OUR EDITOR DUMI ON OUR JUNE 2022 EDITION

Telling stories has never been easy, it takes a lot of creative thinking and precision. Its even harder to tell stories of a particular community as there is fear of misrepresentation. Let’s face it, if we leave storytelling to others, they might tell the story wrong, leave out important details that matter, or tailor the endings to serve their own ends. However, we have allies out there who have taken the responsibility of telling our stories authentically. 

There is only but a few films that we see on our screens that have queer lead characters in South Africa. I have noticed that most queer creatives are behind a lot of content that is being shared with the world via the big and small screen, but there is just a drop of queer character scenes. How are we able to tell other peoples stories and yet we cannot tell our own? 

We cannot change what the industry actually is and what it looks like without empowering others what it could be instead. In these issues we aim to empower queer actors and creatives alike to tell queer stories to those who will listen, pitch and be heard. Our lives depend on it.

Once again, I give you another exciting issue of Exit in which we explore journeys of different creatives in the story telling space. I pray and hope that you get inspired to begin and keep telling our stories. Allies have played a big role and we celebrate them all the time for being great and accepting to stand for us when we couldn’t.  Love and light to them all. 

In light of the winter coming up am sure you all geared up to tackle it head on. Avoid unsafe hook up apps, buy an electric blanket or try our PERSONAL ADS and you won’t go wrong. 

Its goodbye from me!

Dumisani Macdonald Dube