I had always been anxious about returning to South Africa. Besides awkward puberty, an awakening awaited me in South Africa, sparked by a dizzying confrontation with the reality of race.
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Durban, South Africa
‘I just don’t find Black guys attractive. Their features are just like so… aggressive.’ Devoid of shame or hesitation, the words flew out of Luke’s mouth and triggered something within me. Shock arrested my mind and a familiar malaise began to brew. This sensation was not new. I felt it when white suburban eyes glared at me with accusation or glanced with unsettling surprise at my presence in ‘their’ restaurants or bars. In my undergraduate years, I saw this gaze recreated in the vicious faces of policemen surveying a crowd of protesting university students. It caused a burning itch in the mind when white joggers offered nervous, strained smiles as I passed them on an empty street.
No, this sensation was not new but in that particular moment with Luke the sting felt harsher. Through his confession, my close friend, who I had a huge crush on, reminded me of a chasm that existed between us, an asymmetry that turned us into hostile strangers. One that was erected by the past and alive in the present. Like the fearful joggers and trigger-keen police, Luke reminded me of what Frantz Fanon would call ‘the fact of my Blackness’.
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