It has often surprised me how difficult it is to speak across colour barriers, to people who do not understand your reality. Communication barriers arise when one does not recognise the other’s experience as authentic, real and true.
I have started to feel quite oppressed by the presence of ”whiteness” in my world, or perhaps my presence in the white world. To be a black professional of middle-class status living in Cape Town means living in an extremely white world. Such a world is not capable of recognising and validating you as a black person in any way.
When we raise issues around racism, white people tend to brand us as divisive and not embracing of the new South Africa. Perhaps they could look at the issue from a new perspective.
A while ago I went to the Eastern Cape where I was born, and was amazed by the sense of joy I felt there. Coming back to Cape Town, I immediately felt different. In trying to figure it all out, I realised that there had been an incredible amount of fulfilment driving in the streets of East London and seeing next to me other black people driving cars like mine.
In Cape Town, what is mirrored in my subconscious is that only white people drive nice cars, only they live in nice houses they own, and only they have a place in lovely clean suburbs that are taken care of effectively by municipalities. Then you have to learn new ways of doing things that reflect whiteness, because of the environment you are in.
No white person can understand how taxing this is, unless perhaps you have travelled overseas and experienced the sense of foreignness you feel when your own kind is not reflected in what you see in the streets, or the food in the shops, or the advertisements on billboards.
The only difference is that, in South Africa, we feel foreign in our own land.
My life in Cape Town consists of going to work and spending hours looking at white faces across the boardroom table. The only image I see that reflects me is in the faces of uSisi who sweeps our floors once a week, or my other uSisi who types up our letters and photocopies our documents.
And then sometimes I see myself in the image of the hungry black child in the videos we watch during conferences, when we talk about what needs to be solved in South Africa — black South Africa.
Then I go to shops that have only white people buying and my people at the tills doing menial labour.
I go to pick my son up and there it is again: his white friends, the white culture he is being swallowed by and the white language.
I can imagine that you are wondering why I go to these shops and live in these suburbs that torture me in this way. Clearly, I do not have to go to your church, shop at your mall, and live in your street.
But why is it yours? Why is it yours in a country that is supposed to be mine? Why do these suburbs only reflect your culture and not mine? Why do the pictures on the walls talk only about you and not about me?
I want to see myself reflected in the faces of people walking on the streets with pride because they have, they can and they are! I want to see my self, my people, and my culture reflected on windows, on cars, on Internet sites that validate who I am and my legitimacy to be.
I am tired of hidden messages that reinforce that I do not belong here. I am tired of the stares and the shock that I invoke each time I open my mouth to speak, because somehow I am just too articulate to be really black. I am too confident and I speak English too well to be from the Eastern Cape — as if speaking English is an indication of wisdom and strength. Those who think so should meet my grandmother, so they can hear the wisdom that springs from her belly, in my mother tongue, Xhosa.
Those who can listen, hear me. I am African. I am a woman. I hail from the rural insides of the Eastern Cape. I have never been to a Model C school. Yet I know enough, I am an expert in my field, I have skills tucked under my wings that would surprise even you.
Do not be impressed when you hear me talk. My kind, if you would take the time to listen, are like me. Most are better. They know because they know. They have been brought up with integrity and grace. They work hard to meet their goals. They know exactly where they are going and how they will get there.
Just because I know, just because I can, does not mean that I am closer to becoming like you. It does not mean that we have something in common. It means I am me.
Stop! Stop staring at me for all the wrong reasons. Do not call my boss and express how impressed you are by my presentation because you did not expect such brilliance. From now on, when you see me, when you see my kind, expect brilliance. Expect clarity, integrity, vision and vooma! Expect nothing less.
Namhla Mniki is a developmental specialist working in Cape Town