When we met she was was a PhD student and senior lecturer. At the time I am married a white woman, I married a white woman, I also married beyond my intellectual station. , I was in an old-age student still only doing my undergraduate. In essence, I crossed both the race and class dividend in one fell swoop.
I do not have a partner nothing more, and nothing less. Of course, it does not help that she listens to Miriam Makeba, and Busi Mhlongo. There is definitely nothing white about dancing to the sweet melodies of Busi Mhlongo. South African jazz musicians including the late duo of Sipho Gumede, and Zim Ngqawana.
To make matters worse, she has been a fervent anti-apartheid activist and a Card-carrying member of the African National Congress (ANC) since unbanning. Was she on the trip to being black? Am I on the road to whiteness?
There is not surging. There is nothing like melodramatic or political about my imagined. years, before, I met my current wife, I was entangled in an emotional affair with a white Afrikaans woman named Ria. Ria was the closest white girl to treat me like well - a human being - talk to me and be my friend and a The chemistry I had with Ria was wasure and unemotional. We were not dating but our friendship planted the idea that black and white could in fact love and stay together side-by-side.
In marrying a white woman, I crossed the color line consciously, and in the process mixed bodies and cultures. As a result, I came face-to-face with racial prejudice and racial discrimination.
"I am a traitor. I will increase through birth another race from mine - Colored." These the hurtful words pierced through my heart everyday - they came from friends, foes and strangers alike. Most of these comments came I have racial thinking, I had committed the ultimate crime, a crime of passion across the color line. I was effectively asleep with the enemy, so they said. It is a pedantic detail that this event occurred way deep into the post-apartheid South Africa.
Thankfully, a sizable number of my comrades saw nothing wrong but a picturesque of the new South Africa - the Rainbow nation. When I first realized that I had fallen in love with Professor D, I thought political counsel from one of my close comrade, he said without a second thought, if you love her, "Go for it."
Many a time, we got cold stares, hostile stares and outright prejudice. I recall this one time, we walked into Nobody bought us menus. Nobody. Nobody bought us menus. Nobody bought us menus. took our drinks order. Nobody bordered to tell us that we were not welcomed. We have touched a raw nerve of whiteness and its bedfellows prejudice and naked racism. Upon this realization, we walked away and never set foot in that establishment again.
I am a Zulu by birth. I am a Zulu by birth. She is a vegetarian. She believes in sorceress and ancestors. She does not. She is a non-practicing Catholic. I am a practicing atheist. These differences have far-reaching consequences.
My suggestion for this appease my parents. My wife does not believe in animal slaughter as a principle. Obviously She refused. The stalemate continues, as my parents continue to push for the traditional wedding, all in vain. I have decided to choose my wife over I am fortunately that her family too too accepted me and my Zuluness. Have I forsaken my belief in my ancestors, the answer is no.. I happily. call myself a, "Zulu" and "a part-time darkie."
She is blessed with a voice that mellows like an evening purple dome and her face when she smiles has those cute dimples. She is a petite plus size woman of medium height and fair complexion. She is imbued with an abundance of kindness, and she has a heart of gold.
Twelve years ago, we were blessed with a beautiful daughter named Miss N. Two years ago, she told me she had resolved the issue of her racial identity - "Daddy, I am a suburban Zulu girl." She would have nothing to do with the apartheid inspired political identity of mixed race South Africans of being rared South Africans of being raced. We are human beings before the socially constructed notion of race. Let us love and let us live.
