Confessions of a libra

Curse breaker | Credit: Here

29.07.25

Race being a social construct is something I believed before I was old enough to have the verbiage. What this essentially means is, while we developed to look phenotypically different for environmental reasons, that is as far as the differences go. Humans are 99.9% genetically identical. Everything you may have heard about different groups’ head shapes affecting their intelligence, is just a racist dog whistle. Which means it is coded language that sounds like it could be neutral or rational, but specifically targets a specific group. I didn’t want to open my blog by talking about race because many of you would shut off. I needed to earn your trust on my sociological takes and my writing acumen first. Now that I have, I am ready to blow the top off this lid.

I rarely give disclaimers but I will for this one. I am mainly going to use my life, my knowledge of history as well as my own personal sociological observations. I will pull statistical data if relevant or pull concepts that people already learned in race relations already know. I write this for two main reasons. One, for Black people and other people of colour to feel less alone. You have never needed my writing to explain something you’ve experienced firsthand. But if it can make you feel less alone and like you’re not the only one screaming into the void, then that’s my intention.

Secondly, I write this for White people as someone who actually likes White people. What I refuse to do in this piece is coddle you though. I am about to be ruthless in my exposure of your privilege and I am not holding your hand when I say any of it. You know why your feelings on the matter don’t bother me? It’s simply worse to be on the receiving end of racism and discrimination for things I was born with and could not control. That’s not debateable. Your feelings of discomfort that I have outed you and your kinfolk is none of my business. Read further at your own risk.

Zimbabwe only gained independence from British Colonial rule in 1980. I want you think about that for a second, especially for all the White people that think we are over ‘the race thing’. South Africa only repealed the last of the apartheid-based laws targeting their Black population in 1994. For us Southern Africans, we are painfully aware of race relations. I am glad I was born in a Black majority country. I truly believe it has done wonders for my self-concept, and I am aware Black people around the world do not all have that privilege.

African Americans can only trace back their family lineage so far. They can return to West Africa as many of them have done, but they will always experience a level of displacement due to their history. I empathised IMMEDIATELY with Indigenous people when I moved to this country, because their struggles, are our struggles. The only major difference being, the genocide that happened on their land, was so seismic that now in modern times they only make up 3.8% of the population of their own country. You’d have to be an absolute sick bastard to hear that and feel anything other than empathy. Especially when you consider the difference in life expectancy between the Indigenous population and the rest of Australia. It makes me sick to my stomach.

As I grew up in a Black majority country, I only knew I was Black insofar as colonialism affecting us. Not because I felt like Blackness was somehow separate to Whiteness. This is just personal. The first crush I remember having in primary school (I am NOT going back as far as Crèche, people), was actually a White boy at my private school in Zimbabwe (MCS). I want to preface this by explaining the race relations in this school.

Yes, I went to school with White people before I left Africa, and you were much more likely to find them in Private Schools than Public. This is due to a few factors. In Zimbabwe there is a significant gap in education and educational outcomes between those two systems. I would argue Australia has much less of a distinction, you can thrive here on Public School education. In Public School in Zimbabwe, when I was a child, they still resorted to corporal punishment (a colonial concept) but Private Schools in Zimbabwe were nothing short of bougie. I am yet to see a Private School here, match the scale I have seen over there, but I digress.

White people have an economic advantage in Africa due to colonisation. I remember these twins we went to school with whose family owned a mining company. So they get to exist in the country they pillaged, going to the best schools, and living in communities that isolate them from the rest. White Zimbabweans when I was younger enjoyed the privilege of doing Shona/Ndebele as a second language, like they weren’t born in the same country. That is until Mugabe cracked down on this type of privilege. Moving on.

The White children specifically hung out together, as though in packs. I played hockey and when the parents came to watch our matches, the White mothers sat together and separate from everyone else. We interacted together, the Black and White children but we knew that outside of obligatory activities like class or a sporting events – the White children wouldn’t largely hang out with us. Now for me, I did have White friends at that school but we weren’t super close. We’d grown up together essentially so I remember going to a couple of their birthdays and inviting them to mine.

Leon was different to me. Leon, I could tell was in a different socioeconomic bracket from the rest of his peers. I don’t remember if he was at that school on scholarship exactly, but there was an element that he’s family might not be doing as lavishly as the others. As such Leon exuded groundedness. Which is something I have picked up growing up. Socioeconomics tends to thin out racial divide, unless there’s interference. I remember one particular day I was hanging out with some of my Black girl friends by a bench and table, on the school grounds. He hovered close-by to my group of friends without interfering, and I excused myself to go talk to him. We spoke by the fence, I am sure I soaked up all his attention and gave some in equal measure. We talked until his family came to pick him up.

I never thought it was wrong to be attracted to someone who didn’t look exactly like me, because we both bleed. We both cry. We both sneeze. We both fart. Yet even then, I knew I was doing something considered controversial. And as you can see, I did it anyway. Hasn’t that always been my way? My mother married a White Australian man and that is the reason we moved to this country. He came over for a visit and stayed with us for about a month. While that marriage ended disastrously, I can still see why they ever got together. They did have a lot of compatibility in some key areas. They were largely, each other’s speed despite him being a country Australian (of German descent), and her being a suburban born and raised African woman. I mean, they met online for Christ’s sake!

When I moved to country Victoria, Horsham to be exact (2008) it was a completely different experience, and silently I thought it to be a downgrade. You have to imagine it from my perspective, as someone also raised in suburbia whose Private School had; a pavilion onsite, a football field, a separate hockey field, boarding school on premises, a long-distance running track on side, a netball court, a tennis court, a basketball, a sizeable pool, a gigantic hall and we regularly took trips travelling the country for sporting events. In my own way, I was raised in privilege.

The school I went to in Horsham for my final year of Primary School had 75 students before me and my brother joined. It had maybe 4 buildings onsite, all surrounding 1 basketball court. The children my age were I would dare say, at least 3 years behind what I had learnt in my Primary School in Zimbabwe. I’ll never forget how shocked I was that they were still learning fractions in year 6. Something we had covered already and finished a few years before at MCS. The first day of school, the entire school of children surrounded me. Everyone asking questions on top of each other. I remember even then yelling at everyone to stop talking and ask me questions one at a time. What a little Missy.

These were the questions I remember being asked by these White children. Why can you speak English? To which I responded, why can you speak English? They said it wasn’t the same. It is. I learnt it as a baby, along with 2 other languages. I’ve always spoken English, I don’t remember a time I didn’t. Can you run fast like the Kenyans in the Olympics? No, my strength hasn’t lied in sports, I’ve always been more academically gifted. The Kenyan part really got to me because I had no idea what Kenyans had to do with me, respectfully. The first half of the first year of High School I was still in Horsham. Entering High School was a different kind of beast. I was immediately targeted. White girls were the first culprits. My existence has always grated on White women who consider themselves to be the most smart, or the most beautiful. Clearly, something about me roused their insecurity.

The girls made loud disparaging comments about everything I did. My clothes (which were mostly secondhand, after our move to this country), my dancing that time we were learning line dancing and I was little to smooth, and the rumours that I was having sex with the English teacher. Because English has ALWAYS been my best subject. When I was bullied I did the one thing bullies don’t expect. I simply reported it. I was already dealing at this point, with the mental effects of having escaped the Step-father and the abuse he inflicted upon my family. We were safe and away from him, but the last thing I needed was more abuse. This actually helped. I can tell they had never been stood up to like that. Bullies, especially young ones want to goad you into a fight. I bypassed all of that and sought mediation with the School Counsellor.

The White boys when I was young that bullied me the most, were the ones with a crush on me. They had obviously already learnt to have shame about being attracted to anyone who didn’t look more like them. Even back then, I knew that their crush was the root of the cruelty. It didn’t make it any less cruel. This one boy Josh, said I laughed like a hyena and looked like a baboon. I will never forget that. These early experiences were so rough, but they toughened me up for when I eventually moved to Melbourne.

Melbourne when I moved here in 2009, was progressive but nowhere near what it is like now. In my early days in Australia, I remember being followed by shopping staff or security when I perused the isles in shops. I believe that has contributed to me not enjoying window shopping. I won’t go into expensive stores with things I cannot afford because I have been scarred by the assumption that I could never afford the things in those shops. I wasn’t going to high-end shops then, I would be followed at the Chemist, in a Big W… you name it. Retail staff made enough comments that now I am self-conscious to only shop when I have the money, so I can prove I have it. I detest that look of pity or judgement because apparently you can tell a lot about a person’s wallet from their skin tone. This was news to me.

Due to the experiences in Horsham, my strategy at my new High School was not saying the N word. Black people all over the world reclaimed this word that had been used against them for centuries. And yes, for any African Americans reading this, we too in Africa were called that word. There is no exclusivity in the diaspora as to who gets rights to use it. Moving on. I did this because I am good at pattern recognition. By this point, I can see how much White people were ignorant about things not concerning them directly. I could also see how much White people thrive on taking liberties. The Black boys I went to school with, had a different survival strategy. Theirs was to act so chill about it, I assume in the hopes that that would take the power away. It doesn’t and it didn’t then, either. What it did was it emboldened the White boys I went to school with.

So when they tried to start calling me that, using that word around me colloquially or in their minds affectionately, I shut that shit down so quickly. I was very stern in my reprimands. I told them in no uncertain terms that whatever arrangement they have with the Black boys has nothing to do with me. If they were going to talk to me, it would be with respect. Respecting my choices on which words they could or could not use. And failing that, I would take it further.

While they wanted to act unperturbed by what I said, it worked. For the rest of High School I never had to hear that word said around me ever again. I don’t actually care if they were using elsewhere, that is for their conscience. But my refusal to fold and allow people to play the ‘it’s not that deep’ card, saved me from visceral and literal chest pain. You might not think of it that way, but that is how any reminder of colonisation and the horrors my people suffered affects me. Which leads me to being traumatised in school through films…