CHARMAIN NAIDOO: Finding a community of one’s own is an increasingly tough ask
Being met with disapproval just because you don’t fit the criteria of the group you’re in is exhausting, painful and, importantly, dangerous
I’ve never fit in; never felt like I belonged. Fish or fowl? Brown or black? Catholic or Hindu? Curly hair or straight? It’s common for those of us of mixed race to have identity issues, factors that shape our world and suspend our expectation of ease in lives fraught with having to traverse two (or sometimes more) worlds. Finding your own community is hard, especially if neither side of your gene pool acknowledges you as one of their own. So you wander between the two worlds, adrift, clinging to the nearest raft, hoping for wisps of kindness… ok, ok, I’m being melodramatic and grossly exaggerating “mixed-race pain” (or discomfort) to make a point. The point is that being met with disapproval just because you don’t fit the criteria of the group you’re in is exhausting and painful and, sadly — perhaps most importantly — dangerous. Ask Zimbabwean couple Lovemore and Sam, whose home and everything in it was razed to the ground, set alight by an angry xenophobic mob chanting hate slogan...
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