Trevor Noah was right, it is damn difficult to explain coloured people to non-South Africans.
The first time in recent memory that I've attempted this was in August, when me and Ty took our trip to Coffee Bay. We went on a hike (voluntarily, I know right?) to see the sights and to do some cliff jumping. We bonded with a bunch of people, Sofia the Australian tightrope-walking nurse, Lisa the Britsh volunteer, and the Dutch couple who were hilarious but I can't remember their names.
That night, we got to talking over some drinks, and Lisa asked the inevitable question. I didn't see it coming then, but by now I've learned to recognise that the moment is approaching.
You're both getting quite comfortable with each other, and moving into 'personal questions' territory, the ones that you ask somewhat tentatively, ready to retract at any moment in case you offend your new friend.
"So, are you black then? Cos you don't look very black."
I still don't know how to really answer this question. Sometimes I say yes, for three reasons: 1) its a much shorter answer, 2) well I mean I'm not white, and 3) I don't feel much of a connection with the person, and so I don't have the energy for this mammoth explanation.
The difficulty for me in the explanation comes with the term 'mixed race', which I'm discovering is way more politically correct in the rest of the world than you would think. And yet I can't bring myself to ignore the knee-jerk Trevor reaction "Jou ma se mixed race!"
Experience has taught me to make the compromise "Its simplest if I say 'mixed race' but don't tell anyone I said that."
And then I launch into the discussion, because I for some reason feel compelled to, about how I am NOT mixed race, both my parents are the same as me, and all 4 grandparents. And that the white man and the black woman (or the other way round) who were originally responsible for this 'mixing' lived several generations ago and that by now this has created an entire new race of people in South Africa.
I'm still getting blank looks at this point, so I use my genius brother's explanation to clarify even further:
"You know how Jan van Riebeeck landed at the Cape in 1652 with Drommedaris, Reijger and Goeie Hoop? Well, his lady wife arrived at the Cape a whole four years later, and its in that in between time that the Dutch started dipping into the pot of tar."
The reference to the 'touch of the tar brush' always makes me laugh, but it does make politically-correct Brits kind of giggle awkwardly. Hehe.
And I figure this is the best I can do, without overloading people's brains with two much information about how there's also Malaysian heritage, and British, and just about everybody else who settled at the Cape and later Durban and PE. I mean, its already a far longer answer than they were looking for.
Sometimes I just let people believe what they want, like an American girl I met on a beach trip once. I was sharing a room with two American girls, both black, and we were getting into swimming stuff to go laze around, when the more outspoken of the two burst forth with:
"It is so GOOD to meet another black person out here. I tell ya, these Thai people be lookin at me all crazy, checking out my ass. They just don't know what it means to be black, you know what I'm sayin?" (Now please read that quote again, with a deep South accent, and you'll get what I mean.)
She says this to me, completely disregarding the other girl in the room, who's from the same place in the States that she comes from, and also black. I wanted to say that I'm not sure I know what it means to be black either, but I would've just been saying it to make her feel awkward, and the beach was waiting for me.
I've had to answer this question more than ten times since arriving here, by now Nicola starts laughing when she hears the conversation headed toward this business of being 'mixed race'. I just can't bring myself to see it as a blank term, without any connotation attached. I don't like it, I associate it with images of weak tea, and the Oros that's still in the bottle. And even worse, it starts sounding a bit Nazi/ Harry Potter-ish, all this pure blood nonsense. But its very likely that it means nothing at all, and that its only my holding on to the negative connotations that give them power.
Perhaps the next time someone asks me, I'll smile coyly and say "Why do you ask?" and avoid the conversation altogether. Feels much healthier that way.
