This is why Black South African’s are desperate to be identified as Coloured

[00:00:00]So, yes, you are colored, but you are still black. You understand? Just >> No, because I have to get on this and elaborate further.

[00:00:07]This is what I speak about when I say we are colored South African. Because this idea and this this message that gets perpetuated through identity politics it keeps us segregated.

[00:00:18]Politically, we are all black.

[00:00:20]The term colored is a colonial construct. That means the colonizers came here and said, "Wait, these people, they're not quite black in terms of how we are classifying the black people, and they're not white like us. So, they're just in between, so we're going to give them this term to keep them separate and less powerful from the people that are sitting here on the left."

[00:00:40]>> I'm going to need black people to just let biracial people be biracial.

[00:00:58]>> A lot of black people truly do believe one needs to be light skinned in order to be beautiful, one needs to have looser hair in order to be beautiful, and one needs to have a small features.

[00:01:05]And because we believe this, we feel like whenever people are said, for example, that a lot of lighter skinned South Africans have admixture, we see it as insulting because to us that means, "Ugh, you're saying that black beauty is not real." Because to them, saying that darker skinned, coily head, darker eyed Africans are beautiful is inaccurate.

[00:01:20]Because a lot of Africans are very anti-black. They are very anti-native African.

[00:01:24]>> I didn't want to join this whole Zodwa Wabantu parade beef that's going on, but one thing that I hate is someone who sounds very uneducated and does not know how geography works, because this is simple geography. Some South Africans are light skinned because we are further from the equator, and I feel like you don't know what that is. So, let's have a little geography lesson, okay? The red line is called the equator. All the countries that are around or the closest to the equator are hotter, and the people in those countries tend to have darker skin tones, okay? Let me show you why. Now, let's take a moment to read.

[00:01:53]Areas that have a higher amount of UVR have a skinned populations.

[00:01:58]Generally located near the equator.

[00:02:00]Okay, so let's go back to this one. As you can see, South Africa is at the bottom.

[00:02:03]>> [music] >> So, all countries at the bottom of Africa and at the top of Africa all countries with a populations tend to have lighter skin because we are the furthest away from what? The equator.

[00:02:13]Okay, now let's take a look at this.

[00:02:16]This is a chart regarding all the skin [music] colors in Africa.

[00:02:23]As you can see that South Africa is yellow and the top of Africa is also yellow because we are the furthest [music] away from the equator. This is common sense up here. So, this all just sounds like projection to me because who's bleaching?

[00:02:33]It's simple geography up here.

[00:02:35]And also I'm not saying that there are not people who are bleaching, but don't generalize the fact that all light skins are bleaching. That's not true. Also, you talking about tribes. What do you know about tribes, babe? Like in India they have a tribe with You you know nothing about our tribes.

[00:02:49]So, anyways, as I said I'm not joining this. I just wanted to make sure that you understand a little bit. a little bit.

[00:02:55]>> I am not here to disagree with everything this girl is saying about the equator and all of that. But this is the equivalent of saying that white Americans look the way that they do because of weather in America. Well, no, they're not native to that place. So, the people who are native to America are native Americans. Not every American in America is native to that place and looks the way that they do based on the weather conditions in America now as we know it. That is just not true.

[00:03:18]Remember, the story goes that Khoisan people were the first to discover South Africa as in they are not native to South Africa. They relocated from somewhere [music] else to South Africa.

[00:03:27]And a lot of South Africans have a hard time accepting the fact that Khoisan people may not be purely African. They may have some admixture that they are individuals who share ancestry with some colored people, some closer people, some Sotho people, some Zulu people. That's why we have clicks as well. That's why a lot of them they show up in our ancestry results, right? A lot of you do not want to take in the facts that they were also captured. So, some of them do have admixture from other groups of people that they were found to have Eurasian DNA and that them are coming into contact with groups from Somalia, from Ethiopia, Afro-Asiatic groups from Ethiopia and Somalia means that they might have some Afro-Asiatic DNA. You do not want to hear that.

[00:04:04]>> Something like when people say like Somalis are black. Like Somalis are Afro-Asiatic, they're not black. Stop trying to beg other people to be part of your group. Like I hate it when people try and beg Somali people saying like, "Oh bro, you you're black. You're one of us." Like, "No, you're not Somali." Like stop trying to tell people what they should be, especially when they don't have or their genetics do not align with what is quintessentially or known as black. So, it's just like, "Bro, stop it. Have some pride. Have some standards." That's what we need in the black community. We need standards.

[00:04:34]Like, if you're not like 80% black, you're not black. Right now, I'll say 75% to 70%. If you're lower than 70%, you're not black.

[00:04:42]>> Those of you, for example, a lot of African who also say this will assert I mean let's not say they will assert. I do not want to do y'allism. I want to point out that they are Africans who agree with this will then do not disagree with the idea that colored people are not just some purely Khoisan group of people, which makes no sense to me because the conversation around why people look the way that they do has to do with people of different phenotypes coming together and the offspring of those individuals having an altered appearance compared to the phenotypes of one person on one end and the other person on the other end. That is how admixture comes about, right? So, if that is the case, if you believe that colored people can look 100% Khoisan. If somebody's arguing that Bantu speaking people in South Africa are lighter due to admixture, you still have not dispelled that. You still have not dispelled that. Again, I'm open to correction, open to all of that, but in my opinion, in my opinion, this is nothing. You just said nothing. Bantu people are not native to South Africa.

[00:05:37]You agree, right? Yes, we're one of the oldest people groups here, but we're not native, right? That's why we say the Khoisan or Khoikhoi. Okay.

[00:05:43]And you all agree that they are the same group of people again who did who were captured at some point and some fled.

[00:05:49]That's why some of them are in Botswana.

[00:05:51]Some of them again we have their ancestry. We share ancestry with them.

[00:05:55]They were not just only mating with other Khoisan people. I also hate how a lot of South Africans don't want to be honest that a lot of us are bleaching.

[00:06:02]Like bleaching is a genuinely a problem in South Africa. Wherever colorism is prevalent, it's South Africa. Colorism in South Africa. Colorism in South Africa is very prevalent. Bleaching is also very prevalent prevalent. Sorry.

[00:06:13]Bleaching is very prevalent in South Africa and that is literally just it's just true. And I hate that despite how true this is because it's in these bleaching products and all these stores.

[00:06:22]They are in all the hawkers tables.

[00:06:24]These products are being sold to normal everyday South Africans. What do you mean we're not bleaching? A lot of us are bleaching. A lot of us are bleaching and that is okay. Well, it's not okay because we should stand up against colorism. We should stop these things.

[00:06:36]But instead of stopping these things, we want to go online and claim that oh no, we're some bulletproof type people. Yes, the country is very colorist but oh oh oh no, we don't feel triggered by that.

[00:06:44]And there aren't a lot of darker South Africans who are made to feel lesser than less human who see who see bleaching as a way to cope with those feelings but that is not true. Why are you lying? If you are a naturally lighter skin South African, okay.

[00:06:56]But a lot of people still are bleaching.

[00:06:59]Mee Janeena.

[00:07:01]>> So, wait till South Africa. Here lives Lebo Khan.

[00:07:06]A 35-year-old single mother who has been using skin bleaching creams for over 15 years.

[00:07:13]>> I couldn't stop at all. I couldn't stop at all.

[00:07:16]I was in a hunger for that beauty.

[00:07:19]I even mixed it with my body lotion.

[00:07:23]So that I can I could be light the whole body, not even not the face only.

[00:07:27]>> In her 20s, [music] Lebo Khan became jealous when her friends gradually became lighter in complexion. [music] >> And they do not want it said in that way. We live in a country where a large number of people are bleaching, where large number of people are making sounds talking about which means that there was a mixed-race person down our bloodline and that is why we are beautiful.

[00:07:59]And a lot of South Africans truly do believe people who are other are better than them. And mixed people offer an otherness that also comes with familiarity to them. Like you're familiar to me in that we both share African ancestry, but you have otherness. Something that I can you know, do beauty to. Something that I can celebrate as having beauty. As something that is not devoid of humanity.

[00:08:17]>> And yeah, you're right. We are obsessed with it, which is weird in itself, but I think that has to do with some internalized anti-blackness. A lot of us in the black community fetishize mixed babies. We like look at them as the prettier babies. So we want to take some kind of responsibility for that attractiveness, even though saying that a baby is attractive is just But we want to claim that. We want to own it. We want to say that that's also Yeah, you're black.

[00:08:42]You're you're you're one of us. You're cute because you're black. You're cute because you're mixed with black and something else. And there are a couple of other comments that I'm going to reply to with the video that refer back to what you're talking about, but I'mma leave that for those videos. But yeah, I expect it. I do.

[00:08:56]>> That is how Africans cope with their reality. That is how Africans cope with the idea that society rejects us. We don't want to be honest that black people, black identity was devalued through the dehumanization of darker skin, curly hair, darker eyed Africans.

[00:09:09]And that we are affected due to having more proximity to them. We don't want to use that sort of language because we want to be able to beat down people with those features while also saying we are proudly black. We want to tell people We want to tell people that they're more human, you're soft, you're more beautiful, you're more this for being more far removed from that image without being honest about why that is because we're being anti-black. A lot of us refuse to actually do the work. We refuse to unpack our internalized hatred. We refuse. And whenever language comes to to us do that, we like to muddy the lines. Oh, black people come in all shades. Oh, black can look anyhow. Not letting biracial people be biracial is about not letting black people just be black. Because black people just being black would mean we would actually have to celebrate black beauty as is instead of always always waiting for something to be other. Instead of waiting for otherness to trigger us into celebrating and chanting somebody is worthy of love and acceptance and all in all. We will not let biracial people be biracial because we refuse to allow black people to be seen as and treated as human.

[00:10:03]>> So, I had an interesting discussion today while I was getting my hair done.

[00:10:05]It was just the three of us in the salon. It was me, the lady doing my hair, and another girl who worked there who's biracial. And it's relevant to what I'm about to say. And while I was getting my hair done today, we were talking about the new season of Love Island. And we started talking about Cady and Zach. And I can't remember what led up to this, but at some point the girl who was there that I was talking to about it, she said that Cady was black.

[00:10:24]And I said, "I don't believe that Cady views herself as just black. I think she views herself as biracial." Which is perfectly fine because that's what she is.

[00:10:30]>> And that And that is very accurate, by the way, when you look at Cady. Like she looks biracial. I've never looked at her though and been like, "Oh my gosh, this is a black person. You look like a black person." She looks biracial. She is biracial. Come on.

[00:10:40]>> And then she asked me, "Why do you say that?" And I said, "I say that because when Zach asked her her ethnicity and she said, 'My dad is Haitian and my mom is German.' AKA my dad is black and my mom is white. And then she tells me she's still black." And I say, "Well, yes, but she's also white. So, she's not just black."

[00:10:56]>> A lot of one-drop rulers when you tell them this that you do not believe a biracial person is just black. Like they're Their response will be, "Well, she's still black." Yeah, she's part white and part black, silly, but she's still black. Like yes, but she's also still white. And they have this new way now of responding where they'll be like, "Yes, she's still white. So, that does not negate her blackness." Yes, but I could not just call her white and you accept that. And they like to claim that they actually do. Like if you just called her white, yeah, she's still black. She has a full black parent. She also has a full white parent. Would never be accurate to you if I go up to her and say, "You look white. You are a white person." But I have to tell her that she looks black and so she is a black person. I have to tell her that in order to appease you, but you're acting like if I just went up to her and said, "You look white. You're a white person."

[00:11:36]That would make sense.

[00:11:37]>> And then it turns into this whole discussion, and then she tells me, "Well, my mom is white and my dad is black, but I identify as a black woman.

[00:11:44]I'm black." And I say, "Yes, you're black, but you're also white. You're not just black. You're biracial." And as we're talking we're have as as we're having this conversation, it's almost as if she's getting upset with me because she keeps saying she's black and I keep bringing up the fact that she's also white.

[00:11:59]>> But of black people have gotten us to a point where us not accepting pseudoscience and us not upholding white supremacists ideals is now framed as some sort of offensive attack on mixed people. Like, it is okay for us It is okay that we know that the one-drop rule exists in order to literally harm us economically as black people, but us not wanting to participate us not wanting to participate in our own erasure us not wanting to participate in our own exclusion from our own identity, us not wanting to be complicit in the purification of whiteness is a form of hatred.

[00:12:34]Come on.

[00:12:35]>> Then she starts talking about how she didn't grow up around her white family and how she grew up around her black side. And when she goes out, people view her as a black woman. And I just keep telling her like, "I'm sure your experience is your experience, you know?

[00:12:45]And you can identify as whatever you want to identify as, but that doesn't change the fact that you are black and white. You're not just as black as someone with two black parents." And then she kept telling me like, "Why not?

[00:12:54]Why not?" "Because you're not, my love."

[00:12:57]And then she was like, "Well, what makes us different?" The difference is you have one non-black parent and the other does not. That's the difference. The difference is you are half black and the other is not. Biracial people are biracial people and that's okay. Nothing is wrong with that, but the way she was reacting to me calling her that, you would think I insulted her. Like, she was genuinely getting upset with me for bringing up the fact that she was also white. And honestly, I blame black people because y'all telling biracial people who are half black that they're just as black as someone with two fully black parents is exactly why they're having the identity crisis that a lot of them are having right now.

[00:13:29]>> Lots of mixed people are waking up to this and are speaking out about just how emotionally damaging it is to be forced to pick one race. A lot of pages are popping up on Instagram and on YouTube, everywhere, on all social media platforms, pages of mixed people encouraging each other to actually embrace being mixed for a plethora of reasons. And I'm pretty sure black people will assert that oh, it's because um we aren't as accepting as we should be, as we could be. No, a lot of them are asserting that this has never made sense to them, ever. They've just been playing with this because they feel it's what would appease black people. It's what would make black people happy and they're sick and tired of being roped into that. And like I said, they're going to blame black people, the black community for this. A lot of mixed people are literally going to see us as ops moving forward and I cannot believe a lot of you cannot predict that. I cannot believe a lot of you are too stupid to get there.

[00:14:17]>> If you take offense to this, that's your problem, not mine. But I've been seeing everywhere that so many black girls are like pushing in mixed-race girls' faces that we're black, we're black, we're black, you're black, you're black.

[00:14:28]>> The point of the video is this girl complaining that black women, specifically black women, keep trying to bully her into claiming blackness. And I was genuinely so intrigued when I heard that because I know she's not talking about us. Like every single complaint I've heard from mixed-race women about black women here has been that we don't claim them as black. They're saying but the white people see it me as black and we're like, you're not. Like that's the argument I hear. So I was really intrigued to hear this point of view cuz I genuinely haven't heard it. In America, yes. So this was new to me.

[00:14:57]This was a new area. It was sounding off because it was just the emphasis on black women. It just felt very like, you know, I was like, okay, okay, girl, we get it, we get it. She's saying she's proud of both sides. She's saying it's stupid when people argue about which parent is white, which is fair. Like I've said that myself. Where she completely loses me was actually at the end when she's trying to sum up all her stuff and she says Okay, let's play what she says.

[00:15:17]>> And just a message to any mixed-race people, please learn to love yourself cuz black people bleaching their skin to look like us, and white people are burning their skin to look like us.

[00:15:28]So.

[00:15:31]>> I was genuinely shocked when I heard this. Not because she's just being like racist or whatever. It's because it's just like, where does it come from?

[00:15:37]Who do you know that bleaches? Gun to your head, name three people our age who bleach.

[00:15:40]>> It's exactly why when biracial people who are half white have kids with other non-black people and the baby comes out white because it is, they're genuinely shocked. Because y'all have made them think that they have the same amount of black genes as a fully black person, which is factually incorrect.

[00:15:54]>> As a half black, half white American, I feel that this is an extremely important for me to to make this statement for the biracial community like myself and all white and black people that date biracial people.

[00:16:05]Specifically white people. Um white women, you have to stop thinking because you're with a biracial man, that baby's going to come out brown. It's not, sweetie. Most importantly though, my fellow biracial people, when you have a biracial parent, stop with this whole, "They didn't know I was black." Why would they?

[00:16:20]You look as white as your mother. You look as white as your father.

[00:16:24]There's no shock when you show a picture of your parent and they have my skin tone.

[00:16:27]The shock is that you failed high school or you just didn't get it.

[00:16:30]>> She genuinely could not grasp the fact that she was not the same as someone who has two fully black parents. So, I'm going to need y'all to let biracial people just be the biracials that they are. Calling a biracial person who has a white parent and a black parent just black doesn't change the fact that they are also white. Y'all were out here calling Meghan Markle a black princess, but she gave birth to a white baby. Why?

[00:16:50]Because she was never black to begin with. She's biracial. All these biracial NBA players with their white wives giving birth to white babies. Why?

[00:16:58]Because they were never just black.

[00:17:00]Cameron Boyce, RIP, love him down. But white mom, black dad, biracial. And I hate how black people are the only group of people who have a hard time grasping this. Y'all need to let that one drop stuff go. Y'all claim biracial people as just black for the same reason that a lot of y'all were walking around claiming to be part Cherokee Indian or whatever. Cuz a lot of y'all have low racial self-esteem and because y'all think that being just black is never enough. Black people are desperate for any and everybody to be black and that's why everyone is so confused on what black is. That's why you have people who are hardly black to begin with surprised when their kid has blonde hair and blue eyes. Like please just let them people be biracial, please.