves. I will still be seething with rage myself, even as I vote for Obama in November
I have no iota of love or respect for Kola Boof. No true sister would ever attack me for choosing Hillary over Obama. No true feminist would slander me as a man hater simply because I chose Hillary over Obama. Kola has proven her lack of character and her rabid hypocrisy by slandering me precisely as she has been slandered. Irrespective of her perpetually vulgar libel and slander, I will continue to tell uncensored truths about Obama. And, like Maya, Obama will always be my second choice for president.
Again, I never have and I never will judge my enemies by race or gender. I will always judge them ONLY by their actions. Today, Kola Boof has let the world know that she is my eternal enemy . I sincerely thank her for that indelible revelation!
Read more global and pathological lies by Kola Boof:
MYSTERY ENSHROUDS KOLA BOOF, WRITER AND INTERNET PERSONA
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/11/books/11BOOF.html
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Kola Boof has a common cluster of Y chromososme E3b, a haplogroup unique to the horn of Africa, hence the skullshape,features and hair not from the white/arab blood she claims otherwise waris dire, liya kebede and iman are also biracial.
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^^Women do not carry Y-DNA. Only men carry and pass on Y-DNA ( and to male offspring only. They carry mtDNA, but this type is not passed on by them.)
Women carry only mtDNA (and pass it on to ALL offspring). So, unless your information is incorrect, what you are telling us is that Kola Boof is a man.
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^^ Or that she is a trans-woman. . . .
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interesting vid peanut it is tragic what all she had to experience, I agree with her on some things especially the colorism issue. Some black people are just so lost it ain’t funny. it is crazy to see some black ppl wanting lighter skinned children as if they are a trophy or an accomplishment. and treating people differently. what’s funny is white ppl treat us differently for being black doesn’t matter if we are light or dark and some black ppl treat other black ppl differently because of their darkness. oh and the even funnier thing is ppl that use their blackness mainly to attract other people but hardly ever to empower their own people using their blackness for dates/s3x/coolness, but not for empowerment. The ones that have never dated or never married another black person yet talk all that pro black stuff are also hilarious to me.
The part where she said someone in their church was trying to convince them to perm their pubic hair. wtf. if anybody ever said some pedo sh2t like that to a child needs to be slapped. who in their right mind would want chemical near their privates? but see the answer to that is nobody would ,black ppl are ill when it comes to this kind of stuff it is not normal yet the abnormal has become our normal. society is a mess where people glorify dysfunctional love and then wonder why divorce is high and why a lot of girls choose the bad boy, well duh if all u see is bonnie and clyde and romeo and Juliet and ppl call those love stories then it can’t get any more dysfunctional than that. Then u have people trying to be like the skinny models they see when the models don’t even look like that in real life. lies and illusions have become everybody’s reality.
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the next question is how do we fix this? I know this won’t be fixed or healed in our generation, but there are things we can do to try to break the cycle of dysfunction. My part is I will not relax my child’s hair if I am blessed with any, I will not allow them to watch all these shows about dysfunctional black ppl. I will allow them to watch shows with positive images of black people and shows with black people rocking their natural beauty. we can’t expect our black girls to love being a black woman and we can’t expect our black b07s to love a natural black woman if they hardly see black females in their natural state. What message does it send to kids if u change as much of ur appearance as u can and make negative comments about ur appearance/blackness, we can’t expect them to be unphased by that. Black fathers must affirm their black daughters beauty or they will not know their worth and they must show their black sons how to treat a black woman by being respectful to their kids mother. Black mothers must nurture their sons and daughters as they will be the first example and leave a lasting impression of what a black woman is like. Black mothers and fathers must show their kids an example of what functioning black love looks like so their sons and daughters will want that very same thing some day.
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You’re joking right…?
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I hear ya peanut sometimes I don’t want to wear a shirt either my mom told me when I was younger I would always take my shirt off. I would go to a nude beach someday, but I probably won’t have the guts to and I don’t want to see naked old people oh well guess I will just have to settle with streaking around the house when nobodies here lol.
anybody that disses black beauty can kick rocks as that is self hate because without a black woman and black love none of us would be here. a black woman gave birth to people mitochondrial eve is who we all descend from. They know black women are the beginning so they want us to meet our end. no nation can rise higher than it’s women, they know they must demonize black women so the black community will not rise but there is always an awakening, that is what they never count on. They thought black women returning to natural was just a trend not an awakening, and now because of that more black people are able to start taking back the hair industry. just imagine the more awakened we become how much we will change and help our communities. They don’t want that, they don’t want black women to awaken ourselves because when we see the garbage that is going on and stop co signing it then the next generation will be awakened too, as what a mother learns she passes down to her children.
I know a lot of black women don’t want to hear that we have to fix things but its true a lot of times things get done because of women either so called “nagging” or doing it themselves and others follow suit. It just takes a few and the rest will follow, not everybody is a leader and not all leaders are males. Women like Harriet tubman were leaders if the creator and ancestors are on our side there is nothing we can’t do it amazes me how ms tubman was able to guide all those people to freedom without losing one.
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“Kola Boof has a common cluster of Y chromososme E3b, a haplogroup unique to the horn of Africa, hence the skullshape,features and hair not from the white/arab blood she claims otherwise waris dire, liya kebede and iman are also biracial.”
_ _ _
Neither Y-DNA nor mtDNA can be used as proof of recent racial admixing or of percentages of admixture. One would need to examine Ms Boof’s autosomal DNA (aDNA) to determine whether she is genetically one half “white/arab” or not. The same is true for the other three women mentioned in your comment.
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funny how George Lucas gets married to Melody Hobson then all of a sudden Kola Boof is engaged to a white man, this poor white guy just took a picture with the long faced one Naima Bint Harith and now the poor white guy has he picture posted all over the internet , where are the all the other pictures of him, someone needs to tell her fans aka (dumb west African phenotyped women) to be careful when taking pictures with her they do not know where those photos might end up in 10 years time I know for a fact she uses different internet ‘stock images’ of west african children and passes them off as her own.
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Jason Applebaum is a figment of Kola Boof’s imagination Walter Mitty and Tania Head got nothing on Kola Boof/ Naima Bint Harith.
Kola Boof is running Jason Applebaum fake twitter account, she set up that a while back before annoucing her engagement, he is soon to be killed by the CIA and abducted by aliens, that will be her explaination when he magically dissappears.
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The reason why Kola Boof’s lies sometimes seem real is the fact she mixes it with truths something effective liars do – tell half-truths i.e. issues of black slavery in arabic nations, the racism black Dinka people face in sudan.
I do not believe for one second she has met John Garang, Gerald Butler or Osama Bin Laden, this person mad as hell and is out for money,all that book sale money she gets goes back into the somalian community
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@ Holmes: Comment deleted for using moderated language.
https://abagond.wordpress.com/comment-policy/
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Kola Boof is NOT Nappy Haired
Somalian people do not have tight 4C coils rather they have loose dangly curls neither do white people
A Somalian woman (with loose curls) and a white man do not make a nappy haired child.
Stop listening to Kola Boof and her lies.
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@ abagond my apologies for bad language
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She certainly is entertaining, you gotta give her that.
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Yes, Kola Boof is very entertaining and exciting. Her writing is humorous, too. One minute she’ll be talking about Osama Bin Laden or Qaddafi, and she’ll move on without any real transition.
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A 1 star review of Kola Boof lying book Diary of a Lost Girl:
False at its core
By Philemonon October 13, 2007
The most essential element of the Kola Boof story is her claim to have been Osama Bin Laden’s mistress. Despite relentless self-promotion, her first three books garnered little notice. It was her 2006 autobiography, with its bizarre portrayal of Bin Laden as a sexual predator who digs the B-52s and lusts for Whitney Houston, that propelled Kola Boof’s name into the news and onto tens of thousands of websites. The less-than-discriminating decision last year by editors at Harper’s magazine to run excerpts from “Diary of a Lost Girl” triggered a spasm of news coverage in the United States and Europe. Media interest in Boof has all but died out now, but without Osama, she never would have had the ride that peaked with cable-news interviews on Fox and MSNBC.
No one, of course, has been able to interview Bin Ladin to confirm Boof’s intimate portrait, and her account of the rest of her life before she launched her Internet career in 2002 is similarly devoid of factual claims that can be verified. In one telling area, however — the alleged Bin Ladin interlude — “Diary” is actually quite explicit about real names, places, and dates. That particular information, it turns out, is surprisingly easy to check…and debunk.
Boof sets her months-long encounter with Bin Ladin at La Maison Arabe, a very real luxury hotel in Marrakesh. Boof relates how he installed her at the hotel and lived there with her off and on for months. She names the proprietors, Fabrizio Ruspoli and Philippe Cluzel, as “wonderful, friendly people.” When her relationship with Bin Ladin was publicized a year after 9-11, Boof writes, Ruspoli saved her from being stripped of her American citizenship by assuring government officials that Bin Ladin had held her against her will. While she was at La Maison Arabe, Boof writes, the managers would tell other guests she was an American celebrity, and so she would overhear her fellow lodgers mistaking her for Whoopi Goldberg, or alternatively, Naomi Campbell. Her stay at La Maison Arabe ended, she says, when Bin Ladin abruptly kicked her out of their suite in June of 1996.
Those who are intrigued by these specifics might, quite naturally, google La Maison Arabe. And at the hotel’s website they would find, on a page dedicated to reviews by the international travel press, that La Maison Arabe did not welcome its first guest until January of 1998.
For those still having trouble deciding what to make of the Kola Boof story, this is a highly relevant point: she states unequivocably in her “autobiography” that Bin Ladin checked her in to La Maison Arabe almost two years before there was any hotel to check in to.
It’s not a question of a true story and a misremembered year, either. In early 1998, Bin Ladin was hiding out in Afghanistan and issuing his fatwa against America. At the same time, Boof writes, she was traveling the world as a spy for Sudanese anti-government rebels.
Osama is a double-edged sword for Boof. She succeeded in getting noticed by building her public persona around him, but as simple inquiry reveals, that also makes her story a transparently phony one.
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