I didn’t know I was black

A few weeks ago, my friend and I were chatting, as usual, about our relevance in the world - our individual purposes other than self-preservation. Our chat brought us to Black Consciousness where he said, “Is Black Consciousness dead? My friends are just all about sex drugs and rock 'n roll... maybe you should write something around this topic to probe some of the questions about our role as young Africans”.  He threw this in as we parted ways and it left me really wondering. Me? Write about Black Consciousness?

What do I know about Black Consciousness? Well I’ve always known that it’s associated with; the late and legendary Steve Biko of “Black man you’re on your own” and “I write what I like” fame, early days of Drum Magazine, Sophiatown, renowned  Apartheid-era journalist Can Themba – basically about taking pride in being black.  Of course I know what the Black Consciousness movement advocated for but how do I relate to it, if at all? ‘Cause I’m not gonna lie (as black folk in this part of the world like to say), I have never had a romantic relationship with being black, at least never one as passionate as Julius Malemas’. I still don’t have a romantic relationship with the color of my skin. No, don’t get me wrong. At least hear me out.

The day ‘discovered’ I was black

I didn’t know I was black until it was pointed out to me when I was 15. And often times when I say this people react with a high-pitched, Judge Judy “What? You thought you were white?”  And my answer to that is a simple “No”.

I was in JC or what most schools in Swaziland refer to as Form 3 when I was 15 years old. I was a terrible student at Math. All the teachers knew it. And when I say terrible I’m talking discount sale kind of “off”….98% discount which means I would have a score of only 2% - my lowest ever. In my high school, when you did extremely well you were automatically scheduled for a date with the Principal in his office -got your “Excellent” stamp plastered on your test paper, a huge smile and pat on the back from him.

The same rule applied when you did the extreme, but obviously the pat in the back was replaced by serious in-your-face-finger-wagging accompanied by subtle threats about what will happen if you don’t improve your grades i.e. possible expulsion.

So there I was in the Principal’s office who also happened to be my “home-room teacher” at the time, so he knew all my grades across all the subjects. See, my high school Principal was a feared man. I think him and my father may have been two of the most feared men in our community. The community newsletter once wrote about my father, “Even if they Prime Minister called, his children will never get him to the phone because they know better than to wake him up or make him answer a phone call, no matter who is calling”. Just like my father, even the Principal’s own children who were at the school feared him when on the school premises. Both feared but loved and respected.

Anyway back to my date with Mr. Principal. He got straight to the point (as usual) - told me how disappointed he was in me for dropping in almost all my grades that academic cycle and how he thinks “It’s because you’re spending too much time with your friends on the streets on weekends. Your white friends…”

I immediately went into shock because for the first time in my 15 years of living in a multi-cultural community, I was hearing the “white” reference in this context…being used to differentiate me from my friends, from people I know. Shock followed by uncontrollable sobbing when he carried on “You and your friends wear short Shorts and my girlie those clothes don’t look the same on you because you’re black and they are white. And trust me, I know you can handle the boys you attract, but there are irresponsible men out there whom you’re attracting as well”. The sobbing worsened and he gave me his hankie. No, he actually didn’t give it to me but he whipped it out from his pocket and started wiping my tears away while he put his hand gently on my shoulder and carried on with the sermon “I know my girlie; unfortunately it’s a tough world out there. You don’t want to embarrass your father now do you? He’s a respected man, your brothers too, they are doing well and we are all proud of them”…

Shoooooooo, boy did I cry. My tears could have flooded the long Great Usuthu River running just a few meters away from Mr. Principal’s office.

Discovering I was black made me cry

At that time my 15 year old self didn’t know why I was crying. Some years later when this talk started making sense, I realized I had probably cried because he was telling me things I didn’t know and being the firm father figure that he was, even though he’s a white man, I somehow knew as I stood in his office that he was telling me something I really needed to know, something that was relevant at that point in my life and in future. So looking back I think I cried because I felt burdened – that in addition to my studies, in addition to Math, in addition to learning boys’ tricks and absorbing “the talk” I had just recently had with my mother after starting my menstrual cycle i.e. “being a woman”, in addition to eventually finding my prince charming and mothering children, I still had this other thing to learn – being black. At least I had reference points in my sisters for everything I’ve listed here, but this being black???? Where was I going to learn this? Who would teach me? Do I have to take notes while watching Sarafina over and over? Do I have to learn it pronto? Why did the world have to make me learn this black thingy? And you know with learning something new comes ‘unlearning’ some few things…aaaaargh! I hate the world.

Luckily it turned out I didn’t have to immediately learn being black. The only thing I had noted in my teenage mind was that the world – which we all want to go into when we finish high school - is not like my comfortable sugar cane town Big Bend…the world will treat me differently because it doesn’t know where I live, who I live there with, who my parents are, who my siblings are, who my schoolmates are, what my favorite things to do are when I’m at the Ubombo Country Club, and probably doesn’t care that for me it’s enough to know and take pride in that I’m Swati, my chief’s name is Mlimi Maziya  in the Lubombo region and my head of state is King Mswati lll.

And then ‘it’ struck

I started feeling the “you’re black” thing exactly 10 years later when I moved to Johannesburg, South Africa for my post-graduate studies at Wits University in 2004, aged 24. In conversations in and outside the classroom I’d get these gestures that said “you should know” when the topic centered around ‘township trends’ or ‘the history of Soweto is so rich…’ or ‘how inconvenient taxis are’ etc. I’d just always have this blank stare. It started to sink in. This is what my Principal was talking about. I started noticing too that almost every hour, wherever I was on campus or in my car listening to the radio or watching TV, conversations were always about black this, white that…this was it. Black people gave me the side eye when I pointed out that I didn’t quite know what i-Kota was for instance or that I could only respond in English when they spoke to me in any other language outside siSwati. They’d call me Coconut or Oreo. I wasn’t black enough.

White people also gave me uncomfortable looks when I said “No, I can’t tell you where Soweto or any other township is for that matter, because I don’t know, I’ve never been to the township”. They probably thought I was one of those black people who are ashamed of being born beyond the tracks and was trying to be white. Jah! Now I was learning what this being black is all about…rejection all round.

I remember how I dedicated a whole day to tracking down my high school Principal and when I found him I said “Thank you”. I explained to him how I’d felt the day we had out “black talk” and how a part of me thought he was such a rubbish person for doing that to me at the time, but “now I realize what you meant and what you were trying to prepare me for, thank you Mr. Boden.”

So yeah, some of my black friends call me an Oreo, Coconut, hippie etc because clearly I didn’t “unlearn” some of the things that they think are “white tendencies” as Malema once put it. But hey, that’s me. So there Mshoza, to me you’re still Mshoza from the township, bleach and all - no one will really ever understand what issues you're dealing with regarding the color of your skin except you.

As for me, its still not as clear as black and white. I see humans first before I see color. I see multi-cultured humans. I see complex creatures - really not as simple as black and white.