Mukamuka

Mukamuka - Japanese for 'so angry one feels like throwing up'...

This is a letter to Black men… No! Scratch that, this is an appeal to Black men!

My friends and I are perhaps the least politically correct people I know (besides my family), with the exception of one Z whose profession and religious principles have her giggling in the corner but not adding much butter to the dish. In my close-knit circle of friends, I’m told I’m one of the few that tell it like it is. Our daily Denny Crane-Alan Shore sessions range in content: from bulging bunions to “No-Way!” Njipses (the term for a receding hairline caused by a combination of abusing one’s hair and really unfortunate genes). Truth be told, given the option between a devilishly glamorous night out and a Crane-Shore session with some mis-behaviour inducing liquids, we often opt for the latter… that’s how much we relish in one another’s company. On the few nights we do brave the party bus, we make it a point not to leave the dance floor ‘til our grinding faces come out.

On one such a night, we attended the infamous Party People on the first, last weekend of a 2009 month. Indeed, the event failed to disappoint. It is seldom that I know and adore every song that plays, but Kenzhero had it on point. To add glitter to glamour, the party was swarmed with chocolate hunks and sultry sistas. It almost seemed like Kenzhero had the soundtrack to my not so long but eventful life. Needless to say there was no space for conversation since he had Everyday People jumping hysterically to the Weekend Special. All that was needed was a Big Poppa to Tell Me If he wants Me To… so I can take him back to our Roots and reveal my God-given knack for knowing What he wants. Many nineties niceties later, we found ourselves replenishing our parched throats several times, partly in order to flirt with the delectable chocolate bartender, but mostly an excuse to take leave from the vibrating dance floor, We were Feeling So Good… that was until we saw the Conspiracy Theory! I was moving Back and bumped into them, tried swinging Forth and AGAIN they were there! Everywhere we looked we seemed to be in a Groundhog day version of White Men Can’t Jump. There isn’t enough liquid in the icy waters of the Cape Town Atlantic to cool down the Jungle Fever we witnessed.

We were all secretly furious, it was so bad that we didn’t even discuss it until we got home out of fear of pulling wavy hair off the shoulders of our lost Black soldiers. We were baffled, insulted, livid! How could ALL the Black men at the party truthfully tell us that their preference is White women when all around them they are swarmed by Foxy Browns whose genetic makeup forces our hips to swing to beats. To add insult to injury, several of the White bunnies hopped happily onto the stage that we the Foxy ones didn’t dare to impose upon. Some went so far as to approach and request songs that clearly weren’t a part of the Mpho le Mphonyana childhood a great percentage of us cannot deny having. The bunnies were on such a nauseatingly marvellous high that they mistook our quarter-to-murder looks as friendly signs of encouragement until even PC Z was forced to regurgitate an angry “this is not a social!”

Don’t mistake this for another baseless complaint. We have reason to be angry. After several failed relationships (designed to exclude an ‘M’ so as to emphasise the lack of Monogamy) with eligible Black men, many of us have reached the end of our page. We have gone from dignified self-respecting Black queens, to smack a hoe-down ladies, until the unimaginable willing-to-turn-a-blind-eye-for-a-sister overcomes us. Reality and Male-God have dealt us a paralyzing blow and we are forced to acknowledge the fact that it is very likely for our men to cheat, and so as to avoid several heart-wrenching incidents, we settle for “as-long-as-he-still-loves-me” mindsets. But to know that we are no longer smiling through gritted teeth for fellow Foxies, but for bouncing Bunnies… you have to allow us our anger.

It’s almost mathematics that Black man + new money + intellect + art = property of confused White girl. What made it worse was the fact that I witnessed a tall, dark, rugged, DIVINE Black man make his way past sistas with neck sized waists and voluptuous attributes, only to finally settle in the arms of a big White tub. This may be superficial and I am unapologetic about that, but I could perhaps walk away with my tail tucked in if she were a Scarlett Johansson (even I find myself pausing the PVR for What Goes Around Comes Around). But to squeeze past the tight ‘delela’ dress that clings on my curves like a ‘Machonisa’ to a debtor without so much as a wince, only to end up engulfed by a TUB? A TUB (high pitched expression)?

We shaved off our shiny relaxed hair in the hopes that we might attract men whose words flow like a tall pitcher of ‘Gemere’ on a hot summer’s day. We traded our 9cm heel fetishes for ama Hamba-Voetsek, so we would no longer be addressed by our significant others as ‘Boo’, somehow believing that food alone was no longer enough to get you to a man’s heart. We thought the problem was with us, but we had it all wrong. It is not the fault of the whimsical White Whitney who is riding merrily along the path of life, nor is it the beautiful Black Busi who needs to reflect… it is solely the error of the brainy Black Bongani who needs the re-assurance of a White woman that he is better than his people... that he cannot be referred to with the derogatory terms previously reserved for Black people because he doesn’t date women who look like the people who boiled his beans and cleaned his tripe. How can one deny the beauty of the powerful Black mothers and headstrong Black sistas who made us the people we are today? Its one thing to genuinely fall in love with someone from another race, but to date Black women until you think you have ‘arrived’ and then adopt a strict criteria of “Whites Only” messages that are the hurtful reminders of the past centuries of racial oppression that plague the hearts of our Black people.

Why don’t we jump on the band-wagon and pair up with White men as well? Firstly, I can speak for an astounding majority of the Black women in my world when I say, there is no earthly equivalent for a handsome, intelligent, strong, “eish!” of a Black man. Secondly, White men, like new-age Black creative intellects often have eyes for….. well… White women. It is already evident that there is a shortage of male flavoured spices in the creation pool, and the ratio of women to men is revoltingly alarming, yet Black women seem to have become the bottom of the dating chain. First its Black men and White men, then hot White women, then gay men, then bisexual men and women, then tub-like White women and finally somewhere between hookers and sheep, are Black women. We aren’t even granted the 3 women to 1 man insult, we must now wrestle for puny crumbs left over by the true Queens and Kings of the relationship jungle.

Until the messiah of our time, Chief Barrack Obama (he deserves a throne), we had thrown in our towels and resigned to the fact that we no longer have men that are ours. But the O in Outstanding has renewed our faith in the Spinderella story… that Black men may just be salvageable. It is perhaps not probable, but still possible, that Soft ’n Free Spinderella may just end up with her Fresh Prince of kinky-hair.