Dumisani Tembe
I am black. For some time, I have tried to define myself without reference to my blackness. “I am a universal” citizen – I have responded to many who asked for my ethnic background. And the reasons are simple: I am educated, or perhaps learned. Educated and learned people are said to have the ability to transcend narrow minute identities. Such persons do not necessarily have to be certificated – but informed and knowledgeable.
I have grown to see myself in this regard. I come from a rural farming background. And yet, for more than fifteen years, I have lived in two major cities – Durban and Joburg. Some scholars have argued that urbanisation diminishes ethnic and racial consciousness, and produce new urbane identities. Thus, living in these cities, should have given me a more urbane identity with diminished racial consciousness.
However, despite my noble attempts to South Africanism – perhaps even non racialism, and universal human identity, my blackness is constantly thrown back at me. In the main, whenever I am in tourist venues, I am not assumed to be a tourist. But a worker there. Alternatively, am assumed to be onto some workshop, or conference. That is, because I do not work at this lodge, or hotel – my presence there is assumed to be a sponsored one. And this is based on my blackness.
I have lived in Durban for about ten years. This is because I did my tertiary education there. I also started my professional career as a political scientist there. I have grown to love and attached to the city. Hence, from time to time I visit the Durban. Ideally, I am a tourist. But others assume is that “am just back home”. Even those who do not know my history with the city. Alternatively, I am assumed to be in sponsored workshop or conference.
Normally, I would like to assume this being a question of class. Perhaps even cultural orientation. However, race plays a major role in these assumptions. And such assumptions are not limited to non-blacks. It includes blacks too. In fact, some guys at traffic lights intending to wash the windscreen of my car, and some car guards at parking areas – have, to my annoyance, addressed me as Ngamla – a term associated with being white.
In fact, getting to Durban by air is even more traumatic. For one, at the OR Tambo airport, I become an economic minority. Most blacks at the airport, at least those visible, are low level workers – cleaners and security personnel. Whilst these are noble jobs – their common factor among such employees should not be their blackness. As a traveler, I am a minority. In fact, even when I flew to Zimbabwe and Ghana at separate occasions, blacks were a minority.
One can count the small number of blacks flying to Durban in virtually all airlines. Interestingly, hearing a black pilot welcoming passenger in Zulu inside the plane raises two extreme emotional reactions: one of excitement among the likes of me; and a sense of concern and worry among other people.
This is because the blackness of the pilot raises fear to some people due to colonial association of blackness and incapacity and ability. It is interesting when some faces relax once a white sounding co-pilot also welcomes passengers. One can see the sigh of relief that there is a white co-pilot to compliment the presumably not to be trusted black guy. I have a black pilot friend who has adopted a Jesus line to the worrying both nonwhite and white passengers – “forgive them father for they do not know what they are doing!”
I live in Kensington. A suburb East of Joburg. This place for me is not just a house, but a home. And yet, whenever I respond to the question where is home, and indicate that it is Kensington, the question gets re-emphasized – “where exactly is home?” The demand here is that I just indicate some rural bundu somewhere out of town as my home. And yet, my white compatriots come from all over the world and claim Kensington, Sandton, Durban North and Kloof – among other suburbs as “home”. This is summarily accepted by all races.
I once attended a seminar at Sussex University. During one coffee break, a white academic asked a black professor where he was from. “Brighton” responded the black professor. Brighton is a place almost an hour’s drive from London, and not far from Sussex University. However, the white academic was not satisfied. Hence, enquired further “I mean ORIGINALLY - where you from?”
But the fifty something professor spent his entire life in the UK. But his blackness “denotes” that he must have some rural background somewhere in the bundus of Africa.
Similarly, I am not meant to identify my home as in Kensington. Am presumed to be a migrant worker. And where I belong, must be some rural subsistence farming community.
My brilliant friend Busani Ngcaweni argues that part of this is not merely a racial issue – but a historical, cultural, traditional, and generational one. That is, in the history of Apartheid, I was born pre 1994 where blacks were not allowed to live in the suburb, and therefore, I cannot claim home to be a Joburg suburb citizen.
Therefore, according to Busani, only black children born in the suburbs partly as a result of blacks moving in post 1994 will legitimately claim suburbs as home. It is a valid argument. However, it is at the face value of one’s blackness that perceptions that either one belongs in the suburb or not are made.
Now, does this worry me? It concerns me when my black consciousness is imposed on me by someone else. It worries me because, such an external black consciousness imposition is assumed, based, and associated with negativity. It assumes that what I have, live, do professionally, it is because someone has done me a favour because am black.
However, I love my black consciousness when I define myself as such. Because when I do it, I see strength in me, potential, power and the ability to make things happen.
Am happy to be black as and when I define myself as such! But I will not give up projecting myself as a universal citizen. If no one lets me be – I choose to be!
I live in Kensington. A suburb East of Joburg. This place for me is not just a house, but a home. And yet, whenever I respond to the question where is home, and indicate that it is Kensington, the question gets re-emphasized – “where exactly is home?” The demand here is that I just indicate some rural bundu somewhere out of town as my home. And yet, my white compatriots come from all over the world and claim Kensington, Sandton, Durban North and Kloof – among other suburbs as “home”. This is summarily accepted by all races.
I once attended a seminar at Sussex University. During one coffee break, a white academic asked a black professor where he was from. “Brighton” responded the black professor. Brighton is a place almost an hour’s drive from London, and not far from Sussex University. However, the white academic was not satisfied. Hence, enquired further “I mean ORIGINALLY - where you from?”
But the fifty something professor spent his entire life in the UK. But his blackness “denotes” that he must have some rural background somewhere in the bundus of Africa.
Similarly, I am not meant to identify my home as in Kensington. Am presumed to be a migrant worker. And where I belong, must be some rural subsistence farming community.
My brilliant friend Busani Ngcaweni argues that part of this is not merely a racial issue – but a historical, cultural, traditional, and generational one. That is, in the history of Apartheid, I was born pre 1994 where blacks were not allowed to live in the suburb, and therefore, I cannot claim home to be a Joburg suburb citizen.
Therefore, according to Busani, only black children born in the suburbs partly as a result of blacks moving in post 1994 will legitimately claim suburbs as home. It is a valid argument. However, it is at the face value of one’s blackness that perceptions that either one belongs in the suburb or not are made.
Now, does this worry me? It concerns me when my black consciousness is imposed on me by someone else. It worries me because, such an external black consciousness imposition is assumed, based, and associated with negativity. It assumes that what I have, live, do professionally, it is because someone has done me a favour because am black.
However, I love my black consciousness when I define myself as such. Because when I do it, I see strength in me, potential, power and the ability to make things happen.
Am happy to be black as and when I define myself as such! But I will not give up projecting myself as a universal citizen. If no one lets me be – I choose to be!
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