I greet you, oh most authentic of them all, and wonder if I may ask you a few questions, maybe then I might learn how to be a “real” african.
You’ve said to me, more times than I care to remember, that I need a little something extra to make my body a “real” African one… “Perhaps if you had a bigger bum, you would look ‘more’ African”, “missus”, “o fedile”, “seshwapa”, “waas plank”…all of these I’ve heard time and again from a “real” African.
You’ve said to me, too many times than I could count, that my accent, when speaking English, is not that of a “real” African… “Snob”, “coconut”, “lekgowa”…all these terms have been “endearments” I’ve been dubbed with at one point and another.
You’ve said to me, yesterday and today, that my mannerisms are not that of a “real” African, because I am not comfortable in a shebeen, because you’ve seen me eat sushi, because I would not normally go to a township for the hell of it, because I do not speak or completely understand tsotsitaal, because I do not own a pair of converse sneakers…
These “real” Africans have no face really, they’ve been family, friends, class mates and even acquaintances. So allow me to ask you a few questions please.
1. Where do you get the audacity to think you can form an opinion and then proceed to TELL me that I am not an African, a child of the soil, because I don’t have a big bum?
Are we made Africans because we have behinds? Is it a requirement and fact that without a bum, then a person is null and void of being an African? Do you consider it a mistake that I was gifted with melanin skin? Are you saying that the rear is the reason that I should be given a stamp of approval by “real” Africans?…
2. How is my ability to speak another language a reflection on my being an African?
Are you saying that we are incapable of learning the English language properly and speaking it fluently? Are you saying that I should speak with a deliberate drawl/drag/hardened-tongue to prove to you that I am African? Are you going to expect me to speak isiZulu or Tshivenda appallingly as well, or is it only limited to English?
3. Am I supposed to exude an aura of a toughened and roughened being to look like I belong to Africa?
Are you telling me that an air of rowdiness is a ready identification of our people? Are you saying that a made up language, consisting of languages that are not indigenous to Africa is a standard by which Africans should be measured or set by? Are you telling me that having seen me sample foreign delicacies, then my Africaness is revoked? How can imported clothing make me any more African? Since when have townships upheld the truest sense of African culture?
Dear “real” African, please think about this. Ke mo Afrika titi. Bowela kalana bja ka, ke gona mo Afrika. Semelo sa ka ke tswetswe naso. Bo nna bja ka ga bo ipeye ka maikutlo a gago. Ke moAfrika.
janainaart
turnnoffyourmind
titsay
andulkaphoto
vaporwave
2087
