‘Welcome
Sir,’ says the janitor as I make an entrance to the sprawling space that characterizes
the Sankara Hotel lobby. I look at my wrist. I’m only twenty five minutes late,
I’m sure they haven’t done much.
The high ceilings are a sight to
behold and I must admit the workmanship that went into designing the same is
commendable. I walk towards the reception and the efficient lady receptionist
director of first impressions apprises
me of where the meeting is. I decide to take the capacious elevator to first
floor. It’s warm and has a beautiful screen with animated features that get me
distracted. The mirrors on the elevator walls are highly welcome. I adjust my
glasses and purse my lips to give them some moisture.
I’m soon on first floor.
I take a turn to my right and I’m soon
at the Business Centre where I run into some hunk of a man who guides me
accordingly (not that I don’t know where I am going). I meet the adorable lady at the registration
table who guides me in. The room is almost full and everyone is having brunch.
George, the adroit coordinator from the NEST warmly welcomes me as I shake my
head in some sort of familiarity to the other strange and familiar faces in the
room. As soon as I’m settled the waiter approaches my table and I make an order
of black coffee with a spot of milk which is soon brought. The room is well lit
with the lights enclosed into some polished chandeliers that are something
close to some conjoined diamond rocks against some spotless white ceiling. The same
is air conditioned and the five or so round tables are well laid out complete
with some scribble pads, customized pencils and a garland of fresh white
coneflowers; the heavy brown rug on the floor complements the walls which I
think were designed with the idea of being soundproof making the room look
warm. I instantly relax taking a mental note of Ms. Chin who’s seated somewhere
next to the NEST’s projecting screen nibbling away.
I make small talk with the 3
guys on my table and soon George commences the agenda by introducing the lady
of the morning of course after reminding us the whole purpose of the NEST being
an avenue for artists, professionals and every talented person out there to
take a break from their already fucked up lives. ‘We had to move away from some shitty ratchet videos on YouTube and the
usual scenes from Geneva, we met a lady who spoke deeply about her life story
and spoke what we desired to hear.’ He opines.
Ms. Staceyann Chin straightaway
rises. I instantly have second thoughts about the gospel that she’s 40! Petite
with natural copper colored hair that has shades of black, some fitting khaki cargo
pants, and a blue top that accentuates the cleavage area that I’m sure is good
fodder for lesbians, some brown sweater of sorts. Oh and a pair of golden
studs. Relax girls, she has an adorable one year old (she got the natural way)
to feed and my loyalty will always lie with d!ck
but boy, she’s hot!
Being Defensive
‘You can
be in your bedroom making a video that finds its way in Malaysia and the next
time you meet all these strangers who are like, I love your stuff!’ She
begins a passionate discussion of reminding the LGBT activists in the room how
their work affects people out there yet they may not necessarily know. I
personalize this by thinking of my writing as an Identity columnist and
lifestyle Gay Blogger and I’m like Hmm… ‘So
much shame is attached to being gay that we are naturally defensive but I look
at you and you look just like my people, probably a person I could have
even…bedded.’ She preserves some brief quietness as we try to internalize
her words then further proceeds narrating her first gig where she made $7. ‘A lady in a mermaid suit was eating live
goldfish and everyone was either cheering her on, puking or whatever shit one
would attach to that performance, I did my poem then a nude man performed a
tribal dance with only his dick covered in foil.’ While we are all beaming at her brief story,
she poses a deep question, ‘Why would you
enter a room of LGBT people?’
She announced to her campus at nineteen
that she had a special liking for girls (I roll my eyes) ‘Wasted years man!’ She intuitively interrupts my subconscious
which is judging her late blooming. ‘Some
boys assaulted me in a room telling me what
you need is some dick! My sense of upper-class entitlement in Jamaica had been
severed and I fled to the U.S, rubbed shoulders with some people and that was
my entry to the human rights perspective! I’m in the movement because I was
pushed and if I’m not in the fight, other people get to define me.’ She
finishes off and decides to make it a conversation. Fuck!
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)?
Everyone in the room is to share
their life story that has made them get to a point of comfortably walking into
a room of LGBT people. I smirk at Eric Gitari, the director of the National Gay
and Lesbian Human Rights Commission who commences the conversation. At some
point the conversations get really depressing that I decide to go to the Men’s
room. ‘They are probably thinking that we
are ditching the session.’ One of the attendees I later confirm is an
astute blogger conveys to me as I’m cleaning my hands and wiping my face at the
sink. I smile in agreement. I request for some more black coffee from the able
waiter. Boy, if only they could poison it with something! Of particular
interest is a senior guy in the room who tells us that he had to come out at a
time when social media was a dream. I pause here and smile at the idea that
guys used to meet at specific places and you had to dress in a particular way
including placing a kerchief on your back pocket to signify your role! You’re
welcome. ‘This country had hurt me and
just like you (Staceyann) I never wanted to come back,’ went one of the
conversations from a person who similarly shared Ms. Chin’s ordeal. It is quite
good to hear all these diverse stories and for a moment I imagine I’m in one of
them AA classes – Someone please get me a tissue – Fine, I beat myself while
trying to accept I’m different but prayer and fasting?
Ms. Chin soon wraps up the nostalgic
but equally enlightening session. ‘People
always want to speak. It shows that the LGBTI community lacks that space that
can make space for other people tell their stories.’ She says.
The elephant in the room
While LGBTI activists may sit in
comfy leather seats financed by donors or even luxurious hotel suites sipping
lattes and having bacon or croissants made of cream and spread of marple syrup,
a whole other bunch of some gay people (who may still be chasing their demons) sip
a crystal glassful of Tom Collins on a Sunday afternoon in their posh
apartments watching an LGBT themed Reality T.V; but they all agree on one thing:
They all want the LGBT environment to be more favorable. Ms. Chin captures our
full attention by posing a question, ‘What
do you want? What are your dream lists as a movement?’ You got to love gay
people. Despite our well moisturized faces, clean nails, well maintained
goatees and polished accents, no one in the room seems to impress Ms. Chin.
Succinctly put, the responses are ruled as heavily academic and should be
preserved for the next time we are making applications for grants!
Way forward
The LGBTI movement needs to
start from a point of forgiveness (Give or take situation) or a reciprocal
relationship so as to establish trust in the community. Fuck the coated
terminologies of cohesion or businesses.
‘C’mon, you are a man who puts dick in your
mouth; it should be different than a person who puts pussy in your mouth!’ She
condescendingly challenges our thinking.
It is a
matter on consensus that we are (to put it mildly) bad to each other especially
as organizations that are supposed to be helping our own. ‘How can we make space for more conversations when we are elbowing each
other?’ She asks.
Honesty
needs to be embraced by all and sundry as a core value; more events, spaces and
reception areas need to be created for people to come and just be! It need not
be overstated; it may be a community centre, a hangout or even a social library
space! ‘The poor person who’s straight says those
gay people don’t give a shit about me!’ She candidly opines and poses
the question: ‘Who do we really care
about?’
The
LGBTI community needs to not only focus its efforts on its own but also to that
woman going through abuse or violence and can’t access HIV treatment. It needs
to deal with the most vulnerable in the society or in the words of Ms. Chin,
‘Get everyone to eat.’
I decide
to have some fruity ice cream as I mingle with the rest of the people in the
room. I present a small gift to Ms. Chin and it’s instantly a bribe to the
little adorable Zuri she’s holding to give me a beaming face as I take the
pictures for my purposes. ‘Cole, I
recently joined the NEST and inasmuch as I wasn’t there when they were planning
to bring here over, I know she’s here to fill a gap,’ a Mr. Nigel opines. I
am walking in the lobby looking for the NEST’s leisure consultant but I bump
into Jim Chuchu who I’m sure will as well do. ‘What inspired you to bring Ms. Chin over to Kenya?’ I ask. ‘The NEST is all about inspiring
conversation through art and we wanted someone who could shake us up!’ He
responds. ‘And she did’. I rejoin.
I’m
technically done with the mingling so I step out and while at the registration
desk I decide to peruse Ms. Chin’s Memoir as the copies are prominently on
display. ‘The front of the car wasn’t
designed to have sex…’ starts the prologue. I instantly tell the lady that
I’ll take a copy. Ms. Chin joins them shortly at the reception with her little
one year old still making faces at me. I hand it over to her for an autograph
as I make my payment.
An evening with Staceyann Chin…
"I
can't speak in an abstract way. I'm a plain-spoken kinda girl. I'm not that
deep". Ms. Staceyann Chin.
******
The cab pulls right in front of
the Mayfair Casino. I thank the driver and step out of the car. I’m already
fifteen minutes late. I cross over to
the location opposite the casino and the fine gentlemen from the NEST welcome
me by firm handshakes. I pass by the ticket section where it is rapidly sealed
giving me a go ahead. As I approach the main door to the hall, I pick a copy of
UP Magazine out of the stack prominently displayed on a stand. A young man
holds the door for me and beckons me to go first. Such a gentleman I mutter inside. ‘That’s what you get for attending events at such exorbitant venues,’
my subconscious immediately and irritatingly dissents. I ignore his judgments
and walk into the room. It is half full and everyone is socializing. The crowd
is peculiarly mixed with a number of white people in the room and our very own
well-dressed Kenyans babbling in some exotic accents and reek of very fine
scents. These must be the middle class Kenyans who rant on Twitter! I walk forward
surveying any faces I know. Charles Baraka said he’d be here. As I walk
towards the front, I grin at the few strange faces looking my way until I see
the blogger I met at Sankara the other day. He offers me the seat next to him
and as soon as I’m settled down, I start perusing the magazine. The MC takes
the stage and introduces herself. She invites the Executive Director of HIVOS
who makes a brief but incisive speech and invites Lady Justice Monica who is
visibly excited to be in the event with the blessings of the Honorable Chief
Justice.
Staceyann
Chin takes to the stage. She’s in a knee length sleeveless yellow dress, some
red tights underneath and has naked feet that expose her well-polished nails. Her
large copper colored hair drapes on either side of her shoulders. She’s adorned
in silver jewelry this evening. From her beaded necklace that matches a
bracelet on her right wrist where she also has another chained bracelet to the
flat silver metallic wrist chain on her left wrist. She begins with the book
reading of her memoir that sends us into stitches almost immediately of course
after reminding us that black people only do memoirs to remind people of a
legacy when they are about to leave. “Bitch,
where are you?” Charles’ text
interrupts my concentration. How
convenient, talk about being fashionably late! I look around and I’m
instantly impressed by how fast the room has filled. I notice a few glamorous
faces I’ve seen in the mainstream media but Charles can’t be easily seen. I
turn and notice Ms. Chin has moved to the edge of the row where I’m seated. She
doesn’t like performing on stage because she feels it limits her from
interacting with her audience directly.
I text CB back and tell him we’ll talk after the gig. Ms. Chin’s book
reading is intriguing and I soon make a mental note that I will have to resume
reading my copy when I get back home especially the juicy love letters between
her and that Randall character. The room is totally hushed and all the smiling
faces are suddenly wrinkled when she finishes reading the bit of her assault ordeal
that made her flee from her homeland to the US. She’s equally shaken and has
noted as much. I’m immediately reminded of the recent corrective rape cases in
South Africa against the lesbians and I totally resonate with her. Her
composure and energy on stage seems to be momentarily gone. ‘If anyone dares touch by daughter like
that, I’ll fucking kill them’. She says as she tries to regain her poise to
start on the poems. I decide to walk out to take a phone call. I look down as I
walk out too self-aware of the faces. ‘Hope
you are not already bored and walking out on me.’ She says as I’m mid-way
across the room. I smile and disregard her. There is a valid reason why I sit
at the back in church!
The
performances are well coordinated. From pussy power through the poem that says,
whore is the name we give to women who
probably love to fuck like men to ones that boldly delve into religion with
lines such as ‘That
motherfucker was Jewish, not white. Christ was a Middle Eastern Rasta man who
ate grapes in the company of prostitutes and drank wine more than water.’
‘I’m an alien,
I’m a legal alien, I’m a Jamaican in New York.’ We join in the song and I belatedly realize that it fits so perfectly
to her jigsaw.
I think you are racist and sexist
The Q&A session which serves as a break before the two last poems
is really enlightening; she echoes her earlier sentiments on the LGBT movement
at Sankara when asked about her stand on the same especially in Kenya: Being
Human. She handles other questions including the aforementioned one somewhere
in this article. Then the bombshell! ‘This is a group of upscale people, would you
perform to an ordinary crowd?’ asks a light skinned man in a turque and
hint of Pidgin English. ‘Secondly, I
think you are sexist and racist. You keep making references to white people,
black people etc. That’s just my opinion…’ A section of the crowd heckles
at him and he turns to defend himself. Staceyann requests everyone to be quiet
so that she can respond to his query adding that such an exchange is very
healthy as it sheds light on a lot of other things. The man is visibly not
impressed and looks distant when being given an answer. ‘You seem not ready to listen…’ says a visibly vexed Ms. Chin. The
crowd feels like swallowing him alive but Ms. Chin finally brings sanity and
advises him that she’s open to discussion after the session which everyone applauds
her for. ‘If that is asking for my
permission, then I’m okay with it.’ He says but a section of the crowd clicks
at him in disapproval.
Regards,
Cole Mutahi.
Tomorrow on T.S.R©
Cole
Mutahi has obstinately been a Class A bitch and he writes about men as I
would about dogs…
A career is wonderful,
but you can't curl up with it on a cold night…
In their belief that
queer love is a misnomer, they seek unloving men and quick sex fixes…
…I want the full road of
love: all the way to getting my civil union registered in South Africa, the
children, his dog and his second name.
The Writer is a Gay Lifestyle
Blogger and a Copy Editor with Identity Kenya.
