Blackness is diverse, different, multiple
BLACKS, LIKE WHITES, HAVE NEVER BEEN A HOMOGENOUS GROUP
THERE has not been a time in the history of racial identity in this country when the number of people who define themselves in terms of their race or language group or tribe has been so low.
Far too few people (8.8% ) continue to see themselves as black or white compared with those who simply define themselves as South African citizens (52%).
Thus the question of so-called blackness is, largely, based on assumptions. There is an urgent need for a critical re-examination of what it means to be black.
Just like the question of whiteness, black identity is based on physical features such as skin colour, hair texture, lip size or nose shape. This is what makes it a myth.
People do not identify with one another, like or dislike each other because of race or what they look like. A serious examination of the tendency to perpetuate the definition of black or white identity based on what people look like needs to be undertaken.
The past 20 years have seen many the emergence of classes or groups of black identity based on language, religion, regionalism, origin, class, educational status, material accumulation, geographical location and other attributes.
What we need to acknowledge is that we have always had a variety of different black identities. This blackness is different, diverse and multiple.
The existing forms or identities of blackness are not exhaustive. But they are an example of the diversity and complexity of blackness. There is not one but many black identities.
The present-day definition of black is not simply the general and blanket definition of what founder of Black Consciousness Steve Bantu Biko said it was: “a reflection of a mental attitude”. It is different, diversified, multiple and more complicated than what was happening in the 1960s when the disadvantaged had a common enemy in the political system.
To put it more strongly, there is not one individual who can tell us what blackness is or how it is to be represented. In fact, blackness as a single identity has ceased to exist. Or at least it has splintered into diverse categories that do not necessarily converge.
Needless to say, in a nonracial country it is backward to hold on to and promote identity based on race or ethnicity.
Yet much of the inability of blacks to take their rightful place in a nonracial society, that which prevents them from cultivating and promoting human identity, is this misguided importance placed on racial or ethnic identity.
Significantly, the 2012 Development Indicators published by the Presidency have revealed that a mere 8.8% of South Africans describe themselves by race group while only 4.1% describe themselves by language group or tribe.
Over the years there has been a fluctuation in the number of people who hold on to their identity based on race or tribe. Instead, at 52%, more and more people see themselves as South African citizens first. In fact, race and tribe are not part of the South African identity.
The Development Indicators have revealed that people are less inclined to make a big deal about their race or tribe. Thus it is important to note that obsession with blackness, or whiteness for that matter, will soon be a thing of the past. After all, holding on to racial or ethnic identities tends to be the stumbling block towards efforts to build a solid and united nation with a
Race and tribe are not part of
the South African identity
common identity.
The past two decades have opened opportunities and choices for blacks to be anything that they want to be. And for the most part, it is increasingly difficult for anyone to assume, based on skin colour, that someone speaks your language, is from the same region or background and subscribes to the same values.
As in any other country, achieving democracy and freedom means that no one individual or specific group has the right to determine what blackness means or is. For example, blacks who do not speak any of the indigenous languages or have no connections with the rural areas are neither incomplete nor deficient.
It is time that we acknowledged blacks – like whites – have never been a homogeneous group.
This was merely Biko ’ s convenient political strategy to organise the disadvantaged against a common enemy that deprived them of their political and economic rights.
In fact, who gives anyone the right and authority to determine who is black and who is not?
Blacks – like whites – are now free to choose to be black or not, and anything else they want to be.