Keletso Makofane, MPH, PhD (he/him/his)

Activist, public health practitioner, and social network epidemiologist.

[THANDISWA MAZWAI @thandiswamazwai]

It’s a weepy day as I speak to journalists about my new song KULUNGILE OUT THIS FRIDAY🌸

It’s a song about some of the traumas we face a kids, the things that hurt us well into adulthood.

Maybe your father was never around,or someone died,or you were abused.

KULUNGILE���

[Keletso Makofane, MPH, PhD (he/him/his) @klts0]

coming into power in the US seems like an intellectual death of sorts

[Barack Obama @BarackObama]

From record-breaking job growth to expanding health care coverage, @JoeBiden has spent each and every day working on behalf of the American people. I can’t say the same about the guy running against him.

[malaika 💗 @MalaikaMazwaii]

happy birthday to my one true love, my mommy and best friend. i love you more than nutella and taking naps. 48 has never looked so good sana, ingathi usena30 😂😘. @thandiswamazwai

[Keletso Makofane, MPH, PhD (he/him/his) @klts0]

Came back to Twirra for one day just to read this tweet. There are as many upstanding people as there are cowards. I am grateful when they speak up like this.

[Zakes Mda @ZakesMda]

I am greatly moved by your tweet, son (I can call you that; you’re two years younger than my oldest son). This is the bravest thing any son of an icon can do. Ignore those who are denouncing you. What is more important is your truth and your healing. Many of us need such reckoning with the truth of our past. My father never physically beat up my mother - to my knowledge. But his words were abusive to her most times. I never said or did anything about it. I thought it was normal, it was how real men talked to women. It was the same when I saw Nelson Mandela slap his wife Evelyn in the kitchen in the presence of us kids. Here too I thought it was a normal thing that men should do occasionally - discipline “their” women. It was only on looking back as a young adult that I realized that what I saw growing up had left me traumatized. It was only after I had written about these incidents in my memoirs that I felt the relief, and I came face-to-face with my humanity once again. Like you, I was denounced by those who have placed themselves as gatekeepers of what is or is not African. They can all go fry eggs.

[Keletso Makofane, MPH, PhD (he/him/his) @klts0]

goodbye, Twitter! and thanks for all the fish.

[Keletso Makofane, MPH, PhD (he/him/his) @klts0]

but anyways let me get back to doing my gay things. Watching a drag show called Mea Culpa.

[Keletso Makofane, MPH, PhD (he/him/his) @klts0]

In my own relationships I have noticed a readiness to deploy black womanhood as a way of not actually understanding my gay ass experience. Instead of trying to understand my vulnerability folks get “male privilege” and “black woman” and come to certain conclusions. 4/

[Keletso Makofane, MPH, PhD (he/him/his) @klts0]

folks are responding to their experiences with toxic straight men in their lives when they focus on male privilege as a thing that renders gay men’s problems of a lower order. But they can’t hurt them, they can hurt us. 6/

[Keletso Makofane, MPH, PhD (he/him/his) @klts0]

There is a certain romance with our victimhood that can really shut down empathy and compassion. A lot of the time people seem to be competing for the status of victim because it lends a moral authority and, frankly, the ability to pass on some of the pain we experience. 3/

[Keletso Makofane, MPH, PhD (he/him/his) @klts0]

As if manhood isn’t actually lethal to gay men. That whole part of things - of actually navigating a hostile manhood that straight women are happy to live in despite their friendships with us - is out the conversation. 2/

[Keletso Makofane, MPH, PhD (he/him/his) @klts0]

as a gay man, straight women will treat you like a woman - that is when we are doing care work alongside. But other times, straight women will treat you like a man - that’s when it is time to talk about womanhood as victimhood. Then the male privilege enters the chat. 1/

[Keletso Makofane, MPH, PhD (he/him/his) @klts0]

It’s always looked like what it is. Just that most of y’all were too cowardly to admit what you saw

[Rohan Talbot @rohantalbot]

So there we have it: Israel's plan for Gaza is to turn it into an isolated prison camp with total and indefinite control, complete with puppet government and reeducation programmes. A terrifying and dystopian vision.
https://t.co/rFpLYqwcox

[Keletso Makofane, MPH, PhD (he/him/his) @klts0]

@Yash_P Literally so gross. Snot. Water where you hadn’t planned for water to be. 🤮🤮😭

[Keletso Makofane, MPH, PhD (he/him/his) @klts0]

I have been crying with joy at art lately and it’s gross. Last night it was worse because I had spilled droplets of wine onto the concrete floor in front of my seat. They continued to glisten after they dried, so they looked like fresh tears the *whole* performance. 🤮

[Keletso Makofane, MPH, PhD (he/him/his) @klts0]

“People have the power to redeem the work of fools” - Patti Smith

[Keletso Makofane, MPH, PhD (he/him/his) @klts0]

I’m finally ready to admit to myself that I will never eat magwinya unless I make magwinya.

[Keletso Makofane, MPH, PhD (he/him/his) @klts0]

if the whites who thump their chest about the racism of other whites actually took steps to understand how whiteness shapes their lives and makes it impossible to have compassion, that would be useful. This fake argument about who is most racist is indulgent and tedious. 2/

[Keletso Makofane, MPH, PhD (he/him/his) @klts0]

it’s always 👀 when white people do this symbolic aggression against whites who are (also) racist. Instead of trying to identify how they are similar with conservative cousins and trying to use that similarity to heal them, they do oneupmanship. Only helps them. Not me lol. 1/

[Jake Thrasher @ThrashTalk]

Haha no babe, you’re not gay and conservative. You’re gay and fucking stupid ❤️

[Keletso Makofane, MPH, PhD (he/him/his) @klts0]

Every accusation is a confession. When people Zionists talk about rape, they are just trying to get you in your feelings because they know that as a decent human, you will respond. They are not decent people.

[Jake Shields @jakeshieldsajj]

According to the UN Israel has been raping Palestinian women

They accuse you of what they plan to do