It becomes increasingly difficult for me to shrug off the accusation that my gayness is not African. In fact it is not. I am a product of all the American and British media I consume. This is because all of us learn how to be from other people, and because there have been no people to learn gayness from other than those I found on the internet and on T.V. and in gay magazines. This is where I found the assumptions through which I make sense of my sexual political world.
I know it is not smart right now for a gay African man to be calling himself unAfrican (here is my legitimacy on a silver platter Bob/Kibaki/Museveni/Zuma). The point I want to try and make is that in battling the order of heteronormativity, a new order has been created and that order has diffused (incompletely) from the "west" across the world. There is a normative way of being homosexual, and there is a rubric of sexual identity that purports to describe everyone everywhere. You are either straight, L, G, B, T or I. Each of those letters comes with an identity. You have to chose one.
When Graeme Reid**, an anthropologist, studied "homosexual men and lesbians" in Ermelo, Mpumalanga in 2006, he found that being gay there was "almost synonymous with being effeminate or, in local parlance, a 'lady', or sis-Buti." He found that the separation of gender identity and sexual identity implied by the rubric did not play out in Ermelo. Instead, gay participants in the study saw themselves as members of a "third gender category, separate from men and women". One of the participants said: "In my family it is my mother and we [children] are six . I would say that at home there were three boys and two girls. Then there is me, who is gay." This is just one example in one context where the rubric fails.
So what?
This idea that our discourse around sexuality does not accurately reflect the lives of people who are sexually attracted to people of the same sex has two implications. One is obvious but important - we risk excluding and alienating people when we advocate for sexual freedom and when we study sexuality. The other is a strategic implication. Well, a question really. By using a language of sexuality which is divorced from the culture of a place, from the experiences of people that live there, do we not perpetuate the myth that same-sex attraction is a foreign thing? There is no word to describe my identity in seSotho that I am comfortable using. I resort to english words and I use a language of queerness which has been received from scholarship and activism and pop culture in the west. I wonder if it would not be easier to dismiss the claim that gay is unAfrican if gay was something that we expressed in our languages and was true to the lives of all kinds of South Africans.
In a time when (hetero)sexual identity is a rallying point in a war against cultural imperialism, shouldn’t we be more deliberate in crafting a discourse which is true to our lives, and which is seen to be authentically African, South African, Sotho?
**The study was quoted in a conference paper:
Homosexual and bisexual labels: The need for clear conceptualisations, operationalisations and appropriate methodological designs
by Sandfort T., and Dodge, B.
in From Social Silence to Social Science.... it has a long subtitle and many editors.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
I am what I am
I am what I am
I am my own special creation.
So come take a look,
Give me the hook or the ovation.
It's my world that I want to take a little pride in,
My world, and it's not a place I have to hide in.
Life's not worth a damn,
'Til you can say, "Hey world, I am what I am."
Everytime I see a show, I find a new diva to obsess over. Douglas Hodge in La Cage Aux Folle (The Birdcage). Woweee, this lady can sing!
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Diaparo tsa Keresemese
Boys in white dresses with blue satin sashes;
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes;
Silver-white winters that melt into springs;
These are a few of my favorite things
Its time to be jubilant and filled with the spirit again. Starbucks says so, Amazon says so, and the kiddies skating in Bryant park - giddy with laughter say so. I have bought my christmas clothes: A new pair of hefty, manly, leather Timberland boots (the sales assistant told me that they were exactly what I needed and that he was the only one in the city who could sell them to me), and a new winter jacket of questionable pedigree. Christmas clothes used to be a very literal thing when I was about 7. They were clothes that would make their debut in the public on christmas day, or at the earliest, christmas eve. They could be worn inside the house once or twice for about 10 minutes as a sneak preview. Sometimes my parents would ask us to model the clothes once we got home, especially if there were guests around. My parents derived lots of entertainment from making us do stupid things when we were young - they still try. The purchase of those clothes was always an occasion: usually on the weekend after the November payday (or close to it). We would be woken up early on a saturday and rounded up into the car to go to town. Bloemfontein City Centre was such an exciting place to be. All those gaudy people and christmas decorations, the big Edgars clothing shop, Juicy Lucy (a chain restaurant), Pizza... everything anyone ever needed could be found there. I did not break tradition this year, I wore my christmas jacket on the way back from the shop just to check its phlyness on the street... and I may have been strutting to the beat of Lady Marmalade.
Those of you who are close to me may be alarmed to read that I bought leather shoes after all that hand-wringing and prostheletyzing about animal killing and wearing. "He has lost his way" you may be saying, "He has been taken by the city lights and the fast boys". It is true friends, your humble village-mouse has fallen from grace. It all started when I attended a student society film screening mostly because I was hungry and did not feel like having cereal that night. I should have known not to; my mother taught me at an early age to never attend an event hungry, especially not a funeral. I fumbled in after the film had started. By the dim silver glow of the screen I strained to see what kind of wrap I had picked up. It looked like crab meat or chicken. But decidedly more like crab meat. The first bite tasted chicken-ish, there was mustard so I was not sure. By the fourth bite I knew what was happening and I did not stop it... I could not stop it.
I felt sad when the lights came up. My usual rule is that when it is dark enough for one not to see one's own hand stretched out in front of one, then whatever one does in such darkness does not count; one can continue to live as if nothing happened. I knew, though, that not even my rule could erase this tragedy. Fast forward 2 weeks and I am being fed a piece of turkey by a temptress with a tastefully decorated apartment - 3 days after that and I am buying dead animal shoes for the winter. I have been brought down low.
Now I am impatiently waiting for the snow to come. Its not here yet. It better come - for the sake of those two dead cows I will be wearing.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Ode to Moment Generating Functions
Infinitely rich
All uncentered moments: yours
Share with us one more
All uncentered moments: yours
Share with us one more
Differentiate me
My heart quickens in waiting
Set t to zero
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
An Incomplete thought ...
A few weeks ago - at a party of South African expats new and old, I once again answered explained how it feels to be living in New York. Really, I have a few ready answers for this question - I offer different variations to preserve my own sanity - but I have whittled it down to two or four key points which I keep at the ready.
a) I love music and the subway
b) I love the public spaces
c) I love the scale and the intensity
This time I carelessly threw in that I feel more human here (compared to in Cape Town that is). I don't think that last part was well received - at least not by the Capetonian at the table.
This place is big and it is dense. In Manhattan people are busy, they are always going somewhere - Every weekday over 2 million people ride the subway. Grown men and women in suits (or not in suits) run to the platform when they hear their train - sometimes with children in tow. They brush past each other, bump into each other, rebuke each other for being rude, try to sell each other stuff on the street. It is frenetic - in an ordered sort of way.
Through the chaos though, I have found that people share public spaces... They know that others use them, and they know that they are dependent on others for their use. People say "please", "thank you" and "you are welcome" - it is just done. People help strangers. When I once walked onto the bus just to realize that my mta card had no credit and that the machine only took coins, some stranger started shaking her bag to get me change for $3 in quarters. A few weeks ago when I asked a man whether he knew when the Columbia intercampus shuttle stops, he spent 15 minutes orienting me and directing me to the closest subway station. (I was not really lost, I just wanted to know whether I was late for the bus. He only spoke Spanish, and I only spoke English so I followed his directions because I did not want to seem difficult). At the park on the Hudson Riverbank today, a lady walked up to me to remark on how precious the little mini-beach is in the park. We made small talk for about 5 minutes and each moved on - we did not exchange names, I may forget that I even met her by tomorrow, but we spoke.
I love interacting with strangers - it gives the illusion (or reality) of community.
I have not experienced it in this way before.
I feel more human.
a) I love music and the subway
b) I love the public spaces
c) I love the scale and the intensity
This time I carelessly threw in that I feel more human here (compared to in Cape Town that is). I don't think that last part was well received - at least not by the Capetonian at the table.
This place is big and it is dense. In Manhattan people are busy, they are always going somewhere - Every weekday over 2 million people ride the subway. Grown men and women in suits (or not in suits) run to the platform when they hear their train - sometimes with children in tow. They brush past each other, bump into each other, rebuke each other for being rude, try to sell each other stuff on the street. It is frenetic - in an ordered sort of way.
Through the chaos though, I have found that people share public spaces... They know that others use them, and they know that they are dependent on others for their use. People say "please", "thank you" and "you are welcome" - it is just done. People help strangers. When I once walked onto the bus just to realize that my mta card had no credit and that the machine only took coins, some stranger started shaking her bag to get me change for $3 in quarters. A few weeks ago when I asked a man whether he knew when the Columbia intercampus shuttle stops, he spent 15 minutes orienting me and directing me to the closest subway station. (I was not really lost, I just wanted to know whether I was late for the bus. He only spoke Spanish, and I only spoke English so I followed his directions because I did not want to seem difficult). At the park on the Hudson Riverbank today, a lady walked up to me to remark on how precious the little mini-beach is in the park. We made small talk for about 5 minutes and each moved on - we did not exchange names, I may forget that I even met her by tomorrow, but we spoke.
I love interacting with strangers - it gives the illusion (or reality) of community.
I have not experienced it in this way before.
I feel more human.
A picture I took - not completely unrelated to the above post, just a little unrelated
"As usual, they cannot say what the meaning is. It is not even necessary to say, or even to know, what the meaning is. It is enough only to know that there is a meaning, and it is a profound one." -- Zakes Mda, Ways of dying
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Lessons from this week
1) Go-go boys don't like it when people touch them without depositing a dollar
1b) Once a person deposits a dollar, it is considered impolite to retrieve the dollar
1c) 1b applies even if the person plans to re-deposit the dollar with the Go-go boy
2) If someone offers you directions in Spanish, and you don't understand Spanish, do not attempt to follow the directions
3) Don't wear flip flops in the rain. They will cause you to slip and fall once you are inside and people will laugh at you once they think you're out of earshot
4) Never enroll in a course whose title begins with "Advanced" unless someone asks you to
5) Toilets in the US are less hardy and dependable than toilets in SA
6) If someone smiles at you in the subway, they are probably about to sell you pirate DVDs (or bootleg liquor after 3am)
7) I hang with my girlfriends a lot so our cycles are beginning to sync and its no coincidence. http://www.articlesphere.com/Article/Menstrual-Cycles-That-Sync--A-Mystery-Unraveled/74758
1b) Once a person deposits a dollar, it is considered impolite to retrieve the dollar
1c) 1b applies even if the person plans to re-deposit the dollar with the Go-go boy
2) If someone offers you directions in Spanish, and you don't understand Spanish, do not attempt to follow the directions
3) Don't wear flip flops in the rain. They will cause you to slip and fall once you are inside and people will laugh at you once they think you're out of earshot
4) Never enroll in a course whose title begins with "Advanced" unless someone asks you to
5) Toilets in the US are less hardy and dependable than toilets in SA
6) If someone smiles at you in the subway, they are probably about to sell you pirate DVDs (or bootleg liquor after 3am)
7) I hang with my girlfriends a lot so our cycles are beginning to sync and its no coincidence. http://www.articlesphere.com/Article/Menstrual-Cycles-That-Sync--A-Mystery-Unraveled/74758
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Bottled Flags
The two flags that my sister stuffed into my hand-luggage just before I got through the security gate in Bloemfontein: I took one of them out of the Snapple bottle, and unraveled it on my pillow.
To begin with, I am not sure how I let the flags into my bag. For the last half hour before we left for the airport, my mother had made it her duty to find things that exist in the world but not in my hand luggage, and to place those things in my hand luggage. I put a strict moratorium on new items after she snuck a six-pack of granola bars, one pack of mentoes, one of winegums, a tube of hand sanitizer and an 8 pack of those tissues that come in a pocket sized pack of about 12.
I am not sure whether I accepted the flags out of sheer panic, or whether they were self-evidently important to bring. I still have to decide where/how/if they will be permanently displayed. This is where the Snapple bottle comes in. For a short while after arriving here I was addicted to Snapple - (Corn syrup is like crack). I collected the glass bottles intending to do something pretty and creative with them to liven up my drab standard-issue residence room. In a flash of genius, I stuffed the flags into a Snapple bottle and displayed them on the window sill. It looks kind of dumb and ugly, but for now I have wounded two birds with one stone.
Since I arrived, I have tried to think about what it means to me to be South African. This was partly sparked by some tell-me-about-your-people-and-I'll-tell-you-about-mine group exercises at the beginning. These exercises - or rather my ineptitude at them - unsettled me a bit. On the other hand, I keep on saying things like "We have ..." and We are ..." when I mean to say "South Africa has ...." and "South Africa is...". I am trying to figure out whether we have similar ideas of what South African means, and whether I buy in. I am very envious of peoples who have (or seem to have) some sort of unified national identity. There is no surface in America, that does not have the American flag emblazoned on it.
Certainly I identify strongly with South African gays, and South African middle class people, and South African Blacks and Free Staters ... - but I can't think of ways of identifying strongly with South Africans period. Besides the physical space inside the imaginary border, I am not sure what we share. Perhaps I have just forgotten.
For the last week I have tried to write on my South Africanness without any success. I am completely blank. As a last-ditch effort, I unraveled my Snapple-bottle-flag on my pillow, made sure it was oriented correctly (red on top - the opposite of what you would expect) and stared hoping something would happen. Nothing. Back to the window sill.
To begin with, I am not sure how I let the flags into my bag. For the last half hour before we left for the airport, my mother had made it her duty to find things that exist in the world but not in my hand luggage, and to place those things in my hand luggage. I put a strict moratorium on new items after she snuck a six-pack of granola bars, one pack of mentoes, one of winegums, a tube of hand sanitizer and an 8 pack of those tissues that come in a pocket sized pack of about 12.
I am not sure whether I accepted the flags out of sheer panic, or whether they were self-evidently important to bring. I still have to decide where/how/if they will be permanently displayed. This is where the Snapple bottle comes in. For a short while after arriving here I was addicted to Snapple - (Corn syrup is like crack). I collected the glass bottles intending to do something pretty and creative with them to liven up my drab standard-issue residence room. In a flash of genius, I stuffed the flags into a Snapple bottle and displayed them on the window sill. It looks kind of dumb and ugly, but for now I have wounded two birds with one stone.
Since I arrived, I have tried to think about what it means to me to be South African. This was partly sparked by some tell-me-about-your-people-and-I'll-tell-you-about-mine group exercises at the beginning. These exercises - or rather my ineptitude at them - unsettled me a bit. On the other hand, I keep on saying things like "We have ..." and We are ..." when I mean to say "South Africa has ...." and "South Africa is...". I am trying to figure out whether we have similar ideas of what South African means, and whether I buy in. I am very envious of peoples who have (or seem to have) some sort of unified national identity. There is no surface in America, that does not have the American flag emblazoned on it.
Certainly I identify strongly with South African gays, and South African middle class people, and South African Blacks and Free Staters ... - but I can't think of ways of identifying strongly with South Africans period. Besides the physical space inside the imaginary border, I am not sure what we share. Perhaps I have just forgotten.
For the last week I have tried to write on my South Africanness without any success. I am completely blank. As a last-ditch effort, I unraveled my Snapple-bottle-flag on my pillow, made sure it was oriented correctly (red on top - the opposite of what you would expect) and stared hoping something would happen. Nothing. Back to the window sill.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
My Trip on the 2-line (in 2 parts)
Interesting things happen in the subway. Today's ride back from Brooklyn to my apartment was especially interesting. Here it is.
Part I
My friend and I jump in and scramble for seats - luckily we find two open just by the door. Just before the doors close, a tall, wide man stands up and announces "HI EVERYBODY, I AM SORRY TO DISTURB YOU. MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE? MY NAME IS JAMES" James is black "I AM HOMELESS AND HUNGRY. I WOULD LIKE TO ASK FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE PLEASE. NICKELS, DIMES, QUARTERS, ANYTHING AT ALL."
There are two old white ladies sitting across from me. They must be in their 80s. One reaches for her handbag, pulls out a zip-lock bag with some crackers in it, unzips it and hands James 2 crackers.
"No thank you ma'am. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I WOULD APPRECIATE ANY ASSISTANCE PLEASE." He starts walking from our end of the car to the other side slowly.
"What? You're not hungry?" she says replacing the crackers.
"I am hungry, but I can't accept that, please don't be offended. ANY ASSISTANCE AT ALL ...."
"aah, he wants money" they other lady says. eye-roll.
"Its nothing personal ma'am, I wouldn't accept that from anyone... and I wouldn't mind at all if someone refused to take food from me. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN PLEASE....."
Taken aback, the two ladies begin to talk quietly and emphatically with each other. James, now on the other side of the car, attempts to resolve the conflict.
"PLEASE DON'T BE OFFENDED MA'AM, IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU. ITS JUST THAT THERE ARE LOTS OF GERMS AND BACTERIA AROUND.... MONEY IS JUST MORE.... CONVENIENT."
My eyes are darting between the man and the ladies. I stare at the lady for a split second unintentionally - trying to make sense of things, and trying not to burst out laughing. I guess she interprets this as judgement so she starts explaining gently to me and another lady sitting to her right (we two are the closest blacks).
"I used to eat out of the garbage. This food is good. He said he's hungry... In Europe during the second world war, I would look through garbage and eat." I nod my head, taking her side without saying anything - unnecessary white guilt makes me feel guilty too. I want to say, "Ma'am, I think you're in the right here" but James is much bigger than I am, and much louder so I keep quiet. James passes through to the next subway car. Everything returns to normal for a bit.
Part II
The train stops, a few people come in and fewer leave. I make the slightest eye contact with a man who has just come in as he sits down across from me to my left. The two ladies from earlier are still seated directly across from me. To their right, the black lady and to her right the man who has just walked in.
He nods his head to say hello, and I do the same naively. Then it starts.
"How are you? My name is Peter" - he reaches out with his right hand.
"I am Keletso" - We shake hands.
"You know, Kaletu, god is good..."
I nod my head in a very final way and give an "Mmhmm" - I try to pre-occupy myself with my bag.
"... yes he is. God is good. How old are you?"
"I am 23."
"You are young ...."
"Yes. I am young."
"Kaletu I am desperate, and nobody can help me. I am hungry, and poor.... I am a gay man... a black, gay man. I follow god, with all my heart. Even when he told me to go to the village. Are you a gay man?"
"Yes, I am gay."
"Do you know about the HIV?"
I nod my head.
"I am HIV positive, and I am hungry. I was 26 when I went to the village, just 26....... there was a man..... he was much older than me....."
He starts to speak softer, and the train seems to get louder. I strain to make out what he is saying, but stop myself from asking him to repeat anything. It is a long train ride, and I decide to hear him out. It would be unkind to ignore him - its not like I have anything else to do, so I listen. I decide that this will be my second mitzvah for the day.
He explains his troubles at length. Eventually it comes to "I just need someone to help me, I need a partner to help me turn my life around. Can you help me?"
"I'm sorry, but I can't"
He leans forward and asks me to repeat.
"I can't" I shake my head slightly.
"I was telling my story to a lady the other day... and a man overheard me. I didn't even know him, but he reached into his pocket, gave me 3 dollars. It was all he had. He was very kind."
The black lady across from me suddenly pipes up and turns to her left. "Where are those crackers? Give him the crackers."
"Are you hungry?" the lady with the crackers demands.
"Yes, but.."
"Here" She hands the entire ziplock bag accross to him.
"Thank you, but I would really like some money."
"Why do you want money? Aren't you hungry?" the other white lady asks.
"Well, I want to be able to buy what I want... what I need... "
He tries to reword his answer a few times unconvincingly, opens the bag, grabs a cracker, and starts eating it gingerly. Quietly.
There is a bustle at the next stop as more people come in.
The man, and the two ladies must have alighted then.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Say My Name, Say My Name
"Kenneth"
"No - Keletso"
"Kenetsu"
"No - Keletso"
"Calypso"
"No - Keletso"
"Can't I just call you 'K'"
"No - Keletso"
At this point, I usually zip out my cellphone (or newly acquired ID card) with a flourish and say: "Let me show you: "K - E - L - E - T - S - O. Keletso." Sometimes I do this three or four times an hour - at parties, or the orientation events I had been attending religiously two weeks ago. I'm sure the few friends who have watched me perform my introduction think its cute... or annoying. meh.
I'm surprised at how attached I am too my name (in its original pronunciation), a few international students in my class adopt English (or rather American) nick-names and get by. My Sotho mother (Patricia) and Tswana/Pedi father (Johannes) wouldn't have any of that. They named me Keletso which (approximately) means "Desire" but in a completely non-sexual and non-creepy way.
Anyways, saying and insisting on Keletso often leads to "Where are you from?" which then leads to "How was the world cup?" which then leads to "Why do you find it difficult to remember which match you attended, and why don't you know who won?". My name is thus a conversation starter. Since there is no one around me who I have know for more than 3 weeks, I use all the conversation starters I get. So whereas usually my eyes would glaze over if someone asked me what my name means, at school I tell them "It means desire, but not in a sleazy way". At the gay bar I tell them "Desired" (full stop). I believe in the power of suggestion.
My friend Maria once called me "ethnic dessert". Sometimes it bothers me when people mispronounce "Keletso" as"Calypso", but I think I wouldn't mind if people pronounced my name: "ethnic dessert".
"No - Keletso"
"Kenetsu"
"No - Keletso"
"Calypso"
"No - Keletso"
"Can't I just call you 'K'"
"No - Keletso"
At this point, I usually zip out my cellphone (or newly acquired ID card) with a flourish and say: "Let me show you: "K - E - L - E - T - S - O. Keletso." Sometimes I do this three or four times an hour - at parties, or the orientation events I had been attending religiously two weeks ago. I'm sure the few friends who have watched me perform my introduction think its cute... or annoying. meh.
I'm surprised at how attached I am too my name (in its original pronunciation), a few international students in my class adopt English (or rather American) nick-names and get by. My Sotho mother (Patricia) and Tswana/Pedi father (Johannes) wouldn't have any of that. They named me Keletso which (approximately) means "Desire" but in a completely non-sexual and non-creepy way.
Anyways, saying and insisting on Keletso often leads to "Where are you from?" which then leads to "How was the world cup?" which then leads to "Why do you find it difficult to remember which match you attended, and why don't you know who won?". My name is thus a conversation starter. Since there is no one around me who I have know for more than 3 weeks, I use all the conversation starters I get. So whereas usually my eyes would glaze over if someone asked me what my name means, at school I tell them "It means desire, but not in a sleazy way". At the gay bar I tell them "Desired" (full stop). I believe in the power of suggestion.
My friend Maria once called me "ethnic dessert". Sometimes it bothers me when people mispronounce "Keletso" as"Calypso", but I think I wouldn't mind if people pronounced my name: "ethnic dessert".
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