I began to write my thoughts on my walls – thoughts about liberation, decolonisation and revolution. But since we live in the collective as well as in the self, I included thoughts about my internal feelings. I wrote, “Who Am I?” and it eventually became this contradictory question in relation to my other statements of affirmation about freedom.
How can someone be so certain about fighting for liberation but not even know themselves? Well comrades, I cannot answer this question. However, I would like to tell you what my professor said in class, which only deepened the confusing notion of my self-identity.
In my history class at UCT, we spoke about the coloured community and their “formation” during apartheid. My professor decided to indulge us in a racist joke where a woman refers to coloured people as “leftovers”.
Am I a leftover? This question lingered in my head the whole day. I was distraught when coming out the class and having to face the world.
No, I am not coloured. I am not even from South Africa. I am from the United States. I am Caribbean-American and since I speak spanish, I am labeled as “Hispanic and/or Latino”.
The “joke” internally messed me up because some people here have compared the coloured community to the latinos in the United States. Of course we cannot compare them historically, but we can compare the two groups physically–on the essence of their diverse skin tones, hair textures and facial features. And just like the coloured “ethnicity”, being hispanic and/or latino does not belong to any race. The latino group was bred out of colonisation, genocide and enslavement. We are the manifestations of enslaved africans, indigenous people and colonisers. But, this was not by choice. The colonisers – who were spaniards, french, british and portuguese – dicated our history and distorted to to make us believe that we are savages and have “no soul”. We all know that the colonisers never ask for permission. All they do is take, kill and continue the cycle to other people who they believe are not like them.
So that same day, I went to my room and drew an arrow from “Who Am I?” to the top and wrote, “Am I a leftover?” You know, I really want to believe that this is a lie but I look at myself and do not know what I see. I look anything except fully white. I could be your distant cousin, your abuela’s (grandmother’s) niece or even the unknown kid your uncle had with a woman whose name he cannot remember. I am always in the middle – never white but never black. My hair is not straight but neither is it kinky. My nose is not wide nor too fine. My lips are not thin, but not overly too much. My hips are a disgrace to the big booty dominicans but I got a little something. My skin is not dark but also not too light.
So again, Who Am I? Am I the leftovers on your plate? Am I the kid you wish you never had? Am I the friend you envy for having “exoctic” skin and features? Am I the girl you judge when you see her with people who are shades darker than her? Am I the girl you wish never existed? Am I the friend that is not too black and therefore allowed visit your house? Am I the friend who is black and therefore not allowed to go into your house? Am I even Shannel?
I can joke around all I want, but if you just knew how much it hurt to have heard the word just roll off my professor’s tongue: LEFTOVERS. He said it like it was nothing; like I was nothing. I think about this constantly. Sometimes I wish I was absent for that class. But maybe I was meant to hear it. Maybe I was meant to be the way that I am. Regardless of how I see myself, or how others see me, I will always be revolutionary.
Power to the People.