What makes you a bad black?

Once upon a time, not so long ago, a bright-eyed bushy-tailed little black Sipho was born with a defect, which doctors would later recognise to be a dictionary, in his mouth. Little Sipho was a curious little boy, reading anything he could get his tiny Zulu hands on (of course, relative to other kids his age, they were big). By the time Little Sipho was four, he had read his parents’ entire collection of encyclopaedias, Reader’s Digest and reluctantly, the Bible, and so his loving parents had no choice but to send him to Big School. The young boy from the Natal Midlands would, unlike his father before him, start big school in an English Medium Primary school: with white people.

Little Sipho excelled in Big School. He integrated well with other (smart) children, assisted with corporal punishment when he felt it fit, and by grade 2 was quoting Shakespeare and using big words like “onanism” and “implicitly”. By the time Little Sipho grew to be Big Sipho, he was so well-schooled in the ways of the white man all roads could only point in one direction: Smuts Hall, UCT.

With his fancy education and expansive vocabulary, you’d be forgiven for thinking he’s just another ordinary coconut, he’s not. Sipho is a #badblack.

#Badblacks are a rare but growing breed of individuals who move seamlessly between the two worlds created by the lack of true racial integration. Our upbringing and life experiences have given us a unique lookout point from which to observe other players in the game called life. Think of us as life’s referees who at any moment, can blow whistles and give you a warning or a card.

A warning? A card? Why?

The counter-revolutionary liberal force is strong within you, young white Padawan, you have much to unlearn.

As the #badblack moves in social circles filled with white liberal friends, drinks are shared, jokes about Julius Malema are exchanged, and it’s all great fun really. But sometimes, when our white liberal friends have had one too many to drink, or are generally feeling comfortable, too comfortable, they allow us, #badblacks, into a conversation that should have been kept in The Liberal Matrix, and the we are then forced to put them straight. Proper.

In those moments, too much Cape wine convinces our white liberal friends to state that uneducated voters are stupid or they let us in on their theory of how all black people think Cape Town is racist because they were ALL turned away at the door of a club for wearing the wrong shoes (on different nights). When our white liberal friends get frustrated with being the only taxpayers in the country (I love this one). When our white liberal friends tweet these confusing words “Why is race an issue, why can’t we be like koala bears, black, white and Asian, and just get along”. That’s when we #badblacks will turn to our white liberal friend and say “You can’t be serious”.

#Badblacks are not in the business of comforting you; we are in the business of educating you. We are not nannies to your egos, we do not provide reassurances from fears, nor confirm your worst nightmare — unless it happens to be the truth, accidents do happen.

Independent thinking is the name of the #badblack game. We #badblacks will walk into a room, head straight towards the elephant and ask “Whose elephant is this, and why are you ignoring it?” Don’t let this fool you into mistaking a #badblack for an #angryblack, that’s an amateurish mistake which can only be met with the dreaded look of scorn. #Badblacks don’t use terms like “Imperialist West” and Broederbond-sponsored lies. That’s drama, and #badblacks are not about drama. We are here to help you.

You might think it’s rather unfair that we are only monitoring the comings and goings of only our white liberal friends. That’s because other kids have either learnt how to play or how to shut up. Right-wing types know they are being racist, youth league types the same. #Badblacks will chastise an #angryblack, eish but those guys will fight like dogs to be right.

It can be hard being a #badblack. Speaking badblackanese can lose a #badblack Twitter followers on the spot. Cries of “Sipho, I can’t believe you think that, I didn’t know you were like one of them” are often BBMed to, emailed to or heard frequently by a #badblack. Of course his obvious reply is, “Who are ‘they’ exactly?” Eventually, many Capetonians resort to muting you, hoping those more open-minded liberals or the well-behaved blacks don’t retweet you, but eventually, quietly, follow you again.

It’s not an easy job living between black and white Twitter, keeping up with Gareth Cliff’s Twitter price list and Nonhle Thema’s breakdowns. Or at least some of us did. But as @mabine_seabe pointed out, being a #badblack is a calling. It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it.