The Colour-Bar

I’d like to kick start this article by stating for the record that I am not racist. Some of my favourite people are white or of white descent. I am able to watch and enjoy British Comedy and sometimes even bellow with laughter. Having said that, I feel that it is my civic duty to ask “What the hell is going on?!”

The year was 2005, I was enjoying a cigarette with a friend and a young man who we didn’t know but who had asked to share our cigarette. As we engaged in student small talk a young, white woman, about our age, came walking past. From her frazzled hair and the untrimmed toenails on her filthy bare feet, one would have assumed (as I did) that she was homeless, or on drugs, or both. As we quietly shifted in the pungent odour which followed her, the young stranger we were with took a puff of his/our cigarette and chuckled “Don’t do drugs kids”, the three of us shared a good laugh and just as I was about to make a mental note of his wit and comical timing he sighed “Well at least she’s white so I would do her”. The rest of the conversation is a blur though I do remember a lot of profanity and hand gestures from my friend and myself. This could be considered one idiots opinion in the land of milk and honey, however the reason that this incident bothered me so much is because of the sheer honesty of it!

Five years later I found this scene to be on repeat in my mind for some or other reason. So I conducted some self funded research. I asked ten young men to describe what their ideal woman looks like. The words “light, petite” and “long, straight hair” were thrown around. I assumed they were describing a woman of Chinese descent when the phrase “fat ass” kept popping up. I realised they were describing a white black woman. These gentlemen could not stress the “Light” feature enough. Some even went so far as to use the word yellow. REALLY?! Has the scar tissue of the Apartheid regime managed to infiltrate even the youngest of our generations? Have we been so heavily indoctrinated that we wonder the streets with a mental colour bar against which we measure the worthiness/desirability of our, dare I say it, brothers and sisters?

Now, I’m a child of the 80’s so you can’t tell me squat. I was born in the height of Apartheid, I grew up during its down fall and I became conscious at a time when the name of the game was “who can make the most heart wrenching post Apartheid movie”. So I am tired...no, exhausted by the subject and that is why I am so incredibly annoyed. I am annoyed by the national state of post traumatic stress that blankets my people and is conveniently ignored. I am annoyed at the “Yes baas” mentality that still seems to haunt our every day lives. And I am especially annoyed at the possibility that all those episodes of Molo Fish and repeats of Sarafina could turn out to have been for nothing! The black South African population could be compared to a kidnapped child who never underwent any type of counselling after being emancipated from his/her captor. Now it would seem that this child, though still fearful of their captor, has become some what obsessed with their captor; trying to impress their captor and even mimicking their captor in an attempt to feel closer to their captor. We, as black South Africans, are suffering from Stockholm syndrome!

I have wondered this earth for the past quarter century as a very dark skinned child, and it is as a direct result of the darkness of my skin that I have often gotten the short end of the racial stick. I have been called tar baby, coal train, black bird, N***er ball and all sorts of other horrible names, but not by white people, by “my people”. So understandably I have been angry at my people for most of my adult life because I failed to understand why I was made to feel ashamed of being dark. But now I sympathise with my people, but only the older portion of them. Those older generations who call darker children ugly because they are trying to prepare them for what they think white people will call them later on in their lives. I can almost understand their “tough love” approach and I am even willing to cast them away onto the “lost cause” island. When it comes to people my age and below, however, I do not have to sympathise nor do I have any understanding. I call you “Good Blacks”. "What is a Good Black?” I hear you ask. Allow me to elaborate:

Before I begin to define this phrase, allow me to explain that I understand our story. Us, who were thrust into white society and directed by our parents to mimick accents, and gestures. Us, who were made to “say something in English” to impress our aunts and uncles and pretty much make anyone who couldn’t speak English feel like crap. Us who, as a result of the above, speak to one another in English, think in English, write in English and even talk dirty in English. I understand. We are victims of our past blah blah. What I don’t understand is those who choose to act like there is something wrong with being from elokshini (townships) or even ezilalini (rural areas). Those black people who are the first to jump up and point out mispronunciation of a word by their fellow black brother/sister, or look down on those who have struggled and were not blessed with the same opportunities. OR say they would sleep with a homeless person because they are white and that makes them…what? Superior? Those are your good blacks: Trying to impress their captor unawares of the fact that no one cares anymore.

We can blame our parents up until we are about 19 years old. Then the excuses stop. We are the masters of our own destinies. We are all very aware of the fact that not everything our parents teach us sticks. Some of us where taught to be Methodists from birth but still manage to come out Buddhists. Now I am not saying that we should all go out and peruse the set of Muvhango, find the darkest person on set and marry them…no. I am just saying we should look at our values. Look at our core and perception of beauty and intelligence and question its basis.

We didn’t escape one racist regime to be boxed into another one.