✊🏽 NEWLYWEDS REP. MALCOLM KENYATTA & HUSBAND TELL THEIR OWN LOVE STORY 💕

Their love survived a heartbreaking presidential election — and now it’s thriving during a groundbreaking U.S. Senate campaign.

That’s the tale of Malcolm Kenyatta and Matthew Jordan-Miller, the latter now Matthew Jordan-Miller Kenyatta after the two married Saturday. It’s a love story inextricably bound up with politics, as Malcolm is currently a history-making Pennsylvania state representative and is now seeking the Democratic nomination for U.S. senator from his state. They spoke with The Advocate a few days before their wedding.

Like many modern relationships, theirs began online. In the spring of 2016, Matthew saw Malcolm on an Instagram list of LGBTQ+ leaders to watch. “He was a cute one,” Matthew recalls. He sent Malcolm a direct message, and that led to several months of FaceTiming, phone calls, and other communications before they met in person.

That’s because they were separated by nearly 3,000 miles. Matthew was in a doctoral program in urban planning at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, while Malcolm was a political activist and consultant in his native city of Philadelphia. But their mutual attraction was undeniable.

“There was a lot just about our conversations [that showed] how caring he was, that he was a kind person,” Malcolm says of Matthew. Malcolm would stay up late for their communications because of the three-hour time difference. Matthew, though, had some doubts about having a long-distance relationship.

Then came the 2016 presidential election, something that was traumatic for many. Malcolm was closer to the process than most — he’d been a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. After Hillary Clinton’s loss, he wanted to visit Matthew in California, but Matthew turned him down. “He broke my heart, and we didn’t talk for about a month,” Malcolm says.

But their relationship warmed up again, and they finally met in person in February 2017, with Matthew visiting Philadelphia. The Northern California native decided it would work out for him to live there, and he moved to the city after finishing graduate school — he’s the first Black person to receive a doctorate in urban planning from USC.

Malcolm, meanwhile, was breaking ground of his own. He was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 2018 from a Philadelphia district, becoming the first out gay Black person in the state legislature and the second out member overall — Brian Sims, from another Philadelphia district, was the first. He was reelected in 2020 and now has set his sights on the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Pat Toomey, who’s not seeking reelection. He will face several other candidates, including Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb, in the May 17 Democratic primary. The Republican primary field is likewise crowded.

Matthew has his own demanding career. He teaches city planning at the University of Pennsylvania, and he’s director of the Justice and Belonging Initiatives at Penn’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design, aimed at creating an environment in which all students, faculty, and staff are valued.

Communication is a key factor in keepting their relationship strong amid the challenges of their careers, they say. “That is a big one, probably a foundational one,” Matthew says. It helps, they note, that they honed their communication skills during the long-distance phase of their relationship. They’d have to plan to see each other, and now they try to set aside regular date time.

Also, the ongoing global pandemic means both have been working from home a good deal, and that togetherness has helped them understand the intricacies of each other’s career. It has freed Matthew to attend campaign events with Malcolm as well.

Despite the pandemic, 2020 was a busy year for the couple. They appeared together at the virtual Democratic National Convention — Malcolm was one of three out politicians featured as part of the keynote address. Malcolm proposed to Matthew in July of that year, and social media posts about the proposal went viral. Matthew counterproposed in March of last year.

The men share a commitment not only to each other but to racial and social justice, and both were shaped by their early lives. Malcolm grew up as the son of a single mother who sometimes struggled to afford the insulin she needed to manage her diabetes. His experiences gave him “a determination to make life better for people who know what happens when government doesn’t work,” he says.

Matthew was led into urban planning partly by his love of science fiction, which led him to imagine cities of the future. Now he wants to help make the field more inclusive. About being the first Black Ph.D. from USC’s urban planning program, he says, “It’s not enough for me to be the only one.”

The future of cities, the future of the nation, their future as a couple — that’s a whole lot of futures to plan, but they’re looking forward to it all. They know that 2022 will hold unknown challenges, but right now they’re jubilant, as indicated by Malcolm’s tweet after their wedding: “Forever sounds pretty good.”

SOURCE: ADVOCATE

U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE MALCOLM KENYATTA IS FIGHTING FOR THE SOUL OF DEMOCRACY

If you ask Pennsylvania Rep. and U.S. Senate candidate Malcolm Kenyatta (D) what he is most proud of in his political career, he will tell you that the moment hasn’t happened yet.

“My big hope will be that there is some kid right now who is watching this campaign who is saying to themselves, ‘You know what, I can do that too,'” Kenyatta told LGBTQ Nation. 

Kenyatta could become the first out gay man elected to the U.S. Senate, as well as the first Black senator from Pennsylvania.

“Those distinctions are important,” he said, “but it’s less about it being important to me and it’s more about the ripple effect I hope it creates for people who see themselves and therefore understand that their possibilities are limitless. It is so difficult for kids to be something they can’t see.”

Kenyatta announced his Senate run last February and has long been considered a rising star in the Democratic party.

In a landslide victory in 2018, he became the first LGBTQ person of color to be elected to the Pennsylvania General Assembly at the age of 28.

Chronicled in a short documentary called Going Forward, Kenyatta’s intense passion and commitment to change has captivated many.

At the 2020 Democratic National Convention, he was one of 17 rising star Democrats to deliver the keynote address and one of the first three out LGBTQ people to ever do so.

He decided to run for U.S. Senate because he believes that right now, there is “an assault on the core question of whether or not democracy could work for people.”

Kenyatta thinks it should work for working families and believes in what he calls a “basic bargain” that says everyone should have access to safe and affordable housing, quality healthcare, a safe education, and clean neighborhoods.

“That pretty basic bargain has been out of reach for a lot of people and certainly was out of reach for my family,”  he said. “I think if we don’t ensure that basic bargain is accessible to all people, then you continue to have the erosion in people’s faith and trust in democracy’s ability to work.”

Kenyatta has racked up dozens of endorsements in his senatorial campaign, including from feminist icon Gloria Steinem, U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids (D-KS), the LGBTQ Victory Fund, the American Federation of Teachers, and Brand New Congress – the organization that helped Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) win her Congressional seat.

And if elected, he has a big agenda.

Among his major priorities as a Senator would be advocating for the passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act – both of which have been blocked by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) refusal to support filibuster reform.

“If you don’t have the ability to vote… then you don’t even have the capacity to really participate in a democracy, which is the floor of all of this. So we have to get rid of the filibuster and pass [this legislation].”

Kenyatta also wants to focus on expanding healthcare access, raising the minimum wage and increasing federal education funding – including prioritizing universal pre-K and affordable childcare.

Fighting the climate crisis is also key to that “basic bargain” of getting to live in a safe and clean neighborhood, he said.

Kenyatta also made it clear that he is not willing to entertain the “lies, misinformation, and disinformation,” in which the Republican party has been trafficking.

“We have one party who has decided that the core of what they believe is that the election was stolen, even though that is completely false, and if their person doesn’t win they should change the rules.”

“It’s not just two sides who disagree, there is one side, Republicans, who are actively anti-Democratic… If Republicans want to join us in reality I’m willing to work with them on whatever we can.”

Kenyatta said he “will push back every time there is nonsense being spewed,” but that he also believes in working as hard on the issues the two parties agree on as the ones they disagree on.

“I am willing to work with anybody if they are trying to advance a thoughtful solution to any of those buckets I mentioned around America’s basic bargain. When you grow up in a working poor family the way I did, you don’t give a damn who the solution came from… What people want are solutions to the problems facing them in their lives.”

He added that as a state representative, he introduced one of the bills most dear to his heart, Phillip’s Law, with a Republican. The bill, named for an 11-year-old boy in his district who died by suicide, sought to expand mental healthcare access to students in schools. It did not become law, but Kenyatta hopes to prioritize expanding mental health access for youth as a senator.

Kenyatta follows a rich family legacy of standing up for his community. His grandfather, the late Muhammad Kenyatta, was a civil rights activist who he often thinks about in his own fight for justice.

“As has often been said, we are our ancestors’ wildest dreams, and I certainly feel that I am the wildest dream of my grandfather and my ancestors, but what I also think about is the fact that this idea of expanding the basic bargain so it reaches everywhere is sadly not a new pursuit.”

He remembers his grandmother calling him up in 2019 about an issue being debated on the floor of the Pennsylvania House. “She saw it and said, ‘Baby I’m so sorry. I thought we had fixed some of this stuff.'”

“I refuse to have a conversation like that with my grandkids,” Kenyatta declared. “This is our opportunity to get this stuff done… If government doesn’t work for working families, this experiment in democracy is at risk… Every generation has a responsibility to make it work and pull us closer, even if that means kicking and screaming, to what the American promise is for every single one of us.”

Editor’s note: This article mentions suicide. If you need to talk to someone now, call the Trans Lifeline at 1-877-565-8860. It’s staffed by trans people, for trans people. The Trevor Project provides a safe, judgement-free place to talk for LGBTQ youth at 1-866-488-7386. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.

SOURCE: LGBTQ NATION

GAY REP. MALCOLM KENYATTA RUNNING FOR U.S. SENATE

Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta is running for U.S. senator.

Kenyatta, a Black gay man who’s considered a rising star in the Democratic Party, made the announcement Thursday on The ReidOut on MSNBC.

“There nothing’s written on a tablet somewhere that says America has to succeed,” he told host Joy Reid. “You know, America succeeds because every generation steps up to protect and expand the promise of America — a promise that has excluded for too long so many working families whose lives were tough prior to COVID, and this deadly pandemic has made those cracks even worse.

“And so I know that we have an opportunity right now to expand on that promise, to make sure we that we have a country that doesn’t just talk about justice and fairness for all but that actually makes it real, and it’s with faith in that mission and joy in my heart that I’m announcing here tonight that I’ll be a candidate for the United States Senate to represent the great commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”

The seat is opening up because Sen. Pat Toomey, a Republican, has announced he won’t seek reelection in 2022. Two other Democrats have announced they’re running for the post — John Fetterman, currently the state’s lieutenant governor, and John McGuigan, a former borough councilor in Norristown, the Pennsylvania Capital-Star reports. Several other Democrats and Republicans are considering bids.

Kenyatta “will bring diversity to the burgeoning field of contenders, while mirroring some of Fetterman’s strength as a sharp-elbowed social media user and frequent cable TV guest,” the Capital-Star notes. Kenyatta is an outspoken progressive who has advocated for causes such as raising the minimum wage and reforming the criminal justice system.

He won a second term in the Pennsylvania House last year. He was the second member of the LGBTQ+ community elected to the state legislature; the first was Rep. Brian Sims, also a gay Democrat, who this week announced he’ll run to replace Fetterman as lieutenant governor. Both Kenyatta and Sims represent Philadelphia districts

If Kenyatta becomes a U.S. senator, he’d be the first gay man as well as the first Black member of the LGBTQ+ population to win the office. The two current out U.S. senators, and the only two ever elected, are white women — Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin, who is lesbian, and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema, who is bisexual; both are Democrats. There are only three Black U.S. senators at present — Democrats Cory Booker of New Jersey and Raphael Warnock of Georgia, and Republican Tim Scott of South Carolina — and there have been only 11 in the nation’s history.

Kenyatta was featured as one of the “rising stars” appearing during the virtual keynote address at last year’s Democratic National Convention. Two other gay politicians appeared — Georgia state Rep. Sam Park and Long Beach, Calif., Mayor Robert Garcia. It marked the first time any out LGBTQ+ speakers were featured in a keynote slot at a major party’s national convention. Kenyatta’s fiancé, Matthew Miller, appeared alongside him.

I just want to find my person.” This phrase is enmeshed in every Rom-Com, Netflix series, Sex and the City soliloquy, and coffee shop conversation. The idealism in romance has led us all to believe there is some cardboard cutout of our perfect match who we’ll kiss to life and they’ll render us a puddle of infatuation for the rest of our days. We imagine someone is just waiting for us to stumble upon them during a hike in the Enchanted Forest. We’ve been spoiled by movies like The Notebook. We assume “our person” will come sprinting toward us on a rain-drenched dock, and we’ll row our way through a ballet of swans into the sunset. Some have called this person a soul mate, others have thought them to be a Twin Flame. Not only am I not a relationship expert, I literally just came to know the term Twin Flame a few days ago when Elle Hari, founder of “Be With Your Twin Flame” and Ascension Alchemist, introduced it to me.

SOURCE: ADVOCATE

OBAMA SAID GAY POLITICIAN MALCOLM KENYATTA IS A SIGN OF CHANGE

 

Former President Barack Obama recently visited Philadelphia (you know, the place where bad things happen, according to Donald Trump). During his visit, Obama not only met with local politicians but he singled out one Black and openly gay politician as a sign of change.

Specifically, the moment happened on Wednesday, October 21. Barack Obama visited Philadelphia for both a drive-in speech and a roundtable campaign event in promotion of the Joe Biden campaign. During the latter events, Barack Obama spoke with some of Philadelphia’s Black community members. Among the group was State representative Malcolm Kenyatta. After observing Kenyatta, former President Barack Obama noted that change is happening. After all, a politician styling dreadlocks, like Kenyatta does with both flair and humility, was previously unthinkable.

“If you don’t think things have changed, having a brother in the state legislature with that haircut, that is a change, that looks sharp, but I’m just saying, man, you didn’t see that 20 years ago,” Obama told the State Rep.

Kenyatta then responded with, “My hairstylist thanks you.” Kenyatta also joked that she’ll later clip the moment for a future endorsement.

But according to the Advocate, that wasn’t the end of the conversation. Kenyatta then asked Obama a question about hope.

“When you ran for office, your slogan, hope, and change,” Kenyatta pointed out. “The last couple of years have been a lot of sadness and destruction. What still gives you hope?”

Obama then replied, “Hope is not blind optimism. Hope is not ignoring problems. Hope is believing, in the face of difficulty, that we can overcome and get a better world. Hope is looking squarely at our challenges and our shortcomings and saying, ‘Despite that, I think through effort and will and community, we can make things better.’”

He added, “And so, I’ve never lost hope over these last four years. I’ve been mad, I’ve been frustrated, but I haven’t lost hope.”

But Kenyatta’s hair is not his only contribution to society. In 2018, Malcolm Kenyatta was elected into office along with over 150 other LGBTQ federal, state, and local candidates across the United States of America. The only gay politician has since been a vocal advocate for voter rights, given a keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in August, and openly displayed his relationship with his fiancé Dr. Matt Miller. The latter includes his viral proposal to Miller back in July.

But in his constant fighting during these past two years, Kenyatta has recognized the difficulty of keeping hope aflame. But maybe Barack Obama’s words helped to keep Malcolm Kenyatta’s hopes and political drive alive.

SOURCE: INSTINCT MAGAZINE

Watch Rep Malcolm Kenyatta Rip Into GOP Over Voter Suppression

Pennsylvania State Representation Malcolm Kenyatta delivered a fiery speech this week against Republican-backed legislation that he says will make it harder for people to have their votes counted.

The bill, which passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives in a party-line vote Wednesday and now goes to the Senate, eliminates drop boxes for ballots in the state and allows only brief periods for requesting mail-in ballots and beginning vote counts before Election Day, Spotlight PA reports.

As amended by Republicans, the bill reduces the deadline for requesting mail-in ballots from 15 days in an earlier version to seven, and counting of those ballots will begin three days before Election Day, not 21 as Democratic Governor Tom Wolf wanted. It will also allow poll watchers to go to counties other than their own to monitor voting.

“This actually should not be a contentious issue,” Kenyatta, a Philadelphia Democrat, said on the House floor Tuesday. “It should be a bipartisan issue to allow every Pennsylvanian to have access to their fundamental right to vote. But what this amendment does is make the process inaccessible for Pennsylvanians. And unfortunately, it has been driven by national politics.”

Allowing poll watchers to come in from other counties will have the effect of intimidating voters in cities like Philadelphia, he said. “That’s why the Voting Rights Act struck down a lot of these things,” he pointed out. He decried unsupported accusations of fraud in the mail-in voting process, which have come largely from Donald Trump.

Statistics cited by the chair of the Pennsylvania House Appropriations Committee show an incidence of fraud that is less than one-tenth of 1 percent, Kenyatta noted. “I wasn’t that good in math class, but that means not even 1 percent of votes,” he said, adding, “Most of those cases involved voter intimidation, which this bill would allow to run rampant.”

He had previously spoken about the issue during a previous session. 

"In my first term here, I've come to expect the absurd," he said of the issue. "This idea of voter fraud is, frankly, nonsense — and we need to call it that. Nonsense."

Watch the full speeches below. 

SOURCE: OUT DOT COM