WHY AM I BLACK?

A colleague of mine the other day asked me why I insist on boxing myself and calling myself ‘black’.

‘You’re brown, you’re not even black,’ she revealed to me. She’s one of those people who insist she doesn’t see race, blah blah rainbow nation.

But she’s also one of those people who see black as just a skin colour, it appears to me, and black is so many things to so many people. I don’t see absolutely anything wrong with defining myself as black; it’s like being a woman or being a Christian.

I love being a woman, not just because it’s a gender I happened to be assigned at birth, but I embrace everything about being a woman.

I love the fact that I have a nurturing nature, that I am strong, that one day I can have short hair and the next day it can reach my bum and I love that my body is strong enough to carry a baby. I love feeling beautiful, sexy, and emotional.

Of course there are negatives to being a woman, a black woman, especially in this country. You’re vulnerable to criminals; you are not always given the respect you deserve and for five days every month you are your body’s mercy.

But would I change being a woman for anything? No. I love being a woman.

I also love being a Christian. I love believing in a higher being than myself, I love going to church, praise and worship and I enjoy all the blessings God has bestowed on me.

Of course there are challenging moments where I feel despondent, but does this mean I want to stop being a Christian? No, of course not.

Which brings me to being black. Black for me is not just a skin colour, which was one of the degrading and humiliating consequences of a system like apartheid in our country. People just look at your skin colour and decide you’re not good enough based on that. There is a whole culture I love to being black. Of course, it’s different for every person.

My blackness is inextricably linked to my upbringing. I grew up in a township on the East Rand called Katlehong and that’s where my blackness was cultivated.

I learnt being black is about community, about sharing and about looking after each other. I learnt even in the thick of trouble in your life, to smile and to always keep your head up. I learnt never to look down on people, because one day it could be you.

As a black person, I learnt that each life is important and valued enough to have a dignified funeral that is planned for. I learnt that every older person in my street was a mother or father figure and that they had a duty to look after me and chastise if need be.

I learnt dances I could never have learnt living in the suburbs and ate delicious food that only a black hand could conjure.

But are there annoying things about black people as well? Yes, of course.

I still get annoyed with black people who want to have huge funerals when we are limping through tough economic times, and yes I get annoyed when Exclusive Books in Soweto closes down because black people aren’t buying books and reading when they can afford it and yes I get very annoyed when you go to a restaurant and the black waitress treats the white patron better than you.

But does that mean I’m going to stop being black? Of course not. Because black is more than just a skin colour to me, it’s who I am. As long as I am not using my blackness to victimise other people, I don’t see anything wrong with this.

So, yes, I am a proponent of the rainbow nation but as long as I can still have the choice to define myself how I want.