Suns of Blackness

“Dude, you’re the Whitest Black man I’ve ever met.” by Khaya Maseko

What am I supposed to say to that? There’re about 5 Black people in the club that aren’t  staff. There’s some Death Metal playing in the background. The gig is awesome. It’s crowded with men and women in all kinds of edgy clothing. There are spikes, piercings, band T-shirts and leather everywhere. This being South Africa, it is not the usual to find a Black man who’s feeling right at home in this kind of environment.

But I do, sitting there in my Radiohead, Hail To the Thief T-shirt. My in-depth knowledge of Metal has obviously shown this person that I must be White inside. Words/names likeDecapitated, Six FeetUnder, Hate Eternal and The Haunted glide over my tongue as if I was raised listening to Death Metal. But  I am a product of autopoeisis, self-made and self-actualizing.

Where do we draw the line at personal personality and perceived personality? Who judges what the Black human is?

Throughout history, race has been a reflective phenomenon. One is Black because they are not White.  The opinion is thus built by attaching cultural norms to a people and marking the differences to one’s own. I have love for my Black fellow human. I am Black because the Black has faced what I have faced. I have lived and written down what I know to be the Black in me. But race is a temporary thing. The second this enlightenment came to me, I became aware that being Black was as important as being anything. If the person I made of my self was loving and productive, my Blackness would be a negligible fact. We do not live in that future, as yet. The Black human only survives because of its opposites, as light only survives because of the darkness it antagonizes. We cannot build a future like that. On this road to the future, we must note in bold type that race is only scaffolding for what the human eventually will be. It must come down, sooner or later.

One need not forget, that hundreds upon thousands have died and disappeared because they had thick lips and knotty hair. One must not forget ukubhala ngolimi lwakubo(to write in their own tongue). One, especially the Black one, must not forget hundreds of years of institutionalized hatred. One must not forget that there is a difference in people and the spaces that form and inform said people. One must be vigilant in studying their history so that they may purport the good and educate about the harms of evil-doing.Societies and cultures die because of forgetting. This is why the King Leopold burned records for almost 7 days before he finally left what was known as The Belgian Congo.  Records of any type inform and an informed ‘enemy’ is the most dangerous kind.  An informed slave populous will fight better than one with no intelligence on its oppressors. But being Black isn’t about being oppressed.

Making moves from the reactive position has more cons than pros. The Black human should only respond to the human, not the White human.

This Africa of ours is filed with Black human killing Black human. This is no Auschwitz. This is Congo, Rwanda, Somalia, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, South Africa and too many other places of bloodshed. The capabilities of self-punishment and self-torture are stupefying.These atrocities tend to come from the place of forgetting. The French are the least of the problem in Africa, now. Too many Francophone Blacks are killing each other for too many ridiculous reasons, which often points to lack of reason.

So, in fact, I should be proud that this man in front of me thinks I’m so White. Ah, forget his reasons, as long as he doesn’t link me to the gang-raping, drug-peddling, granny-mugging, starving, corrupt, belligerent people that I come from. Because what else do people have to remember about the Black?

History is written by winners, it is often said. Well what has the black won? Do we have claims to fame that will move Black supremacy to Reich heights? Do we even want to go there? The word ‘superpower’ hasn’t even sat next to ‘Africa’ on a train. The paradigm of the African Renaissance has been crawling on its belly for one too many decades.  If we do not make our selves, we will surely die. Surely. We have enough academic data, from Anthropology to Zoology to be proud of our selves as Africans, the diaspora firmly included. The Black will not be killed by a jaded White teenager in a Heavy Metal club. It will be killed by the self. The Black dies when he forgets. The Black lives when he remembers. The Black dies when he sees nothing to be proud of. The Black lives when he manufactures pride from the universe we all have. The powers of creation and creativity aren’t a racially exclusive thing. We have as much influence on personal image as the next human. But who is writing our history? Answer and act. Who is studying your language? Answer. Act.

We are not any better for having more White friends than Black ones. We are not any closer to ‘civilisation’ by studying German over Swahili. We are not any thing until this thing that is the Black human is self-actualizing and fulfilled by it. Be, have, do.

A Black people must be their Blackness without the White man, and they must not forget that being Black is not a race. In fact, I propose the dissolution of all racial lines, but this is a dream and the pipe is long. I my self, have never ever felt anything other than Black. The future of my family and offspring is loaded with Memories of our past Black people. How they helped shape the polity of our South Africa and the world. How they made music from the brightest pit of their Blackness