In Pursuit of a Differentiated Black Male Body

To be young, black, queer, and from a township in South Africa is difficult. I am not saying this from a space of assuming a single-story knowing of others experiences, or seeking to invalidate those who did not grow up in townships. I say this from particular and personal lived experiences of having grown up in Soweto, Meadowlands, and lived – and continue to do so – most of my life there. Furthermore, as a young black queer man from a township seeking to recover literature to locate, understand, and place myself – my blackness, and my queerness (particular to my environment) – I have come to be met with numerous frustrations and misinformation (if any information at all).

I grew up feeling different. As a young boy growing up I could never truly place my finger on it. I did not have a reference point for what I knew to be different about myself from other boys my age and older. I did not know what to call and identify it as. I grew up feeling like there was something wrong with me, with my make, with my presence. I played with girlfriends and would be coupled as one of them because of my feminine behaviour. I walked in the street and would be called ‘stabane’ because I did conform to the ideal image of a boy, a man, in my township.

I grew up in pursuit of a differentiated black male body that could have assisted me understand that I was not the only one in my space.

Historically, the township space was constructed as a place of ‘othering’ and containing black people. It was a space that operated – and I would continue to say still operates – as a location to discreetly horde black low and middle class bodies in a state of perpetual otherness and disadvantage. The township, then, has created a space where there is a deeply interlaced notion of a sense of belonging(ness) and of numerous cultural, social, and sexual identities. As such, it is important to understand that notions of social, cultural, and sexual identities are profoundly impacted by notions of space. With this being said, I began to be interested in the manner in which the township space articulates a constrained black identity and sexuality, particularly (for me) black masculinity.

Having grown up in a township I have come to be aware of the fixity of identities that is supported by stereotypes of what it is and means to be from a township, and how these fixities are perpetuated to maintain the position of ‘other’. These range from the expectation that: 1) people should speak with a township ‘ghetto’ accent when speaking English (whatever that means); 2) the expectation to wear Dikkies and All Star sneakers while rocking low hanging jeans; and 3) that one should have a slight swaggered thuggish bounce in their step when they walk. All these, along with many unmentioned others; denote a constructed-ness of race and sexual performativity that goes uncontested.

This masculinisation of the black male seemed to be a defining image of township masculinity. The men that towered over my upbringing had an impenetrable stature about them that gave no way to demonstrate love (however way we perceive the demonstration of love) – especially those that would be considered to be homosexual. Furthermore, film and television had been reflecting this image of the homogenous ideal black township masculine body through shows such as Yizo Yizo and Gazlam, and movies such as Yesterday, Max and Mona, and Tsotsi). These men were always portrayed as thuggish figures that chew on matchsticks, with a ‘manly’ bounce in their walk and a gun or okapi (pocket knife) tightly strapped to their waist ready to cause corruption, disruption and violence to any space and space they occupied.

In the pursuit of a differentiated male body it is then of outmost importance to seek male bodies that embrace love and care, that are queer and considered ‘other’ due to their sexual orientations. Bodies that imagine and image themselves differently – be it through fashion, music taste, the company they occupy, or the walk they embody.

The perpetuated masculinisation of black male township masculinity continues to stereotype, undermine, and reduce the black male to its supposed power and strength – acquired through scripts of what it means to be black, male, and from a township. These forms of imaging of the black male township body undermine the pursuit of differentiated bodies that are queer, vulnerable, and that embody love and care.

bell hooks writes in her book ‘We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity’ that “very few black males dare to ask themselves why they do not rebel against the racist, sexist status quo and invest new ways of thinking about manhood, about what it means to be responsible, about what it means to invest one’s life. Often black males are unable to think creatively about their lives because of their uncritical acceptance of narrow life-scripts shaped by patriarchal thinking.”[i]

I grew up understanding that homosexuality was affiliated with femininity, and this meant weakness and vulnerability to black patriarchal society. This is still the case in many societies, which result in men adopting an un-textured masculinity which is historically contextualised with stereotypes of a township lifestyle that detaches them from loving or being perceived as not straight. The time has come to reclaim and recover ourselves as black man and create images that continuously break established scripts in finding new ways of existing.

[i] hooks, bell. 2004. We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity. Routledge: New York Pg. 80