Fellow Kenyans,
About a week ago, I did a thing in the Open Women’s category at Hyrox Madrid… It’s probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done but I swore to get to the finish line and I did.
You can now call me an International Hyrox Athlete! 😊
"A judge is a judge whether he is newly appointed or an old fogy...Neither should, however, become an advisor instead of an adjudicator... litigants and their professional advisors are the best judges of their affairs." Madan J.A., Butt vs. Rent Restriction Tribunal [1979] KECA
🧵 Ten years ago, I visited a place that that Kenya forgot. A small hamlet that sprung up between godowns and depots in Changamwe, Mombasa. What I saw there stayed with me in a way that very few stories I have told do. A community was slowly being poisoned to death. A lead smelting plant right next to them belched toxic fumes laced with lead into the air. Dozens of men, women and children had already died. Hundreds in the community were poisoned. Some who were interviewed were, unbeknownst to me or them, already at deaths door. Yet, despite there having been sufficient evidence that this was happing , precious little did.
When Tyla said she is not Black but Coloured, she was not speaking into the American conversation about race at all. She was speaking in the language of her own country, shaped by its own history. Yet her words detonated in America as though they had been aimed there. This is what happens when a nation has spent a century convincing the world that its definitions are the only ones that matter.
America’s greatest export has never been war. It has never been democracy. It has never been freedom. America’s greatest export is the dream of itself.
It is not that the films are inherently better. It is not that the music contains some mystical note absent elsewhere. What America has, and what it has always had, is money, reach, and a machinery built to make its image the centre of the world.
This was not accidental. It was policy. It was the soft arm of empire. To project yourself outward until your face is the first one people recognise in the mirror.
And so the American way of life became the default. Other cultures were filed into two neat drawers: savage if they challenged the story, exotic if they could be sold back to you.
If you are Black, your first cinematic self was likely African American, the rapper, the sitcom character, the hero of a Spike Lee joint. If you are white in Europe or Australia, it was the white faces of American sitcoms and stadium tours. Whoever you were, your first image of yourself came with an American accent.
Over time, Americans began to believe the story they had written. When you grow up in the country that built itself into the cultural Mecca, it is easy to think you are the best simply because you are on top. You forget, or never know, that the game was fixed long before you played it.
But the monopoly is breaking. Nigeria’s Nollywood now speaks across oceans. South Korean dramas leap borders. India’s Bollywood never needed permission to fill theatres. Spanish thrillers keep strangers awake at night. Slumdog Millionaire, Squid Game, Money Heist, Shōgun — all aimed partly at the American market because that is where the money is, but no longer about America.
And here is the thing. Black Americans, who fought to be seen in their own country, became the global face of Blackness. That is a remarkable achievement. It was also made possible by the same system that excluded everyone else. Now Africans, Caribbeans, and Afro-Latins tell their own stories without making room for American centrality, and the absence is noticed.
We grew up watching you. You did not grow up watching us. And now the internet has levelled the ground just enough for others to speak without hesitation. Tyla’s words land differently because the world no longer accepts America as the only arbiter of meaning.
America’s greatest export was never its art. It was the power to decide which art, and which identities, the world would see. That power is no longer yours alone. There is both justice and loss in that.
Well, I sued Kenyatta University and Won.
On May 22, 2025 the High Court ruled in my favor in the matter: Nyambura Kimani v Kenyatta University & Dr. Linda Kimencu (HCCHRPET/E197/2023).
After years of frustration where KU completely refused to let me graduate over a missing mark for an ELECTIVE unit (UCU 104 - Introduction to Entrepreneurship), I decided to go to court, represented by @HusseinOmarLLP and WE WON.
The high court in its 16 page judgment found that:
1. Kenyatta University’s refusal to graduate me amounted to irrational and unfair administrative action, and this action was also illegal because it was in violation of Article 47 of the Constitution (Fair Administrative Action).
2. Kenyatta university violated my legitimate expectation to graduate after fulfilling all my academic obligations. (I Completed 51 units, when only 49 are required)
3. There was clear abuse of power and proof of Malice by the lecturer (Dr. Linda Kimencu) and thus she was also personally liable.
4. Kenyatta University, in their dedication to frustrate me, was contravening the rules in their own Handbook and Policy.
As a result, the court:
1. Issued a mandamus order compelling KU to include me in the next graduation list (July 2025).
2. Awarded me KES 850,000 in damages for violation of rights.
3. Ordered Kenyatta University to pay all legal costs of the petition.
The wheels of Justice may turn slow, but they turn all the same.
Congratulations to me, and to my lawyers @HusseinOmarLLP and thank you to everyone who has supported me through this journey.