6.3 Qaba-tshu [deep darkness in people of ochre] versus white-black (diversity in
6.3.1.3 Coconuts criticised
183 other”. Fanon (1986) refers to language as a cultural tool, which suggests that to speak English, as Nomtha claims, is to take on a particular culture. According to Fanon (1986), this citizenship is never more than “honorary” insofar as a racialist discourse of unchangeable biological difference ceaselessly works to seal whiteness in its whiteness and blackness in its blackness.
Nomtha makes claims of being neither a Zulu speaker nor an English speaker, as she claims to be good at neither of the two.
In this construction one sees the ambivalence Nomtha manifests as she is torn between her desire to assimilate into whiteness and her rejection of black culture, which nonetheless maintains a strong hold on her through the ties of the family primarily her mother. Her identity seems to be derived from a social context and implies fluidity and hybridity. Nomtha‟s identity is positioned somewhere between blackness and whiteness, so, instead of her former „black‟ identity in this new space, she is offered nothing: she will neither be white nor black (Bhabha, 1994). Bhabha terms this position the “third space”. Nomtha, in the third space as defined by Bhabha, constructs and reconstructs her identity as fluid not static. In the third space she is unable to claim blackness nor can she claim whiteness; she says “I leave this one and hold onto this one”. Nomtha‟s construction of her identity is contradictory and ambivalent, constructed between being a Zulu and being white.
In these positioning/constructions, the mobility and flexibility of blackness is a response to a demand of context. Openness to ambivalence and contingency is even an acknowledged virtue.
184 acknowledge it (yes) they act so wild and inside ok and they look down on the townships (yes) and they don‟t want anything to do with the townships they don‟t want to learn a black language (mhm) even though they know a black language they act as though they don‟t … and instead of being angry with them you need to sort of like feel sorry for them (mhhm) they have an identity crisis I personally regard them as having an identity crisis (yes) and I believe that if you have an identity crisis ok like that (mhm) you don‟t know your identity or you denounce your identity (ok) how do you expect the next white man to respect you as a person (mhm) how do you respect yourself number one because you don‟t even know who you are (mhm) so therefore how can you proudly walk down the street (mhm) you know.
Extract 23
Kasog: my biggest fear for our black people is (mhhm) we have lost who we are (mhhm) our identity is gone and its very few people that you find that a s a woman I speak to being black I‟m proud to be black they say they are black and I am proud to be black but when you sit down and ask them what is being black to them being black is being westernized and that‟s my biggest fear and it is already happening because you never hear a white person saying I want to be black (mhhm )and you never see a white person trying to be black (mhhm) but you see a black person trying to be white (mhhm) and you see a black person trying to be American (mhhm ) and you can‟t just be a happy normal Zulu or Sotho person (mhhm ) that to me is an identity crisis in black people in this country and because of that it‟s gonna have impact also on how this country‟s black (mhhm ) people are groomed and brought up.and until that is the case (mhhm) because we are so westernized (mhhm) its either we are going to be very Americanized or we are gonna be very more British and those are two popular trends and how can you proudly defend the colour that you don‟t want (mhm) you hate yourself you have to hate yourself in the colour that you are (ja) there is no way that you can love yourself because you look in the mirror and then what do you see?
In extract 22 and 23, Nono and Kasong deny „coconuts‟ the status of being black. The issue here is the problematisation of hybridity in black identity in a self-production of black identity as
185 essential and as different from whiteness as possible. I use Nono and Kasong to highlight the ambiguity of the construction of black identity as essential in spite of its hybrid moments.
In extract 22, Nono, contrary to her earlier view (cf. Extract 20) of claiming her status as an authentic black „coconut‟, criticises the other version of „coconuts‟. We can attempt to locate Nono‟s different arguments within Cross‟s stages. For example, there is reason to suggest that extract 20 as Cross‟s (1971) internalisation stage. This is because she seems to have positioned herself as a person who accepts the existence of bad and good qualities in her blackness. This is evident in her increased confidence in embracing her pluralistic perspective of being an
“authentic black” and being a coconut. In extract 22 she contests the position of coconuts as an authentic black position. In this case she seems to be in Cross‟s (1971) pre-encounter stage.
Echoing Cross, she positions the coconuts as people who consider themselves to be neutral, and who see blackness as unimportant. She offers them characteristics of not wishing to be black.
She says “don‟t want to be black secondly they would prefer to be black but don‟t want to acknowledge it”. As such she constructs them as people who experience ambivalence in the way they construct their hybridity status: She constructs this ambivalent position of coconuts as being a result of the desire to be white. She offers them the qualities of a spilt identity characterised by ambivalence: both a rejection of black identity and a desire for „authentic‟ rootedness in blackness. In extract 20 above she has positioned herself as a coconut who is authentic by preserving herself as fitting into black culture. In positioning the other coconuts as inauthentic she denies them this fit. She constructs blackness in the individualising language of Cross. For example, she portrays such blacks as being in identity crises and as being psychopathological and sees the problem as self-hate. This is evident in that she says “you denounce your identity”.
She positions black identity as a product of a psychological “complex” that black people encounter as a by-product of colonialism, embarrassed by its blackness (Fanon, 1986). She, like Fanon (1986), constructs identification as a pathological condition produced by colonial relations in the construction of white-black. She claims that these coconuts hate and reject blackness and prefer to be associated with whiteness. According to her this identity is in crisis marked by self- hatred and the ignorance of not knowing who you are. She mentions that these coconuts pretend not to know their indigenous languages, look down on underprivileged black people, have no respect for their black identity and hate their blackness.
186 Similarly, in extract 23, Kasong‟s criticism of white-blacks reflects his criticism of black subject positioning. Kasong sees the relationship between black and white as lopsided. For example, coconuts are criticised for distancing themselves from blackness and allowing themselves to be integrated into white society. Kasong uses the term „westernised‟ as a contrast to “being proud of being black” to illustrate the ambiguity of black identity as constructed in the discourse of wanting to be white. She says “you never see a white person trying to be black”. Kasong constructs blackness as gradually developing white cultural values. On the other hand, she sees whiteness as not moving towards developing black cultural values. The same hierarchical structure used by coconuts to construct their identity is used here. This happens in one way only:
it is always blackness and not whiteness that thinks of cultural difference in hierarchical ways.
The fact that coconuts are criticised for „looking down‟ on black culture in contrast with „being westernised‟ signals that the white pole is constructed as superior and the black pole as inferior and wanting.
This way of constructing black identity uses the same discourses that were used in constructing white-black differences which aim to essentialise black identity. This becomes a source of conflict, a construction of complexity in black identity, desired by some and rejected by others.
This point of essentialism is a product of colonialism; thinking about what it means to be black is based on differentiation which develops through the encounter with whiteness.
This argument shows how black identity becomes dilemmatic. As demonstrated above the position of black-white is a congratulatory one but at the same time it is a place of ambivalence and undesirability.