When it comes to marriage, I jumped off the cliff, married a white woman. Not only did I marry a white woman, I also married beyond my intellectual position. When we met, she was a doctoral student and a full professor. At that time, I was an old age student still doing my bachelor’s degree. Later, she inspired me to do my graduate studies. In essence, I crossed the racial and class divide in one go.
I must admit that my wife hates being referred to as a white woman. She is just a woman. I see her as my partner nothing more and nothing less. Of course, it doesn’t help that I listen to Miriam Makeba and Busi Mhlongo. He has a collection of the best black South African jazz musicians, including the latest duo of Sipho Gumede and Zim Ngqawana. There is definitely nothing white about dancing to Busi Mhlongo’s sweet melodies.
In the early days of our courtship, I often wondered about the extent of her whiteness. If there are special behavioral traits of being white, well, she didn’t show any. To make matters worse, she had been a fervent anti-apartheid activist and a credentialed member of the African National Congress (ANC) since the ban was lifted. Was she on the journey to be black? Am I on the road to whiteness?
As for me, the beginning of my romantic relationship with Professor D was not a surprise. In truth, I had imagined getting married on the other side of the color line eight years before meeting my current wife. There was nothing melodramatic or political in my imagination. Eight years earlier, I met my current wife, she was embroiled in an emotional affair with a white Afrikaans woman named Ria. Ria was the closest white girl to treat me like good, a human being, talk to me and be my friend and partner. Secretly, he was in love with her. The chemistry I had with Ria was pure and unemotional. We weren’t dating, but our friendship planted the idea that black and white could, in fact, love and stay together side by side.
By marrying a white woman, I consciously crossed the color line and in the process mixed bodies and cultures. As a result, I came face to face with racial prejudice and racial discrimination.
“Therefore, I am a traitor. With the birth I will increase another race different from mine: the colors.” So the line went. These hurtful words pierced my heart every day, coming from friends, enemies, and strangers alike. Most of these comments come from black people. In his racial thinking, he had committed the ultimate crime, a crime of passion across the color line. Sure enough, he was sleeping with the enemy, so they said. It is a pedantic detail that this event took place deep in post-apartheid South Africa.
Fortunately, a considerable number of my comrades saw nothing bad other than a picturesque of the new South Africa: the rainbow nation. When I first realized that I had fallen in love with Professor D, I sought the political advice of one of my close classmates, she said without a second thought, if you love her, “do it.”
Sadly, Durban wasn’t ready for an interracial couple walking the streets, chatting, kissing and holding hands with gay abandon. Many times, we receive cold stares, hostile stares, and outright prejudice. I remember this time, we walked into a restaurant holding hands and sat down. The fact that we were seated should have been a sign, but we didn’t know any better. Seconds and minutes passed without a soul asking us questions. Nobody brought us menus. No one took our drink order. No one edged to tell us we weren’t welcome. We had to realize that we had touched a raw nerve from whiteness and its bedfellows, prejudice and naked racism. Realizing this, we walked away and never set foot in that establishment again.
It has not been smooth sailing. The issue of cultural differences is too deep. I am a Zulu by birth. She is English. I am a carnivore. She is vegetarian. I believe in sorceresses and ancestors. She does not do it. She is a non-practicing Catholic. I am a practicing atheist. These differences have far-reaching consequences.
For example, after our wedding, I suggested a traditional wedding in which we would slaughter a cow to inform the ancestors of the new bride. I suggested this to appease my parents. My wife does not believe in killing animals as a principle. Obviously, she doesn’t want to be associated with the slaughter of animals that she wants to or not on her behalf. She rejected it. The stalemate continues, as my parents continue to push for the traditional wedding, all to no avail. I have decided to choose my wife before my parents. Despite this traditional wedding hiatus, my family has long accepted a white wife. I am lucky that his family also accepted me and my Zuluness. Have I abandoned my faith in my ancestors? The answer is no. Happily I call myself a “reluctant Zulu” and a “part-time obscure.”
On the positive side, love lives in my house. Every day, I wake up with the most beautiful woman in the world. She is blessed with a voice that softens like a purple dome at sunset and her face when she smiles has those cute dimples. She is a petite woman of large size, of medium height and fair complexion. I call it my original yellow bone. The most important part is, of course, your character and your inner beauty. She is infused with an abundance of goodness and has a heart of gold.
Twelve years ago, we were blessed with a beautiful daughter named Miss N. Two years ago, she told me that she had solved the problem of her racial identity: “Dad, I am a Zulu girl from the suburbs.” She would have nothing to do with the apartheid-inspired political identity of mestizo South Africans of being of color. Therefore, I argue that we have to reimagine the tired concepts of apartheid driven by racial identity and racial profiling. We are human beings in the face of the socially constructed notion of race. Let us love and live.