JAMES’ JOURNAL (Entry 21)

November 25

Quite a number of times, the question of what is wrong with Nigeria comes up. Why is a country as blessed and rich as ours so messed up and finding it hard to get her act together?

Over the years I’ve heard a lot of common answers: the government, corruption, terrible education, the fact that we were colonised… yada, yada, yada.

Sure, these are all problems. However they are not THE problem. What’s wrong with Nigeria? You and me.

Nothing is going to change in this country if we keep pointing fingers at each other, thinking we personally are not to blame.

These leaders you see up there, they didn’t spring from the cesspools of corruption and greed just like that. They were once normal citizens like us…citizens that got to become the elite. They were brought up to believe that stealing and half-truths are normal.

‘We Follow a Jesus I Do Not Recognize.’ Rev. Colin Coward in a Facebook Rant

The Rev. Colin Coward, MBE, director of Changing Attitude England, recently wrote on Facebook about his displeasure with homophobia in Africa and the distortion of Christianity by those who are anti-homosexuality. Read below.

‘I feel incredibly angry today. I’ve been chatting for the last hour and a half with a gay Nigerian friend, a quiet, thoughtful, stable young man who allowed himself to trust a ‘friend’ who invited him to a café this morning. It was entrapment. They went to a place that was more rooming house than café which was a set-up, finding himself in a room where other guys were waiting to assault him. He has been attacked, threatened with a machete, kicked and punched, burnt with cigarettes, forcibly stripped naked, clothes torn, photos and a video taken, beaten, and those in the room were joined by guys he had seen playing football earlier.

‘He is a Christian and those assaulting him were Christians. He feels suicidal now, fears the police and further exposure, can’t seek medical treatment, is in deep pain physical and emotional.

‘Assaults like this against LGBTI people are a daily event in Nigeria and other homophobic African countries. I am seethingly angry at the distortion of Christian teaching that encourages and supports the abuse of LGBTI people.

Photo Of the Day: Thou Shalt Not lie

Are you a perpetrator of these lies below, better stahp it! God is watching you o. 

Dear KD: I Have A Question About Finding Love

How do guys find love, what with the harsh climes we live in?

I always did wonder, because I hear of friends and stories of people finding love, hooking up and all that. I’m 25 and I’ve never been in a relationship.

See, I’m immensely shy, I never know what to say to a guy I find attractive so I just steal glances, or stare, depending on how courageous I feel per-time. I have also been rejected a lot of times by guys who feel nothing for me whereas I feel everything for them, and I have been a victim of blackmail by ‘Kitos’.

I don’t want to recede completely into myself and become a cold, unfeeling creature as I slowly am becoming. But I do not have the courage to step up to someone and say “hey”. I’m not very outgoing, so I don’t even know where people go where they meet people.

Speaking Of The Lumbersexual…

Yesterday’s urban male wore a slim-cut pair of pants, perhaps a button-down shirt with a narrow tie. He kept a clean shave, and generally looked tidy. His look was coined “metrosexual.” David Beckham was the poster-child for this breed of men, described as “the biggest metrosexual in Britain” in a 2002 Salon article that helped lead to the term’s popularity.

Photo Of the Day: Waje’s Coco Baby

Singer Waje has released a new single titled ‘Coco Baby’ featuring Diamond Platnumz. It’s a fun pop song, that kind of music that makes you think of sugar, chocolates and sweets. And the men in the video… Ay, papi! Just coco-tastic enough to make me forget my darlings, Idris and Tyson…just for a moment. Lol

The Boy Who Had the Saddest Eyes

Read this story listening to any song(s) that give(s) you peace – Marcus.

He came to St John’s Boys’ High at a time when I wasn’t sure what I was. In the mornings, when everybody taunted Ben, calling him a homo, sissy, fag, I watched and said nothing, afraid that Ben would get tired of being teased alone and suddenly blurt out that I did stuff with him too; and in the evenings, I visited Vera, a girl from Our Lady’s Girls’ High whom I liked a lot because she was always willing, always giving.

He came one sunny morning looking like a thing from hell, thin and droopy-eyed, his scalp a radiating mirror, an old, ugly schoolbag slung lazily on his shoulder. He stood beside Miss Lara in front of the class, and introduced himself. His name was Amara, which was another ridiculous thing about him because all the Amaras I knew were girls. Miss Lara gave him a seat by the window, and whenever I looked at him, he was either always staring outside or sketching something in his sketchpad. He hardly ever talked, always mumbling a one-word reply whenever talked to, and soon I began to think of him as a bag of monosyllables.

Whenever we played basketball, he stood under the dogonyaro tree outside the court, watching us. One day I asked, “Do you want to play?” and he shook his head, mumbled something nonsensical, and started walking away.

And so, apart from being called Solar System because of his clean haircut, he was also called Robot, Dummy, Alien. I didn’t know why, but I found myself riveted by him. Maybe it was because he had an air of mystery around him, of enigma. I would sit across from him in class and stare and stare at him, until he looked up from his book or away from the window, and his eyes would settle on mine, a lazy settling, like a pat on the head; and it would linger, his eyes, until, always, I was forced to look away, embarrassed.

What They Say IV

I think there’s a tremendous sense of complacency in the LGBT community. AIDS has lost the edge of horror it possessed when it swept through the world in the ’80s. Today’s generation sees it more as something to live with and something to be much less fearful of. And that comes with a sense of, dare I say, laziness. We need to be really vigilant and open about the fact that these drugs are not to be taken to increase our ability to have recreational sex.”

— Zachary Quinto in an interview with Out magazine

Even When In Rome

What I have to say is something most people do not know or readily talk about. Homophobia among Nigerians or Africans in diaspora is of major concern to me. I often hear of young Nigerians who have journeyed far away from home and away from the scourge of homophobia, to a land where they presume they can be free to be themselves and experience a new environment where they can meet people like them, and yet they cannot enjoy this new found freedom, thanks to the increasing number of African or Nigerian communities in the West.

We read about some very hurtful kito experiences in Nigeria and we cringe and sigh with disgust, but a young naïve boy/girl also experiences daily humiliation and gay-related hostility as a student living abroad, afraid of reporting to the authority for fear of being outed to his family back home or fear of rejection from his/her African community. Those who have actually dared to forget whatever ties they have with home and live their lives freely irrespective, deal with threats and name calling, snide remarks and sometimes discrimination when they encounter fellow Nigerians.

Lesbian Couple Shocked To Discover Their Address Changed To “Faggots Live Here” On Google Maps

We don’t know where we’d be without Google maps, and we don’t mean figuratively. We’d still be lost out in the Mojave desert, gas tank creeping perilously low.

And while nearly everyone has a similar experience of being saved by the all-powerful combination of Google and GPS, one North Carolina lesbian couple is understandably outraged at the service.

Jennifer Mann and Jodi McDaniel, their three children and one grandchild live in the small town of Canton, in a house that sits on a private, unnamed drive.

Mann’s son Dakota was at school playing around with Google maps when he discovered something upsetting. The unnamed drive now had a name — the street read “faggots live here.”

The circumstances for the slur remain shrouded in mystery. Did someone hack into Google? Was it a Google employee? Maybe an employee of the county?

Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing. The sign was left on Google for a month before it was finally removed last week.

“We live ordinary lives, just like everybody else,” Mann said. “Now it looks like I’m being a target.”

A Google spokesperson apologized and told the family it would be taken care of.