I am English but I can not speak it

"I am an English woman who grew up in England with an English Dad and my Latin mom who speaks English very well, but I can only speak Zulu. My friend, Grace is typing this out for me. Although I grew up in England, I know nothing about the Queen and I honestly do not see the fuss. Before you get started, yes I am white and just because my great-great-grandfather is black, making me one-sixteenth black, it doesn't mean I'm mixed. Yes, my hair is a little curly in the way that putting product in your hair and braiding it before you sleep won't help but it honestly doesn't mean anything. Also, this is no hate to black people, I just don't want to be like Rachel Dolezal, you feel me?"

This was an actual message I received in an email by Sarah* (Fake name obviously, I'm not mean) to put on the platform. I've read some pretty crazy things before but I never expected to come across something like this. Like how do I even reply? Was she serious? Do I run with it?

The answers formed a resounding no because when you flip the script, replace English with Zulu, white with black and vice versa, the story is a little less comical and speaks to the legacy of my country.

The truth is I am a byproduct of my environment. I grew up in KwaZulu Natal instead of England, with a Zulu father and a Xhosa mother, and I write to you now, as a black woman with an otherwise exactly the same story in "reverse". However, my story isn't as far fetched because while my parents worked day and night to provide for me after finally having the opportunity with the end of apartheid, I was taught culture by western media, my Christian school and my speech therapist. It's how I learnt to speak, and armed with my love of reading, I learnt that the most eloquent way to speak was with an English South African Accent.

I think in my parents' quest to get me the best possible education, they lost the time to educate me on my own culture. There were no family members to, and the helpers simply didn't have enough hours in the day to impart their culture to me. I learnt that ancestral worship and Zulu mythology was bad so all I was left with was beads and the story of Shaka Zulu. The first time I had ever heard about the Tokoloshe, a Zulu mythological creature, was in grade 3 at my more diverse, new Christian white-majority school.

That, coupled with media representation at the time, taught me that the only way to be successful in South Africa wasn't to only assimilate into the western culture but to feel as though that is your own culture and the right way to live life. To see no distinction between myself and my white friends in that regard. I was so blind to race, that I thought I was English and Zulu was just a checkbox for when the population census took place, with no real value or meaning.

Skip several years to grade 12, while I sit in my history class, listening to how the Zulu homeland leader and his Zulu supporters demanded recognition of the monarch in the new democratic South Africa. How proud the Zulu Nation is. When someone asked who would the Zulu nation listen to, the president of the monarch, the one other Zulu girl in my class immediately responded with monarch, and I was dumbfounded. Being in those specific lessons were a bit conflicting, to say the least, especially after the looting was partially caused by tribalism and extreme Zulu ethnic pride. It was an otherwordly experience between my flesh, my identity and my spirit, as I asked the other black kids around for an explanation on Zulu culture. They turned out to not be Zulu and the complete irony of the moment did not escape.

Were people making generalisations? Was I agree with them? Were did my supposed fight to unlearn self-hatred and relearn black pride go?

You see, even I, your local social justice warrior, am flawed. I don't know my own culture.

I don't have an excuse, like the tragic history of those living in the Diaspora or a reasonable explanation like being adopted. Honestly, I felt alone in dealing with my self-hatred and shame around the perceived violent nature of my culture. Whether it was watching xenophobia play out in the news, which targetted my father's Swazi nationality or sees tribalist stereotypes portray my mother's culture as more peaceful and intellectually based, I lost pride in my culture. My desire to learn was squashed after being consistently ridiculed for not knowing Zulu.

Even to this day, I know more about the Mali Empire, the Egyptian Empire, the Moors, Nigerian culture, African American culture and Xhosa culture than I know about Zulu culture. I've made an effort, there were originally 13 months to reflect the moon cycles with each month name reflecting a common thing that would happen, like farming, raking leaves etc. I know that my tribe came from the sun tribe which was the same tribe as the mother of King Shaka Zulu before it was adopted into the Zulu kingdom. My clan name refers to a horse. When I am 21 I can go to a ceremony to celebrate my womanhood and virginity, or I can go to the Reeds Dance Ceremony. But that's about it. I've expanded my music tastes to amapiano and Zulu gospel music. I read up on the black experience in all these countries because I have no experience of my culture.

You know that tub of ice cream in the fridge that builds your excitement and appetite, but when you open it, it's filled with rice? Yeah, I'm that tub of ice cream. Feels misleading, doesn't it? Although I do think people collectively need to expand their views on how black people can act and what self-hatred or racial denial actually looks like. Just because I chose to be black and a hippie, or black and goth, or decide to have a preppy style, it doesn't mean I am not black. But in the unspoken language of South African, there is no doubt that capitalism and economic oppression of black people have led to me being stripped of my culture.

As much as I would love to be a Steve Biko or a Fred Hampton (without promoting segregation, rather equal opportunity through integration), I don't trust myself to speak like a black person about more everyday things that I can't exactly research, like appropriate hairstyles or outfits. I fear I might accidentally be an agent of white supremacy and perpetuate oppression in my weaker knowledge and experience-based areas.

Perhaps it's my perfectionism and harsh critique of myself, perhaps it's simply my desire for change.

Perhaps it's the only way, I feel valid and my only way to accept myself as a black person.

The effect of years of being called a coconut does not simply change overnight, it requires work, just as my upcoming Zulu exams will. So take this as my attempt at making peace with myself.

Until next time

Zukiswa Mhlongo

Written Friday, 20th August 2021