“Irony 101: #thingsdarkiessay is not racist in South Africa — What’s NOT racist in South Africa? Apartheid wasn’t Disneyland.” A virtual war between the United States and South Africa was full-on yesterday, the weapon of choice being Twitter. Unfortunately, the weapon was an American one too. Of course in the bigger scheme of things, even in the smaller scheme, this was an insignificant spat. The war was fought at 140 characters at a time.
It was between South African blacks and African Americans. What could have caused this outbreak you may ask? (At some point I even tried to get the US Embassy (@USEmbPretioria) to intervene, they responded by saying, “@Khayadlanga has more pull power with Twitter than we ever will”. The comment was followed by a smiley face. This response was enough for my over-inflated ego. It’s true, flattery will get you anywhere. All I need is flattery and oxygen. I am more powerful than the United States. I feel like invading something. Anything. Suggestions anyone? Should we vote on it? I say let’s invade Khanyi Mbau or Julius. Kidding.
The tweet that caused all the trouble is a certain trending topic that went as follows — before I say, I should explain what a trending topic is. Twitter tracks the 10 most popular topics of the day and ranks them according to popularity. These topics are usually preceded by a hash tag. Allow me to demonstrate. #khayasthoughtleaderblogsucks. That would be a trending topic, notehowtherearenospacesbetweenthewords. Yes. WedothatonTwitter. The native that caused all the trouble started a trending topic that reached number 1. #thingsdarkiessay. That was the topic. One would say for example, “#thingsdarkiessay I have high-high”. Elderly black folks say they have high-high, by this they mean high blood pressure. Perhaps using more words than necessary increases their blood pressure. Maybe they were the original tweeters.
Someone else would then say, “#thingsdarkiessay Stop nonsense”. You get the picture. Completely harmless. Unless you were African American. An avalanche of misunderstanding descended on the South Africans like a ton of 140 character insults. One that amused me was by @DukeBrady. I quoted him in the opening line of this blog. He assumed that the topic was started by racist white South Africans. This is understandable considering his cultural context, the word darkie is just one rank below the N word over there. He tweetered the following: “Irony 101: #thingsdarkiessay is not racist in South Africa — What’s NOT racist in South Africa? Apartheid wasn’t Disneyland.” This was a retweet by @MissLeggz, she shared his sentiments. I initiated a dialogue with her, in the end she understood.
African Americans were up in arms. Even American hip-hop artist wrote, “@RealTalibKweli: Also interesting that black South Africans seem to have no clue as to why the term darkie would offend”. I won’t get into the use of the N word in hip-hop today. That’s a whole new topic on its own.
Dream Hampton, (@dreamhampton) who became the first woman editor of The Source Magazine asked me if “darkie” wasn’t “more akin to the N word?” I explained to her “No, here that would be the K word”. She was fine with the explanation, if not completely comfortable with it.
At some point I was expecting Reverend Al Sharpton to denounce the racist South Africans, alas, my hope was false. The complaints flew in by the split second. Eventually, it was removed from the trending topics. Strangely enough the #NoGod trending topic was allowed to stay on even though many complained. Who decides what is too offensive or just offensive enough to be tolerated? This was nothing more than a cultural misunderstanding. By shutting it down, the powers that be shut down a potential educational moment where South Africans would have taught the Americans something. And we in turn might have learnt something about African Americans, because let’s face it, we still only know each other at face value, we don’t understand the little cultural nuances and the sensitivities that go with the nuances.
At some point I wrote that those who were finding out that #thingsdarkiessay was a South African set trending topic, “They’re surprised that South Africans have enough computers to set a number 1 trending topic”.
It was a very apparent misunderstanding of two cultures. One found the word offensive, the other found the word neutral. Both sides have a history of oppression. So who has the right to say whose point of view is correct? Well, it appears Twitter decided that they did in fact have the right. Once the topic hit the number 1 spot, it was not long before it was removed by the powers that be.
It would seem to me, according to Twitter, tweets Americans find offensive but are innocent to others will not be allowed to be trending topics it seems. Part of social media is that we get to learn about each other. It’s not always going to be just fun, sometimes we have to get a little uncomfortable with one another before we can be truly understanding of each other. Even in our hyper-emotional responses we may pause for a moment, breathe, think and learn something about someone else. They were not wrong in their outrage, nor were we when we joked about things darkies say. What was wrong was the inability to try to understand or explain why we held the views we did. Most of the responses were emotional, not rational.
The deletion of #thingsdarkiessay set off a #SouthAfricansArePissed @Twitter trend. It was amusing to watch and participate in. One of which was a tribute to our president, “Hawu lethi trending topic yami, trending topic yami!” #SouthAfricansArePissed @twitter”.
If this is social media, isn’t this one of the ways in which people should learn about each other’s cultures? Wasn’t this one of those opportunities? Hopefully they learnt something from little old South Africa, even though we don’t see ourselves as so little.
When they shut us down, it was as if Twitter took the ball home and said see what you’ll play with now.
Follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/khayadlanga
Last year I had the most horrendous flaming row with my cousin and best friend of 50 years about about his use of the word “darkie”.
Having read all this I now publicly apologise from the p.c. depths of England: Maningi apologies, baie jammer, mukwai.
@Garg, all of those terms that the blacks used in SA are terms used by the whites to humiliated blacks and the blacks in SA have adopted those terms. You have been told that you are inferior and many of you respond by acting inferior with the practice of self hate. This was a problem that was observed in Brazil because the whites had attached a stigma on black Brazilians and they refused to call themselves black even thought they were black. However, this is being change in Brazil with the civil right movement going on there now. The black intellectuals in SA have not contributed very much in defining the black population in SA like the black intellectuals did in the US. We had De Bois that did a sociological study on the black population in the US and is still being used today. Garg, you are right self humiliation is part of the black SA culture but, you have to find out why it’s part of your culture. By the way have there been any studies done on the black population in the past twenty years in SA?
hahaha, love it, i noticed that on twitter, I was so confused, but I got that we have cultural differences but yeah, didn’t realise South African humour would be that offensive. Eish bakithi.
MLH, Do you mean a coloured president. Do you also call Trevor Manuel black?
I find the term ‘African American’ offensive. They’re not African. I’m an African, and I’m white. I don’t go around trying to label/define myself on where my ancestors came from.
I feel another award for Khaya coming though.. I noticed how most publications quoted his twits or it it wits…
Cloudgazer the reason you shy away from your ancestors is because some of them where actually criminals and very poor communities who believed they will find ‘greener pastures by comming down here. So don’t act like it is an act of commitment when it actually is running from the shamefull beginings. Why do all your stories start here Why don’t you wanna tell us how your grandies ended up on those ships comming here. Why arent you making films about those ‘facts’…Don’t treat us like kids broer we know you are ashamed like you are ashamed of your apartheid induced benefits and try to tell everyone you are ‘African’ DID YOU BELONG IN THE NATIVE RESERVES. I mean really you are South African by Citizenship but not African any other belief in that is fooling yourself. When Gumede moves to Europe he does not become European, he can never be.
Anyway why are you offended by people self determining when you claim you have the right to self determine-answer because you feel white and thus superior you should have the right to determine who you are but not the ‘blacks’ in America. WHY ARE YOU AFRICAN AGAIN?
I guess we sometimes make ourselves comfortable with an insult by taking it home…I know that here in ZA darkie used to be an insult..but somehow when us as “darkies” use it the term becomes less harmful.
But you’re right, all of us are quick to jump to conclusions without understanding anything. Take our President of the ANCYL for instance…shoots from the hip with the best
Am reminded of Curtis Mayfields ‘We People Who are Darker than Blue’
@Fergie I do not believe that we become people because some professor from surbubia has come to conduct a study of our habits and cultural behavior. Agin this may just be how we differ. We are a peple bcause God made us so not because some university proffessor conducted a study and fine-tuned our existence.
Presently we are fighting to develop infrastructure in this country and looking at development on a nation too-however we are very divided on what a nation is.
You say the ‘black intellectuals have not contributed in defining the population’ Why must we be defined by those who have gone through the cleansing of our values and instilling a Western view of the world. If you must know ‘civilization’ in Zulu is ‘impucuko’ which means to ‘peel off’ – so agian not all of us believe the academics and intellectulas should set the agenda because, often-drunk from wine and gala events- they tend to forget who they are and aspire to an even more assimilated near as can be western existence.
So you cannot Fergie, use your standards to measure of moving forward. Yo make comparison to Brazil, don’t you thing the population, languages, geographical setup all come into play here…Brazil and SA are not comparable unless you compare the ‘slums’ only.
@Fergie: Really, don’t assume that because South Africans have not replicated the African American experience, issues and hang-ups that they are somehow inferior. As a minority in the US it was extremely important for black intellectuals to define the black population. In South Africa, as 80% of the population, maybe its not that important and the national identity is sufficient. Black intellectuals are running the country, businesses, and leading universities- so don’t insinuate that they are inferior in any way. In addition, most studies done in South Africa are of the black population!
Damnit Khaya…now you made me join twitter. But hey monna i coudn’t stop laughing. This whole thing just made me appreciate my coutry…SA rocks.
Now pretty plz plz plz…make a youtube video about this “debacle”.
Regarding the very passionate responses by AAs, i sure will avoid using the word “darkie” arround you because it holds a totally different meaning to you guys…which is strange,but i dont want to judge.
hai….but i cant stop laughing at my darlie self and my people.
Infact there is a facebook group that i am a proud member of (you know you are a true south african darkie when…).Its the most fun group ever. But it also suffered the same problem, a group was started that said its an offensive group and it must be removed…..
@Muafrika, the issue was not whether you were people but, the issue was what type of people you were. I said that many of these terms being used in SA by blacks to describe themselves were self hate terms. I said that the black social scientists in SA had not made studies of the black population of SA to understand why this was going on. I also said that in the US the black intellectuals went out and studied the black population. These studies were later used to define the population and its needs. I pointed out how Blacks in Brazil had a stigma attached to being black and many of them denied that they were black for a long time. I said that this was a practice of self hate by the blacks in Brazil. As far as the Zulus are concerned, the Europeans five thousandth troops to conquer the Zulus because of their uses of science. Science and Western civilization are two different things. The western civilization science to advance their societies. Africa can’t afford to be anti intellectual but to use intellectuals to advance their societies.
@Sha, I didn’t say that the black intellectuals of SA had to copy the system used in the US by the black intellectuals. I said the difference were the black intellectuals were not defining their society. I never said that the intellectuals in SA were inferior by no means. The blacks in the universities in SA that don’t tow the line are in danger of being purged and chase out of the universities and even the government. This is true for most of black Africa and this is why many of these intellectuals have left Africa. How many black Scientists in SA spoke out about the HIV treatment in SA? Most of them were afraid of retaliation by people in the government. Moelesti Mbeki is not afraid to write or speak out because he has published books that sell overseas and the same for Syonka in Nigeria. The way it stands now in SA, if somebody in the youth league or COSATU don’t like you, that person can be hounded out of a job. We had the same thing to happen in the US when McCarthy used to go around the country black listing people.
What is this Fergie on about?? Please keep quiet – your comments are frustratingly depressing!
@Fergie Don’t undermine my intelligence…The west use war to advance-unless you are asking us to learn nuclear and have a stamp of Hiroshima in our history too.
Do you know how many elected government the USA has overthrown, how many countries it has bombed-You call that the use of civilization to advance society – Sure i saw civilization in New Orleans during the Huricane Katrina…
Again my point here is that people who seat in their university cottages and write papers and make radio interviews don’t change the course of social progress in Africa, its the people on the ground. the people fundraising, the people teaching from their garages, the people paying from their own pockets to put electricity in a school – Don’t be telling me about intellectuals.
Again the fact that the blacks of America had to be studied and ‘defined’ is nothing you can hear of here…Who gives a right to define a population cos last time we were defined we got defined as ‘Natives’ ‘Bantu’, ‘Kaffirs’ etc.
I accept your belief in society shaped from above but am of the view that society is best shaped from from the bottom up-Else there will be the need to break the sealing which is often done in a coup and you again will say ‘bloody African’ like AK’s and child soldiers…while it is this elitist spoon down the throat view of social advancement that you advocate here.
how does one declare and use as a stand point that what they did not prove its existance by at least pasting the sources to make their arguement a credible one, i mean in AZANIA we take it down to figures and if comparison has to sharpen your point lets talk demographics and the like – ‘Africans have failed to produce intellectuals to help define themselves? as compared to African americans’ – the very structure of statements such as these is meant at cripling the ego of the other side, these are egos talking here or at least one side, the basis of what becomes partly the subject has not substance really, LORD let sanity prevail please!
muafrika, wrong continent there bud..
at any rate, until recently in Hong Kong there was a brand of toothpaste called “Darkie”, had a picture of a black man with a top hat and very white teeth. Very popular brand, but in the last few years they realised it might be offensive and changed it to “Darlie”. The black man with the top hat and very white teeth are still there though.
It still saddens me how so many South Africans define themselves primarily by their colour. Its good to joke about being called darkies or rooinek s or whatever, because that’s what it is.
When we finally realise that colour the least important discriminator and that we should define ourselves by our humanity, professions, interests, humour or lack of and so on.
Lets not take this so seriously and stop forever prefixing our descriptions with the word black. Black intellectuals indeed – why cant these intellectuals just be intellectuals.
By qualifying the title with the word black – you excuse the person, as unsaid is that he is “only” black, or she is “only” female, or they are “only” Brazilian, and so cant be counted with those who are purely intellectual.
When we joke about stereotypes then as a society we will have reached a level of maturity and maybe our government will finally abandon the race based policies that have driven South Africa for centuries.
Khaya has a tremendous sense of humour. Thank you for this.
Our course is championed by the hardworking organisers not talkers-A book is just a storage of information and without the mind, willpower and determination of a person with access to that information Moeletsi publishing a book is just, and I speak here in terms of transforming lives, a mastubatory engagement-only useful to academics.
We need to stop believing that talking about problems solves them, it is getting your boots on and working that solves the problems even if we look at the Civil Rights Movement it is the people who got out there and got stuff done that change the course of life. Imagine if Fanon sat down and ‘only wrote’ or if ‘Che’ sat in a university and just wrote, Biko, Hani, Mandela, Samora, King the list is endless.
Now I do not argue that intellectuals and academics have a role to play but we can not live to them the duty of nation building because they tend to get bogged down with ‘ideologies’ often foreign and established to serve an evil purpose. My opinion is that a filmmaker has more direct impact to society than the intellectuals of today (think Michael Moore, Owen ‘Alek Shahadah, Mandy Jacobson, Abby Ginzberg to mention a few whose work has created mass awareness on injustices and political change or legislation revisits.)
The work of academics for me is based on the elitist structure of society and it cannot serve to do away with elitism for it is elitism at work…
@ Ian
All countries and societies have different views about the world and other – these views are acceptable as long as they are not prejudiced, hateful or in the extreme of ISMS. I see not how a product that obviously has a prejudiced and racist ‘branding and packaging’ idea can be compared to Hiroshima?????
Whats really your point….broer!
Anyhow my point was that not all that is attributed to the west as ‘development’ or advancement is a work of ‘intellectuals and academics’ but often a work of Military force. And I was saying to Fergie that I do not admire Western civilization as Fergie puts it up as the only way.
There are other ways that do not involve bombing a country(Afghan, Iraq, Somalia…) and then shipping its doctors and frustratingly academics to work as petrol attendants in America in the name of ‘REFUGEES’ cos this in the end amounts to ‘slavery’ – Destroy peoples village so they can come work your fields for their livelihoods -YOU CALL THAT CIVILISATION????
Anyhow i just think that the African American people need to look within themselves to see how, that is if they want to, do they identify with Africa. And Africa is not a barren landscape, people live here and that has to be considered too. Africans in SA also need to revisit their view of the world and especially Africa and the diaspora – Our frames of reference are different. Our methods of response are totally different we shouldnt judge
@MuAfrika, the Greek intellectuals were the one that started western civilization and they passed it along to the Romans. The Romans who took it to different parts of western Europe and the world. To that person talking about the US war with Japan, I suggested that that person read about Imperial Japan before World War Two. The intellectuals made Europe and they made the US. This is why the first group of people a dictator get rid of are the intellectuals because they will question everything that government does. A country or people without ideas are a group of brain dead people. It was the thinkers who made it possible for me to be able to communicate with you ten thousandth miles away with this tool. I am sure that there are people with better ideas than what Malema has to offer to the people of SA. Speaking of self hate, for a long time the blacks in Brazil were referred as monkeys they use to laugh it being called these names. A black Brazilian writer question this practice and cause a big debate about this. This is now considered a hate crime in Brazil to referrer to people as monkeys.
Eish, i thought monkeys are the most intelligent animals of them all. Shouldnt it be complimentary to be called a monkey? Unlike pigs that the whites are tend to be called
@Fergie I beg to differ, the Greek did not single-handedly start civilisation-lets just say when they combined what they found in Egypt with what they already had, they became powerful enough to assert in the pages of history their accomplishment as ‘The’ begining of Eruopean civilisation. Sadly my only interest in them goes as only as far as Wolfgang’s Troy or Howard’s Gladiator-anything else is based on who is telling the story – the case of who had the most advanced civilisation again belongs to academics-I am a worker.
You second example of the internet serves to illustrate my point. We need people who get up and do – The internet is a result of active participation not scholary engagement – even Ted Nelson is reported to have ‘used his experience as a filmmaker to model hypertext’ so again thats what am saying defines a people ACTION NOT THE OBSERVATION AND THE STUDY OF ACTION.
The biggest problem we have in this country is people thinking that education opens door- no it does not. It is meant to assist your God given talent and passion-it is meant to turn your talent into a skill. Society fails because of excactly what you are arguing for, which is putting the elite in charge of societys destiny -If the elite had it their way the internet would remain the military tool of communication!!!
Malema is a necessary voice in our development, just as Mokaba was. We need people like him.
Social scientist. There’s a contradiction in terms.
@MuAfrika, most experts all agreed that the start of western civilization started with the Greeks. There was other civilizations but, the Greeks were the one that impact Europe. As far as Western civilization is concern with Africa, it was the west that brought black Africa out of it geographical isolation and change them for ever. When you reject something you have to have something better and right now that not the case. There was a lot of good, bad and ugly coming out of western civilization that they gave the world. Japan took from Western civilization things that could help their society and built an industrial country,on the other hand,the Chinese refused to do so and paid a heavy price from the Japanese. Now China is playing catch up for things they didn’t do in the nineteen century. The educated class of people are the ones that create Europe and the US and without them these societies couldn’t function. The learned people create the internet not the people hanging out on the block.
by the way did you read about Imperial Japan before world War Two?
Dang! I thought people were over this, goodness. Didn’t this happen like a WEEK ago? People get over it! Now I’m sure Black Americans like to watch Boondocks? That show is all about Afro_American stereotypes, put into satire and it works. Now let’s just think it was an episode out of boondocks and we’ll be kewl.
@Fergjie “The black intellectuals in SA have not contributed very much in defining the black population in SA like the black intellectuals did in the US”
I don’t think that Sol Plaatje would agree.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Plaatje
@Garg,Sol would not agree to the self hate that is being practiced in SA today. Speaking of hate by some of these comments about blacks in the US, a lot of people don’t know about the link of the ANC and the NAACP that exist in the US. Plaatji came to the US and was with Du Bois in London at the ant-colonial movement. Garg, I would like to thank you for this information however, the SA writers should be telling the young people about this link. This way these people can learn about the soul of the black folks.
um, fergie?
god, the “black intellectuals” viz 1850-1930 in the united states believed that you needed to have either known to visible white ancestry to be part of the intelligentsia.
[have you ever seen a picture of homer plessy, of plessy v ferguson? how about the first black president of howard university, mordecai johnson? ... or how about most of the students at black universities in the united states until the 1960s? there's a reason that the "first" black students at the flagship southern universities were all dark -- they really were neither wanted nor welcome at the historically black institutions.]
but anyway, keep thinking what you want to think.
@Mundundu, you got that wrong, up until 1865 it was illegal to teach a black man how to read and write in most places in the Southern part of the US. These black schools were not built until after the end of slavery. Most blacks in the US were extremely poor and live on farms as sharecroppers. The blacks that had any economical status were children of white fathers and black mothers. Many of these white with money gave land to these black women and they were able to make a living. Many of them sent their children to other states to be educated. However, many dark skin black through their church were able to go to school. The black church played a very important role in uplifting blacks in the US. Paul Robeson, Richard Wright and Mary Bethune were all dark skin blacks. The KKK treated dark skin blacks and light skin blacks the same way and they both join forces to fight racism. In SA the apartheid government were able to divide the dark and light skin and rule both of them. I founder of the ANC came to the US was with Du Bois who founded the NAACP. Sol Plaatje went back to SA and founded the ANC. I think you should read Du Bois “Soul of the black folk”
At least you made me laugh Khaya —”sometimes we have to get a little uncomfortable with each other”
Yeah – just ask our foreign South African refugees how uncomfortable it has to get! Images of burning human beings spring to mind!
It took me two years to read all the comments hence my late response in 2011 LOL. Fergie needs prayer
) But two years have passed and I hope that she has been enlightened. Civilisation started with the Greeks? What about the Egyptians? Ethiopians? Somalians? Or is it simply that her highly regarded intellectuals refrained from writing this? And what is your obsession with being defined? Why must we be defined? I guess the misunderstanding we have is that Black South Africans were not uprooted from their ancestral line therefore we know who we are… Ask me who I am and I have “izithakazelo” ready for your ears. Our ancestral line existed before the Greeks (who influenced civilisation as YOU know it, not as I know it)therefore any influence they may have had on civilisation cannot define who I am. I do not need a social science (oxymoron) study to tell me who I am but I do appreciate and understand why you (Black/African Americans) need it. And I empathise. I truly do. @ Khaya, great read, great article