Coconutism

I do not believe I have ever felt so out of place as I did this past few days. I have questioned myself on things that I never used to occupy my beautiful mind with. Matters that did not matter simply because those around me never brought them up or they were never bothered by them.

I have dealt with similar issues or rather utterances in the past but I just usually brushed them off as a nothing, laughed it off.

For a long time, it never crossed my mind that I was a coconut contestant, LOL. My long time friends speak just like me, my colleagues have never said anything and we sound alike, my family look just like they did when I was 7 years old. The next person’s English accent has never bothered me. And I can speak my native tongue just as good. Y’all better ask somebody.

This time it is different because I guess the people who said it to me are good friends and for me to find out that this is what they think of me was a welcome shock. I did not take it in a negative way, they are still in my circle *smile* instead, their statements or comments have made me embrace a part of me. I’m falling in love all over again with this part of me.

 I have always wondered what the term coconut or Oreo really truly means.

That is if it means anything.

 Well it depends on who and how they say it. I have issues being called names and the term model c has always bothered me too. I have never been directly or seriously called a model c because most of the people I’m around are also called model c by others.

What is a model C? From my understanding, a model c is a person who has received private school education, dresses well, speaks English fluently most of the time as opposed to their native language, hangs out at fine restaurants and is willing or doesn’t mind to pay R3 extra for anything…oh and tips well too.

This just sounds like a reasonable human being right? Well not in the eyes of other people who have, in most cases, had an upbringing they see to be less glam than that of a model c child. But little do they know. You look at a person and think they are made, they have it “easy”. The truth is you do not know their story, there is history behind every person who makes living seem so easy…they went through the process, they did the work so eventually their entire life will look easy and comfortable.

Some have no idea how it feels to be the only black face at a dinner table; with time you get comfortable with it. They have no idea how it feels to go head on with a red neck in a debate. They have no clue how you dealt with classmates who thought they were more superior than you are simply because you are black. They were not there when you missed all the hip parties because you were putting in the hours at school. They were not there when you finally graduated from college and you got that job and now you finally made partner at your law firm and people are quick to play the race. And you (coconut) handled this every day. So they say you turned white on the inside because you have no time to pity anyone, white or black.

Is it not a “black” thing to do, to go to school, work hard, speak English fluently, graduate top of your class, get a better than decent job, get a great salary, dress well and like all the fancy things you can get?

All this is living in my eyes. Living just like Tom across the road would live given the opportunity.

If this isn’t living then what is?

So because you can live and strive and set goals you are not black? Or because you speak in a certain way you can’t be black? Because your thinking goes beyond today and you voice your opinion any chance you get?

Is this the basis on which a “coconut” is judged?

If it is, I’m the newest member of the coconuts club.

This is exactly why most coconuts tend to hang around people who received the same education as they did, why they choose to hang out with Jen and Matthew rather than Thandi and Sbhamu. Jen and Matthew may pass pre-judgments from time to time based on what a coconut says and it passes because  all parties look beyond it ( mostly). Thandi and Sbhamu will ask you why you speak that way. Why are you dressed like that , how come your other friend has a blackberry and they don’t and when it really goes bad, they will bring out the race card and how you think you are better because of your model c education?

Get my point.

I’ll be the first one to admit that you have people who make you stop and wonder if they were raised right but not raised black or white. Some kids what to be white so bad, they’ll change who they are. I understand them. Most darkies are content living a mess and calling it ‘black living’.

If you want to be a hot mess, go right ahead but don’t you dare say this is what ‘we’ black people do. Who’s we?? There’s you and there’s me. It’s our lifestyles that differ.

Yes there are many things black people have in common, we are all one skin color, we believe sparing the rod spoils the child, we all know what public transport is, that old sack of oranges we’ve all seen and perhaps used, we all know what 750 means without getting technical, we all know what shisa nyama  is ,at some point in our lives we have been forced to attend church, we know how to say, “ please, may I, you are welcome and thank you”, we know nothing is for free although we all love freebies and discounts, we have all received our fair share of beatings and we are not afraid to whoop ass in public.

With all that said, I refuse to apologize for my upbringing, it wasn’t glam but I was taught to work hard, I chose books over booze. I will not apologize for my education firstly because I am not the one who paid for it and secondly because I am the one who wrote that entrance exam at UWCSA and I passed it, it was my brains. But here is what I will do, I will thank God for my brains, I will thank God for allowing me to walk in a path where I have been fortunate enough to meet and experience people from all walks of life, I will thank God for the hardships of being a coconut because they make me look past the skin color and English accent of a person very often, I will thank god for a family that supported me and wanted only the best for their baby girl, thank God my parents were grounded enough to raise me as a black child but give me white man education, my upper class friends who not once judged me by which side of town I come from, in fact they accept me for who I am and wouldn’t change a thing about me. It is my upper class friends who support me in my initiative to better those less fortunate than me.

And all the coconuts said Amen.

Embrace it.

Hi my name is Zethu and I am coconut.

DiamondDiva