- Our stories create demons, but our stories can also slay demons.

It's time to tell my own story.

My name is Rotimi Agbabiaka, and I'm an actor.

My name is Rotimi Agbabiaka, and I am a black actor.

My name is Rotimi Agbabiaka, and I am a queer, black actor.

In Lagos, Nigeria, where I'm from, weddings are the biggest social event.

Everyone's dressed to the nines.

The ritual, with its prescribed role, the pageantry, the pomp, the costumes, the glamor.

And for me that was my first exposure to theater, and the possibility that I could be anything or anyone was opened up to me, I think, when I began to play in my mother's closet.

So then I went to acting school right outside Chicago, Illinois, and one day this woman came from New York.

One of the big things she talked about was figuring out what your type is, as an actor.

I asked her, "What do you think my type is?"

and she looked at me and she said, "Oh, well, the first "thing I thought when I saw you was gangsta."

For me that was... one of the first, and the clearest moments when I realized that in this profession, in this industry, in this society, when a lot of people look at me, they're not seeing my humanity, they're seeing an idea of me, an idea that is rooted in a stereotype of what a black man is.

Oh, Lord God almighty.

I bring my son, Rotimi, before you.

Oh, Lord deliver him from evil.

Deliver him from temptation.

He has gone astray, oh Lord.

Like the seed that was plucked up by the birds before it could take root and flower, so has your word been taken from him by vultures, and buzzards, and demons which hover around him.

I remember the day my father pulled me out of the closet and promised to pray for me.

And eventually, God answered his prayer.

What, you didn't know that God is a Nigerian drag queen?

Girl, you better recognize.

And I came here today because you and your father keep talking all kinds of rubbish about me.

You think I am some angry old white man with an unmoisturized beard who sits up in the sky and judges you for being gay.

And your father thinks I will take his side in this stupid battle between him and his gay demons.

Yes, his demons.

Don't you know?

Demons are nothing but characters out of the stories we tell ourselves.

And these demons that your father is so convinced have corrupted you are just his demons that he is trying to pass on to you.

And you can tell him, "These are not my demons, "these are your demons, so take them the (bleep) "away from me."