A Seven Colours Dite Innie Dal

"Creators don’t separate from their work, because they are their work." 

(author unknown)

Skep netso bietjie//Introduction

In this chapter, I intend to return the favour. I have asked my collaborators not only to share their life stories, but also to reveal their vulnerability, trust, and care. It is only fair that I do the same. In traditional research settings, the relationship between researcher and researched seems to be clearly defined as a "non-relationship" (Bergold & Thomas, 2012:201) in which the researcher tries to remain impartial or unnoticeable. However, collaborative research with individuals who have experienced marginalisation is only feasible when trust is established; trust is only possible based on sincere long-term relationships marked by empathy, emotional engagement, and intimacy (Bergold & Thomas, 2012:203). Therefore, participatory research is carried out directly with those who are most immediately impacted; marginalised communities whose opinions are rarely sought and whose voices are seldom heard do not typically have the opportunity to defend, express, and state their views. Frequently, and specifically in this case, research with participants who are unfamiliar and alien to academic rituals, which is often the case with participatory research. It is important to position myself within the research, as the research themes presented in my thesis call for intensive contact, as social backgrounds and biographies of participants that will be brought to light must be done in a safe and trusting space. This can be further understood as a "narrative turn" (Goodson & Gill, 2011:18). The emergence of the narrative turn can be attributed to a more recent philosophical discourse that explores the interplay between other, community, self, historical, political, and social dynamics. It also entails concerns about the opposing positivist perspective on studying society and comprehending human experience (Goodson & Gill, 2011:20). Here, my role is not only to be relatable but ultimately to be an ally, enabler, advisor, and hopefully a partner (Bergold & Thomas, 2012:201-203). 

Moreover, this serves as a form of reflexivity, according to Dr Karen Lumsden, as specified by C. Wright Mills (2000:196), “… you must learn to use your life experience in your intellectual work: continually to examine and interpret it. In this sense, craftsmanship is the centre of yourself, and you are personally involved in every intellectual product upon which you work” (Lumsden, 2018). Reflexivity allows the researcher to be more immersed in the research, which creates a level of trust between the researcher and the participants. (Stahl & King, 200:27). Researchers can then be a part of the world they are studying and serve as a reminder that subjects are not objects. Immersing yourself within your own research is autobiographical; the researcher’s values and how they may interpret data are brought to the forefront (Lumsden, 2018). Reflexivity is continuously applied as the research progresses. It allows for both the participants and the researcher to grapple with the unfamiliar, confront their failures, and become conscious of the ethical, social, and political dimensions of the research (Lumsden, 2018).  

Although I cannot relate to my participants in terms of age, motherhood and growing up in the era of apartheid. I have lived in ghetto contexts my entire life, I have accessed the same spaces and have been confronted with the same feelings of having to make chaotic decisions, and not feeling heard or understood when my survival was dependent on it. Moreover, as I seek a more distinct interpretation of ghetto feminism - both geographically and through womxn from whom I have learned about feminism during this research project, this work, although greatly inspired by my chosen collaborators, remains at its core an exploration. As a self-proclaimed ghetto feminist since 2018, and as a self-identifying Coloured womxn from a lower-income to poverty-stricken community, I do not wish to impose my ideals of feminism or what I believe feminism ought to be onto my collaborators. However, I have situated myself within my research endeavour to showcase solidarity, and that ethnography should always be paid forward. 

Furthermore, as I write on my own positionality, I aim to answer my own research questions as a participant, which will allow me to be vulnerable, pinpoint how and why I identify as a feminist, navigate my voice through uncertainty, and try not to overintellectualise feminism. Of course, answering your own research questions comes with several advantages. I will be able to think about what I wrote as I answer, and conjure up new work in the form of prose that directly answers my research questions. If words were to fail me, feminist scholar Sue Wilkinson argues that this is a “disciplined self-reflection” (Lamsden, 2018). I will only edit my answers for grammatical reasons and try to word vomit as much as I can, as it shows a more authentic approach as a researcher taking on the role of a participant. Therefore, this piece is written quite loosely. Grammar and sentence construction took the day off. I wanted this piece to be as authentic as possible. I wrote it in a way that is supposed to feel like a sit-down interview with no previous knowledge of questions that may be asked - almost like I was hearing my research questions for the first time. Much of what is said in this piece is internalised, things I have heard along the way that I have tried to make my own and often what I have remembered reading, unfortunately not always verbatim.

I am an amalgamation of everything I have ever found cool, enjoyed and wanted to be more like – every piece of theory I have agreed with and disagreed with and what I still need to put into practice. This piece is me moving towards vulnerability in small steps and not over-rationalising every answer. Here I am simply a participant, or rather, a collaborator.  

Dissie nog nwatas nie//Where it all started 

I was raised in the library and in front of the television screen. My mum and I would watch Sex in the City, 7de Laan, Binnelanders, Egoli and Friends. I vaguely remember the word “feminist” came up in one of those shows; the sound of the word instantly intrigued me. The next day, I stayed behind during recess hour to ask my primary school teacher what the word meant. She had replied, “A feminist is a woman who can do whatever a man can do” I thought, of course, therefore I am a feminist. I started googling the word and read all the articles that popped up alongside it; most of it was too dense for my young brain to conceptualise at the time. 

In 2006, at the age of ten. My parents and I were driving down the streets of Bellville listening to Good Hope FM. On every street we drove down, there was a Coloured woman plastered on every lamppost. From the headlines, I could gather that she had done something wrong. As the song we were listening to faded out, the radio presenter started speaking about a woman named Ellen Pakkies. Without a second thought, my mother leaned forward and turned the radio up. She nodded her head and a few 'mhm’s left her lips. I was too focused on my mother’s physical demeanour to listen to who Ellen Pakkies was or what she did. A few minutes later, I asked my mother, “Is she the woman all over the street?” My mother nodded yes, and I followed up by asking, “What did she do?” My mother had replied, “The right thing”, and we left it at that. 

It was not until a few weeks later, when my parents and their friends gathered for a braai and a few drinks, that I heard her name again. The men were in the front yard getting the braai started, and the women were in the kitchen making braaibroodtjies and salads. As a child who was rarely seen or heard, this was a conversation that I stumbled upon. One of my mum’s friends had said:

“Kannie glo daai vrou is nie toe gesluitie.”

My mother: “Julle weet waar ek staan.”

Her friend: “Maar sy het haar eie kind vermoor.”

My mother: “En ek sal dieselfde gedoen het.”

Her friend: “Nee vriendin, nou is jy heeltemal verkeerd.”

My mother: “Then so be it.”

My mother was the only woman in the kitchen that day and in her friend group that stood with Ellen. To the rest, Ellen was not the title ma werd, she was a cold-blooded killer and should have manged for what she did. However, Ellen was much more than that. She was a little girl who was gang raped on her way back home from the shop, and later turned to sex work. She had thought that what was happening to her since the age of four was normal and happened to every little girl. Ellen was a woman who didn’t know the meaning of the word rape until she was twenty-six. She never gave up on her son; she exhausted all her resources trying to get him clean. She tried her best to keep him housed and fed, even when he degraded her, put his hands on her and stole from her (Wide Awake Podcast, 2024). 

I am not interested in psychoanalysing, Pakkies. Instead, I was ashamed that I called myself a feminist and my advocacy did not include womxn like Pakkies. Womxn who have always tried to do what was expected of them, womxn who tried to dispose of their past to build a better future, womxn who tried to heal but were never afforded care or an apology and womxn who thought that their pain was nothing out of the ordinary. Ellen admitted that when bad things used to happen to her, she would dissociate. The day she murdered her son, she got dressed and went to work. It was not until much later in her shift that the dissociation wore off, and she had told her colleague that she must go to the police station, and she turned herself in (Wide Awake Podcast, 2024). 

My mother has always been outspoken and unafraid of her stances, and she always stood her ground. Growing up, my mother would take me to the library every week, and she would make a little game out of how much literature I could consume before our next visit. Very few things bring my mother joy than reading or writing, and she wanted to share that with me and allow me into her world. She taught me about astrology and would always try to lift my spirits by drawing on the traits of a Leo sun. My mother was the first and only woman that I had heard say aloud that she was “happy” about her miscarriage, that another baby would take away from her building the relationship she wanted to have with me and that she was in the height of her career. My mother was the first ghetto feminist that I ever encountered. I wish I knew that back then. However, my mother and I had a complicated relationship, and I was often too angry at her to fully understand her or rather, I wanted to.

Between 2014 and 2017, I felt a disconnect between feminism and community. The feminism that I had deemed important at the time was isolating me from my Coloured identity, from the womxn around me and the struggles faced by my immediate community. The dissociation and disconnect between feminism and community at the time I wrote off as growing pains, and continued on the mainstream feminist bus. In 2018, I was propelled back to Ellen and the kitchen debate when the film Ellen: The Ellen Pakkies Story (Joshua, 2018) starring Jill Levenberg as Ellen dropped in cinemas. The film made me realise that I was unconsciously departing from mainstream feminism, although I had no idea what that would mean or even look like. I knew that my anger and dissociation from feminism stemmed from my own lack of acknowledgement and solidarity. After watching the movie countless times, I started calling myself an Ellen Pakkies feminist.

In the same year, rapper Cardi B dropped her debut album, Invasion of Privacy (2018). I had read somewhere that this album was the re-awakening of Hood Feminism. I had thought to myself, “Would this not be the re-awakening of Hip-hop feminism, and what is the difference?”. The difference was the unapologetic, unfiltered and transparent way Cardi was willing to share her life story. Before her music career took off, Cardi was a stripper. In her first mainstream breakout hit “Bodak Yellow”, she raps “Say I don’t gotta dance, I make money move”, indicating that she no longer dances professionally for an income. Cardi admitted that stripping saved her life, that it allowed her to walk away from an abusive relationship and go back to school. As Cardi became more well-known, the internet was hot on her heels and exposed a story that she used to drug men. Cardi responded and said that she only drugged men who owed her money, and that she never sexually assaulted them; instead, she robbed them. Cardi refused to apologise and said, "I never claimed to be perfect or come from a perfect world. Whether or not they were poor choices at the time, I did what I had to do to survive" (BBC, 2019).

CHÉRISE “THE FAT GHETO FEMINIST” ADAMS

Chérise, but my friends call me Ché or Cherry, and my family calls me Reecie. I was named after the colour, and pink just so happens to be my favourite colour. I was raised and still live in Cloetesville, Stellenbosch (Die Dal). I am the only child of Shereen Allison Adams (nee Jefthas) and Francois John Adams, who were both born Idas Vallei-ers and relocated to Cloetesville in the 70s. I have been writing fictional pieces since the age of eight and tried my hand at poetry in my early teens; turns out I am not talented enough. My favourite novel is The Quiet Violence of Dreams by K Sello Duiker. I am a horror movie fanatic. I want to say that my traditional food is my favourite; however, there are about three Malay dishes I cannot stomach, so instead I will just say Asian cuisine is my favourite. I watch RuPaul’s Drag Race before bed every night, and my favourite contestant is tattooed on my right arm. I am Queer, childless and unmarried.  

Coloured identity needs a bietjie room to breathe. When I was born, the Coloured nurses took me around the hospital to show off and who they dubbed as “The Eskimo baby”. The baby with defined features and a full head of hair. This is the story my mother tells me about our four-day stay in the hospital. One Saturday, out grocery shopping with my mother, we ran into one of the nurses (then retired) who had taken care of her after her caesarean. She had looked at me and then back to my mother and said, “Nog netso, ons Eskimo baby”. My mother had chuckled and nodded her head. Later, my mother started referring to me as her “Oriental princess”. Since birth, I was always a daddy’s girl, hearing the word princess from my mother created expectations that I desperately wanted to fulfil. Of course, at the time, I had no idea what either Eskimo or oriental meant. 

In primary school, we had to create our very first email account. We had gotten through the lesson much quicker than my teacher anticipated, and there were a hefty few minutes left on the clock before our next class. She had suggested we send each other emails as we pass around notes in class. Instead of sending emails to the people right next to me, I started googling the meaning of Eskimo and oriental. The now derogatory term Eskimo was much too hard to understand, and words like indigenous and displaced came up. I then reverted to Google images, and at the time, I thought, “Wow, we have the same eyes”. The term oriental was a much easier grasp; it explicitly said Asian or East Asian origins. It was evident to the nurses and my mother that I looked Asian. Somewhere around high school, my mother had stopped referring to me as her oriental princess. One day, I had decided to ask why. And she looked at me for a good twenty seconds, almost like she had a realisation and then responded, “You grew into your features, you look more like me now, maar daai ogies is nie myne nie” she chuckled. 

One of my closest friends, an IsiXhosa woman, during my undergraduate degree, said, “Do you realise we have the same features?” I had chuckled and replied, “Of course we do, do you think the Coloured race just fell out of the sky?” She laughed and quipped back, “True, I think you were just dunked in milk”. To my friend, I looked like a light-skinned Black woman, and to the nurses and my mother, I looked Asian. I think two things can be true at the same time. My mum’s great-grandma was from the island of Saint Helena. My mum was ten when she passed, but she remembers that her great-grandmother always used to say she came to the Western Cape as a young girl, along with her parents, on a boat in 1889. My mum said that Ma, as she was known, was a dark-skinned woman with sharp features that only spoke ‘suiwer’ Afrikaans. Saint Helena has quite an interesting history, as it was one of the pick-up points and stations during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. During this period, the island housed enslaved people from Asia (predominantly from India and Indonesia) and West Africa before displacing them to other countries. On my mum’s paternal side, we were able to trace our earliest forefather to Madagascar; he grew up there, but it did not state that he was born there. We then tried to trace the birthplace of his parents; unfortunately, the trace ran dry.  However, we do know that he was born to enslaved individuals whose origins cannot be found. Here I am comforted by the words of Zimitri Erasmus (Open Book Festival, 2018), who said, “Coloured is a socio-political category, not a genetic category.”

My Coloured identity has always been an 'awkward' terrain to navigate. I have learnt not to share certain parts of my identity with certain groups of people out of fear of not being Coloured 'enough'. Reading young adult novels and listening to Florence + The Machine as a high schooler did not set the tone for Colouredness to flourish in the hood, and has excluded me from many conversations as someone who 'just would not understand'. I vividly remember an instance in the tenth grade, it was July, and our biology period had just ended, we had all conspired about the weather, cold and wet, and some of the girls had mentioned that, “A gellie blik would slat right now” and I had no idea what it was, the girls were mortified and our biology teacher said, “Sy is te oulik”. When the notion of a gellie blik was explained to me I did know what it was, I have seen it being used in my neighbourhood especially in the early mornings of winter, most often by men walking to work and stopping beside a random gellie blik left on the side of the road, they would light a cigarette, warm up before continuing their journey to work. Gellie is also the slang word derived from the word galley, which the English use as another word for kitchen; a kitchen on a ship is still known as a galley. In my own understanding of gellie or galley it would be a play on words for ‘alley’ an isolated space that should be treaded lightly and with caution; as a gellie blik is a fire hazard, it is meant to spread warmth in the home during winter, not a fireplace where everything is contained, it must be put out and removed from the home before official bedtime. 

When I was a mainstream feminist, I was too far removed from my Coloured identity, and at the time, it felt the safest. However, I never felt less Coloured. I grew up in a predominantly Coloured neighbourhood and attended predominantly Coloured schools. Coloured identity is all I have ever known; it was the idea that to some, my interests lacked Colouredness. Which at the time meant I did not have to live up to expectations put in place for me, I did not have responsibilities because I curated my own according to my own needs and beliefs, which in turn meant I could isolate myself and be as angry as I needed to be. But culture, tradition and community waited for me.  

In grade 11, we had an oral assignment for Afrikaans. There were five topics given, and one of them was an open topic. I chose to speak about feminism. I translated Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s speech “We Should All Be Feminists” to Afrikaans, and although I got the highest mark in the class and got a hug from my Afrikaans teacher, I was dubbed the next day as ‘feminisme’, a nickname that followed me well into matric, but it was not in a demeaning way. But looking back I was passionate about a feminism that no one in class could relate to, I was not speaking as a lower-income 'kleurling' kid from the ghetto of Stellies, and I chose to speak about a feminism that was not relatable or helpful to the identities I did share with my classmates, looking back and as a self-proclaimed ghetto feminist I would laugh too. 

I think that is what I find most comforting about Coloured identity, the humour, it always comes before the anger or self-advocacy. It is a reliable and comfortable response to the things we struggle to vocalise or critique; it creates a moment of exhale before our critical thinking skills kick in. Although I did not receive backlash from my classmates, I probably should have, the girl that dubbed me ‘feminisme’ was a teenage mum that always had a few comedic relieves up her sleeve, but she was also the only person that would scoot all the way to the front of the class when it was my turn to present and always clapped for me the loudest. There was always a community surrounding me; it wasn’t always loud, it often came with humour, but it was there, I just didn’t know what it looked like or what it meant for me or how to utilise it. I guess I just needed to know that there was a space for me in my community where all forms of Coloured identity could be seen and acknowledged, where I felt like I could still fall deeply in love with the things outside of my community if that was what created joy for me and that my Colouredness was not in jeopardy because of those things. 

“There is no single classification of Coloured identity or culture (s)” (Erasmus, 2018). Being Coloured is not a monolithic experience, and the existence of Coloured identity exists divergently for different communities. Perhaps the way I speak, understand myself and express myself all infuse my Coloured identity, and those things cannot be separated to fulfil Coloured identity, but to reclaim it. Now I am a Coloured feminist, I am a Black (in the Biko sense of the word) feminist, and I am a Queer feminist. Colouredness is how I steer my feminism; it influences how I show up for those around me and those I wish I could hold close; it is how I relate to and against the world, it is the essence of my being, it is my writing, it is my barakat, and it is the way I am undeniably flawed and teachable. 

Above all else, I do consider myself a culturally Coloured womxn. Easter without pickled fish feels like a lack of coherence. There must be tongue and trifle on Christmas Day. When it rains, no matter the season, I expect to smell soup boiling (actually, I am just a soup fiend and could eat it every day. This has nothing to do with being Coloured). A Sunday lunch that is not either seven colours or a curry, voeli reggi. It will always be ‘rient’ instead of reën, ‘boem’ instead of boom and zink instead of sink. I say, “ja,ja, ja” when I agree, but I screech “awe” when there is no doubt about what is being said or expressed. Whatever I bring to a gathering, I don't eat from it, or I will be the last one to have of it. I also do not leave a gathering with what I brought. When I enter a room last, I must greet first. I never pass anything behind someone's back, and I always apologise when I sit with my back to someone and say, "Jammer vi my rug". I get highly aggravated and catch an attitude when someone disrespects my mother in my presence. I am often duk bek when I’m hungry, and I am most definitely a giemba, especially for my mother’s food. For my 21st birthday, I requested a slushie machine, and my parents said that they would look into it depending on the price. I then reminded them that I made it to twenty-one with no children in tow, and although I may not get a crown[1], I am due for my 21st key. I, too, reminded them that I am a first-generation Maties student. I, in fact, did get the slushie machine and made vodka slushies for everyone (the elders enjoyed it more than the youngsters). When I feel fearful, when I think you are being onnodig, or when I simply disagree, I say, “I am Coloured, and we don’t do that” or “I am too Coloured to do that.” 

However, I am a far cry from the traditional Coloured womxn. This stems from being raised in a non-traditional Coloured home. The things I mention here are not meant to be taboo to all Coloured families; rather, it is unheard of in my family specifically.  I was not raised in a religious home, and I have never been to church unless it was for a funeral or wedding ceremony. I am the only Coloured womxn I personally know and have interacted with that has not had a confirmation. I have never helped my mother turn yt, I have never peeled a potato or diced an onion in my life, and my mother has never asked me to take out the chicken. When other kids my age were watching poppentjies I was watching The Nanny and Golden Girls with my mum and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air with my dad. I was not raised to be skelm, when family members twice my age hid their drink or cigarette when an elder entered the room out of respect, my mum would say, “Jy stiekie weggie. Jou ma hulle wiet jy roek en drink”. I don’t automatically call someone uncle or auntie solely based on their age, and if I do, it is to my close friends' parents, as I consider my friends family, so their parents are too. To my parents, respect is about how you treat others; drinking, smoking and not referring to everyone with a title does not make one inherently disrespectful. My mum and I have an open relationship, there is nothing you can tell my mother about me that she does not already know. In turn, you can never piemp me. The only time I have not told my mother something was when I had near-death experiences; I would tell her months after the incident occurred, knowing that she would lose her mind and lock me away like Rapunzel. 

Moreover, although my parents have not placed expectations on me, I have met with most. Marriage and children are the biggest ones. Like most Coloured aunties, my mum too would have liked to have grandchildren. For a long period, my education was the main reason why I had not settled down; it was always a placeholder of some sort. When the aunties would ask my mum if I had someone special in my life, my mum would reply, “Nee man, sy leer nog” or she would say, “This is a different generation. They are not in a rush, and they want to be older mum’s”. My mum was twenty-seven when she had me, and I was born three years into my parents’ marriage. When my mum did not announce her pregnancy a few months into her marriage, the aunties started asking questions like, “Sukkel julle?” or assumed that there was something at play between my parents

The truth is, I held space for marriage and children in my early to mid-twenties in case I changed my mind. I had baby names picked out and a clear vision for my dream wedding and honeymoon. Now that I am approaching my thirties, it has become clear to me that those are not the things I want or deem important. I adore children, and I would love mine fiercely, but I do not think I would love my life if I had them. Heck, I am not even sure if I have built my walls too high for romantic love or if I am simply comfortable being alone. I do know that I would like to spend the remainder of my life travelling, consuming literature, writing, volunteering and going back to school to earn my PhD. I am immensely proud of my parents for accepting that our bloodline ends with me, that this was always the risk for having an only child. Now, when family members, colleagues and friends ask my mother about me, she confidently says, “Daai dinge issie vi ha nie.”

[1] The crown symbolises virginity. 

The social media app I use most frequently would be Instagram. I have built a beautiful community on there. I remember someone once said that social media is not the safest place; therefore, it is of the utmost importance to open an app that you have curated yourself. So, that is exactly what I have done; besides following my friends, drag queens, and celebrities, I also follow bodies that look like mine, academics, fat liberationists, and astrology accounts. My social media is curated to the things that bring me joy, the things I am interested in, and the things I need to see. My Instagram page is the most subtle form of advocacy. I rarely post, but my identity is well known through my captions, often in humorous ways. My page is mostly a form of existence, living in a fat, feminist and queer body. This is how I choose to organise myself. 

I posted a picture that a friend took of me at Bartinney Wine Estate. I had so much to say about what is happening in Palestine, but instead of typing a paragraph, I uploaded the picture with a watermelon emoji. I struggle with being perceived and having no control over that perception. However, I always remind myself that the spaces I feel the most in community do not exclusively happen online. On this specific day at Bartinney, my friends and I had an in-depth conversation about genocide, accompanied by biltong and gin. Community can also happen around a table on a wine farm or even at home, and having those important conversations and a deep understanding of what is transpiring in the world does not need to be perfectly articulated or crafted on a social media post. As long as they are being had alongside people who also wish for more resistance and people who understand that their identities are always intertwined with marginalised folks. 

I have never used social media as an outlet, and if it does border on that, it is masked by humour. Utilising humour reminds me of the words of Alix Kates Shulman (Lilith Megazine, 1999), “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution”, and bell hooks, “We cannot have a meaningful revolution without humour” (The New York Times, 2015). Therefore, I try to keep my captions as witty and often as facetious as possible, but they are still an extension of my personality, beliefs and identity. I have a deep desire to be seen, especially on my main page, as someone whose values, interests and a glimpse into their personality is undeniable. That I am not a fence sitter, but someone whose voice is not confined to social media posts, yet the aim is to showcase that I am exactly who I say I am outside of social media. 

It is not a foreign concept that social media is the quickest way to spread information and reach multiple people. I am guilty of the reality so many self-help gurus speak on, the notion that social media is fake, and no one is sharing their real reality. I am guilty of posting when I feel my best or when I am out with my friends, truly, it is the only time I ever feel good enough to be seen - when I have curated it. Therefore, I have started a Finsta, which also scares me tremendously. I have the freedom of posting and saying what I want, but I don’t, or not yet. 

My social media is an ode to all the womxn that did it before me. I wear a two-piece bikini because I saw a fat womxn of colour do it, I put nicotine in my bio although my grandfather thinks it is unwomanly for a womxn to smoke, but the fiercest womxn I have ever met had an entjie in hand, sat with their legs open and drank whiskey neat, the womxn who did not always get it right but had a clear moral compass. I ironically refer to myself as a fruity/femme Coloured man because masculinity often feels too serious. I also do it to showcase that Coloured men are not excluded from my advocacy, especially when I speak about race and class. That I see my brothers, but in the same breath I do like making gat of them, lovingly of course. 

Liberation on a Budget

I have been a feminist from a very young age. Feminism kept me safe when I thought being in community wasn’t meant for me. Feminism allowed me to build my walls high and keep me as angry as I needed to be to survive, because as Audre Lorde said, ‘survival is not an academic skill.’ 

I didn’t think feminism meant anything to the women that occupied my adolescence, I felt that feminism was too late for them but just in time for me. Feminism emerged within my four walls via visual culture. In my bedroom, I discovered ghetto feminism, season 15 episode 19 of Grey’s Anatomy, and the hashtags #MeToo and #TimeIsUp. In the end, these hashtags and the Grey’s Anatomy episode in particular provided me with the motivation I needed to view community as more than an isolated endeavour and to build the community I did not believe I had at the time in order to wholly speak my truth. I broke down the fourth wall to keep myself sane and used feminism as a tool for dissociation. At the time, I didn’t know how to ask for support or to be held, because the women occupying my space never did. I made the kind of feminism I believed I needed to survive – one that called for power, antagonism and seclusion. 

When my parents bought their first home, a three-bedroom, with a Pitbull-protected yard in the hood, my dad’s family, his mum, grandma and cousin occupied what should have been my bedroom, the bedroom across the hallway from my parents’. But like most Coloured children, I slept between mammie and dadda until the age of eight. 

One night when my parents’ guests refused to leave and I was ready for bed, out of frustration, I moved all my things into my grandma’s bedroom and stayed there until the age of eleven. It was after a night my grandma did not allow me to dream that I once again moved my belongings and decided to sleep in my own bed- room for the first time, with its baby pink walls and Barbie bedding. 

My mother created the space that she had always wished I had grown up in and decorated it to all my likings at the time, yet for the first few weeks I could not dispose of the feelings that this perfectly curated space felt foreign and cold. 

My mum is the typical middle child who craved solitude and independence. She grew up in her family home, a two-bedroom house in Idas Valley that was occupied by thirteen people at the time. She had never experienced the bedroom as sacred. My mum’s maternal grandparents slept in the kitchen, my mum along with her five siblings and her parents occupied the one bedroom, her aunt and her family of four occupied the other, and her uncle and his family of three occupied the living room. 

The entirety of the home functioned as a form of bedroom. When my mum was seven, my grandparents bought their first house and left the family home for a three-bedroom house in Cloetesville. As a family of seven, this meant that the bedroom would still be a shared space. My mother was twenty the first time she had a room of her own, just four years before her marriage to my father. 

My dad grew up in municipality housing his entire life and had lived in a two-bedroom Wendy house and, later, a two-bedroom municipality flat along with five other family members. My dad went from the flat to a shared bedroom with my mother, never occupying a room of his own. 

With the exception of my grandmother, who remained with us until her death in 2016, my father’s family eventually moved out. My parents chose to purchase a home in a more peaceful and pleasant area of the neighbourhood a few years later. The new house, free of the in-laws, meant that I would have a special place to live for the remainder of my childhood. 

Every few years, before I migrated to my own room, my mother and I would dream up my perfect bedroom, the perfect bedroom on a budget. She would get just as excited as I was about the new colour scheme, bedding, and maybe this time I would be a little tidier. We would get paint swatches, and I got to pick two colours. I have always had a fascination with painting the ceiling of my bedroom. My mother would always implement my vision herself, she would paint my room, move my furniture in the hope that this would lead me to the bedroom and keep me there. 

When I was old enough to understand the family politics, my mother would often make remarks about how I took my time occupying the bedroom she had worked so hard to create for me, how she didn’t have a room of her own until she was twenty, the in-laws moving in and taking the space from me, and how I moved rooms to a cold woman (my grandmother) instead of just sleeping in my own bedroom, and how every decision I had made up until that point delayed my independence and gratitude. 

The bedroom over time became a place of refuge; where I learnt I do not like tidying up after myself, where I dreamt of becoming an Oscar-winning actress, where I discovered Kings of Leon and Florence + The Machine, spent hours reading my finds from the young adult section of our local community library and daydreaming. 

When you are an only child, introverted and neurodivergent, no one checks up on you; you are made into the perfect child, seen but rarely heard, so when the time comes for you to scream for help, no one thinks it is coming from inside the house. The bedroom became the first space where I had felt a loss of community and a deactivation of solidarity, the bedroom has never been kind to me. 

Most weekends my parents would have a braai; it would either be at my uncle’s house in Welgevonden Estate or ours in the heart of Cloetesville, the older cousins would either occupy the TV room or my parents’ bedroom, while the younger cousins would gather in my room. My best friend who lived four houses down came over that day after a fishing trip with her stepdad. We had already started a homoerotic relationship four years prior; she was the first person I had ever kissed and let explore my body – at the time we were only eleven. That evening, she joined our braai. No one was occupying my room, we were alone, the door was closed, and we proceeded with our usual activities; we may have kissed that night, no fondling, as the house was bustling, and had decided to get under the covers and talk for hours. 

My cousin, fourteen at the time, came from a rugby match and walked straight into my room because that is where the youngins gathered after all. He did not say anything, put his gear down and went to the bathroom and then outside to tell all of the uncles about his winning match against Paul Roos. He did not return until my best friend left – which, if you know anything about a Coloured braai, we did not skep until two a.m., and she had a curfew. When my cousin re-entered the room, he had a smirk on his face. Smug, daring and intimidating, he accused us, although it was only the two of us in the room, of having a sexual relationship. 

I would not have categorised it as sexual. The way my parents had explained the birds and the bees to me, it did not sound like what we were doing at the time, but it was to an extent, and his insinuation made it sound overly sexualised. Even at that age, I knew a homoerotic relationship spanning four years was not openly discussed or a part of the normative reality. I attempted to leave, but in fact, I did not leave the bedroom until I was twenty-two. 

I wish I remembered where I slept that evening, I do however remember that I did not return until Sunday evening. I had to re- turn, it was the space carved just for me, held up by a privilege my parents did not have at that age. I could not return to my grandma as that would have further strained the relationship with my mother and I was too old to return to sleep between mammie and dadda. I had to face the bedroom.

I had a peaceful night’s rest, but I remember that when I heard my parents getting ready for work on Monday morning, I jumped up to grab a few minutes of sleep from their bed. I had wet their bed for the first time since out of nappies. My gran would wake me up for school every morning and help me get ready. I think she knew, wetting the bed is an embarrassing act at my age, and I thought she would tell my father about the chaos she had to endure that morning, but she didn’t. I vaguely remember her telling my father that she had stripped their bedding because she stripped hers. My grandma may have not allowed me to dream, but she was my first source of solidarity. 

My relationship was on pause for almost a year after that. I don’t think my best friend and I had a conversation as to why we weren’t physical anymore; I had stopped initiating and so had she. Our relationship had always been so much more than what we did under the covers. A year later, we were in grade six, alone in my bedroom, door closed, no one was home besides my gran. I initiated a kiss: soft, safe, a rebirth of reclaiming my body. Till this day, she is the only person I can be my most insufferable self around, the humbling earth sign to my fire sign antics, the only person I big spoon, the first person I told, as she shared her own story with me, we were both twenty-two when we said their names.

At fourteen, my bedroom became a sight of violence yet again; it was the space where someone that I loved (as much as you can love at that age) put his hands on me for the first time and continued to do so for eighteen months. In reclaiming my body, things got lost in translation. I had not known about grooming; he was twenty and I was fourteen, and I had made the first move. I was finally in control, I felt seen, worthy and powerful. 

For a long period after the relationship ended, I felt disgusted with my bedroom. It was a shared haven for the both of us, he knew where everything was, he knew the trick of my very old television, his hoodies were amongst my own clothes, and my bedding smelled like cheap weed. 

In 2017, our house got broken into, my room was hit the hardest, the most stolen items, the most destroyed. Of course, it was my bedroom, theft and loss of autonomy always happen in the room I call my own. It wasn’t the stolen items that hit me the hardest – those were replaceable – it was the invasion of my space, a space that I was finally finding connection in. 

Every year on my birthday, before we could afford real gifts, my best friend and I would write a letter to each other which I would store in between my clothes in my chest of drawers. Those were open and left on the floor, letters where someone called me their one true constant, letters that have healed me and activated space for me. They also stole my cigarettes, and I really could have used one at that moment. 

For the past eleven years, my bedroom has been a shared space, a space curated for two, Ramsey and me. A space of caution with the intent to do no harm. August used to be my favourite month of the year. It was tax return month for my mother, cabinets were filled with our daily needs, but also an excessive amount of luxuries, more take-out nights, and a pair of new sneakers. August 2012, however, went a little differently. The day my mum got her yearly tax return was the same day a breeder in Paarl let us know there was a Yorkie available. She had said she was not going to charge us the full price, as he was a little older than a puppy, and initially she was going to keep him for herself because of his thick dark coat. 

My mother, who loves a bargain, agreed to take him. No more pondering, I was going to be a dog mom the next day, all residual fear had to be replaced with excitement. I had grown up with pets, especially canines, but when I was eight, I witnessed a family friend’s daughter get attacked by a Rottweiler in her front yard. This instant- ly instilled a fear in me, and I was scared of the dogs that inhabited our yard as well. I stopped going to the yard to play and interact with my dogs. Sasha, the Staffy I had known since I was two, became a form of fear and danger. 

By the time high school rolled around, I had somewhat shed my fear of canines. The person I was dating at the time had a Pitbull, the sweetest boy with the most devilish name. He reminded me of the Pitbull I grew up with, Cantona. He was a white, smallish but muscular pittie. Unlike Cantona, he was not a menace to the neighbourhood, but like Cantona he was protective of me, and the fear eventually shed itself. 

In 2012, my parents and I had a long discussion about opening our home to the idea of having a dog in the house. We had watched an episode of some random show on kykNET where a psychologist was speaking about fear, and she had made an example of dogs, and said if your child has an immense fear of dogs, get them a dog. 

My dad is the biggest animal lover I know and was especially keen on the idea of having a dog in the home. My mother grew up with dogs, but as protectors of the yard, and always said her own dogs used to bark at her. The idea made me incredibly anxious, but I was open to it. Knowing my parents, I didn’t think it would happen anytime soon, so I had room to ponder. 

My mother had actively looked into breeders, but every week or so a breeder would come back to us and say there weren’t any Yorkies available. We had specifically decided on the breed because, in the previous year, my god sister’s boyfriend had given her a Yorkie for her twenty-first birthday who we fell head over heels in love with. She had an entire personality of her own: she died for fries, pretty dresses, she was sassy, highly intelligent, and whenever she did something bad, she would run to my uncle, climb onto his tummy because she knew no one would scold her while he was peacefully reading the newspaper. 

On 28 June 2024, Ramsey passed away in our shared bedroom, on my side of the bed, not his. I was on my annual June holiday and had not been in the province at the time of his death. Emotions started feeling heavy as soon as the plane was ready for take-off; it felt like the longest flight of my life. During the flight, I had started profusely rubbing my upper left thigh, where I had tattooed his portrait. Ramsey passed away two days into my holiday. I was inconsolable for a few hours, but denial quickly kicked in and I enjoyed my last few days in Durban without shedding a tear. 

I knew that a foreign bedroom was not where I got to break down and grieve. It had to be my own bedroom, the bedroom where I have lost so much of my sanity and autonomy, the bedroom where I have grieved for myself and loved ones, where I knew I could execute loss and remembrance without beautiful words or hugs. It was the space I created to fall apart and fall back together in, there was no room for affect to take place outside of the bedroom. 

I returned home to an empty space; I held onto the tears all the way from Durban to the Winelands. I did not have the chance to close the bedroom door before my mother embraced me in a hug, and everything came crashing down. His smell was still lingering in the room, his belongings still occupying our space. Gradually, over the next few weeks, his smell disappeared, but still persisted at the time of writing on my bed covers, which I cannot change. I have picked up his water bowl and his bed, but I cannot find the courage to open my closet where I have stored a duffle bag of his clothes. 

For almost twelve years, I shared the bedroom with Ramsey – our bedroom – or like my dad would say, ‘Hy is daar in julle se kamer.’ I could not put my feet down from the bed without turning on my bedside lamp, as the weight of my feet could surely crush five kilo- grams. I couldn’t open the last drawer of my chest of drawers because that is where I used to put his water bowl for the evening. I had to be somewhat alert if he scratched the door to pee; we had the perfect sleeping rhythm during winters. I knew I could not just turn in my sleep or move my feet in case of disturbing him. We were synchronised for almost twelve years; as the bedroom was my refuge, it was his as well. He was protective of our bedroom, rarely allowing anyone to enter or overstay their welcome. It was our space exclusively. The bedroom became a space of mindfulness, in the hope that no one would get hurt. Executing love by never wanting to cause harm, it was my room just as much as it was his. He too deserved the security that came with the space. 

I have the freedom of using the bathroom without him following me or waiting outside of the shower for me, I can navigate spaces in the dark. I no longer have to watch where I step, no one is crying when I put on perfume, no physical excitement when I put on my pyjamas. My clothes are no longer covered in fluff, I can no longer listen to ‘Blue Jeans’ by Lana as I used to sing it to him when he felt anxious. Maybe it was my terrible singing voice that calmed him the most: ‘If I don’t stop having a panic attack, she will never stop singing.’ Either way, it relieved the stress – and yet I do not want any of it, it is not the kind of freedom I could have ever prepared myself for, or the type of freedom I would have to heal from to enjoy. But in essence, that is freedom, freedom is doing what you can with what has been done to you. 

Once the bedroom no longer becomes a space dictated by respect- ability politics, parental control and it sheds its minimalist attributes, it becomes a space of queering, indulgence and freedom. The bed- room now is a space of Chakra Hun chronicles, a place to flourish, for discreet pleasure, dancing with no expectation of the rhythm, a site of gossip, access on my own terms, spatial placements of objects, hours of barakat love sent to me when my anxiety got the better of me and I couldn’t attend family gatherings. 

My bedroom allowed me to create the perfect fortress. A space I curated, queered, manifested, the space where I wrote for hours trying to give grief and pain a place to live that was not inside of me, where I cried when Cody Rhodes beat Roman Reigns for the undisputed heavyweight championship at Wrestlemania 2024, allowing the kitsch and camp of my life to overlap, where I said his name again at twenty two, in my bedroom, on my bed, seated op- posite my mother, and was met with community and love, disposing of the fear of not being believed and reassurance that what has happened in the bedroom is no longer confined to just my childhood bedroom, what has transpired there, no longer lives there. 

I am aware that this sounds like a form of liberation, and it is, but it is liberation on a budget. To me, the bedroom is not a space where I get to disengage, it does not function as a space where I cede control. It is where I execute precision and agency, it is an intellectualised space. The bedroom, although hidden from an audience, always functions as a reflection of the outside. For me, the bedroom is a ritualistic space. 

The bedroom is a construction of things edited to serve as a protection spell: skin care, a glass of ginger beer loaded with ice stirred clockwise. I wait for my water bottle to cool down in its natural state, always iced, never room temperature. Insomnia meds, a play- list, feel-good content consumed through social media, a midnight snack, a few Buzzfeed quizzes before drifting off to sleep. The time of night when I re-enter the bedroom, after a weeklong vacation or a night out planned or unplanned, no matter my state after a few drinks or the level of exhaustion, the ritual must commence. 

I feel barren and disconnected from this space if I do not honour it as a practice. It might not be a point of entry to the public, or the first room you enter, or the given space for a gathering, but I have placed my own expectations and rituals upon the space. A safe haven for a neurodivergent girl who is trying to reinstate kindness back into the bedroom. 

In preparation for the ritual:

Meditate, manifest, visualise

Cleanse –

the space, the skin, the deck.

Insomnia meds

Ginger beer

Curating the audios

Scroll

I cleanse the skin;

a clean surface might be harder to violate.

Ginger beer before bed to clear the throat;

maybe this time my screams will be heard.

Insomnia meds

I cleanse the mind of wondering thoughts,

was it my fault?

Audio, I can do duality.

I can skut gat and reminisce 

I am eye candy, easily accessible, persuaded to fulfil a craving,

a choice, consensual, but

I am a seven colours plate,

intricate, time consuming, a marker of community 

I lay the deck;

I am told I won’t find god there. 

I cleanse just in case 

But 888 – I get to make eight wishes

I can read the starts from the gutters. 

Magic arises in community

I remind myself that the colonial project failed

I have intellectualised the Chakra Hun, 

she is the long-awaited safety 

Afterall, I have cleansed,

I said his name 222

Since Liberation on a Budget is a personal piece and not a fictional one, it would be hard to separate the author from the text. Initially, I started this piece for my thesis, but ended up finishing it for the feminist anthology Burning Down The House (2025). The prompt was to choose a room in the house that is considered a feminist space. Therefore, this piece is set in the bedroom, my bedroom. Furthermore, I do not wish to draw any new interpretations regarding this piece as I believe it speaks for itself. I am more interested in expanding on the choices and context that shaped it. 

I hold back on vulnerability

I don’t cry

I don’t write often

I am afraid of the honesty that comes with it

What that honesty could do to me

Hold me captive like all those before it

Set me up for a freedom I cannot embrace

A freedom I am not ready for

(December 2024)

I have stepped away from writing creatively for some years now. My mum taught me how to read by the age of five. I was the only person in my class at creche who could write my name (and I never forgot the acute) without the teacher’s help, and in primary school and high school, I always got the highest grade for English paper three. When we got our prescribed books for home language and first additional language for the year, I was done before we had our reading period for the term. I read when I am unmotivated and write when I am, those were the only cures and joys I have ever known or utilised, and I was utterly broken without them. Last year, during a seminar, we were asked to write something creatively and, in that moment, I realised how much I missed writing, creating characters and backstories and playing around with dialects. I dearly missed the feeling of not having to sigh or rack my brain to do something that came effortlessly and to do something that once healed me in unfathomable ways. 

After submitting this piece, there was a brief moment when I had gotten into my own head. Where I had felt that my striving towards healing was read as performative and often as a performance, like it was a guideline of iets. I am aware that we all start somewhere when being tasked with picking up the pieces, letting joy back in and disposing of the survival tactics we have picked up along the way. A good friend of mine said, “Intellectualising your feelings is not the same as working through them”, and for a long period after I submitted this piece, these words rang true. I also remembered why I gave up writing. It was once a space where I did not have to think about the rules of syntax, but it was also a space that reminded me of how I could not ask for help through my own voice, so I wrote about it instead. I called this piece Liberation on a Budget, not because I was waiting for more healing or waiting for all my dreams to come true. It was a budget because my liberation was not in the form of ceding control; it came with boundaries, discipline and keeping myself accountable. 

Dr Miranda Bailey said, “Have you thought about apologising for what you got wrong, instead of defending everything you got right?” This quote stuck with me for various reasons. I do not think I always got feminism wrong, definitely didn’t always get it right, and there is a part of me that now knows I may never. I think the part that got the most wrong was intellectualising feminism, queer and Coloured identity, and if I am being honest, I still do. Feminism has always been meaningful to me, not just as a movement, but as the safest space I could think of. Feminism allowed me to look down on romantic relationships, give and withdraw access to my body because this is the time it is my choice, critique the choices of the womxn around me and critique the community I lived in. If I implemented feminism angrily enough and if I stuck with respectability politics long enough, I would ultimately be safe from ever feeling inadequate or helpless. Feminism, like a room in the home, carefully constructed, only entered with intention, there were things that had to be done for it to function; feminism ultimately became a ritualistic practice. Moreover, ghetto feminism has created a space where feminism does not need to be held to unattainable standards, where the label of bad feminist does not mean occasional feminist, that feminism can be a set of questions with no answers, and that it can just be absorbing the needs you see of the people around you. By not ceding control, I have room to construct my feminism through responsibility and placing it back into the community. 

Djy sê jy code switchie

Naai

Djy praat kullit

Awe

Djy rep kullit identity

Awe

Ma wiet hulle vanni brand in jou bors?

Wag gou, djy

Wiet hulle hoeko djy huil

Naai wag

So djy code switch after all

Minute vi jou

Jy staanie oppie nomme wat djy dink jy dala nie

(June 2025)

I used to pride myself on never needing to code-switch. The accent in which I speak or purposely leave out vowels in Afrikaans, no matter what room I am in. I declare proudly where I am from. No matter the dress code, I wear sneakers, and I do not care what that means or does not mean. Before I walk into a room as a queer womxn, I enter as a Coloured womxn firstly. My life’s work is centred around Coloured identity. I do not hide the importance of what that means to me. However, Kendall has a different definition of code switching, that it is much deeper than changing your hairstyle or speech in predominantly white spaces to uphold respectability politics or to be seen as worthy because you are not like ‘them’ (Kendall, 2020:67). Kendall alludes to the fact that, “Girls in the hood have to navigate stressors, bury traumas, and still carve out the space to be human (Kendall, 2020:67). I am guilty of code-switching between my feelings and how and with whom I choose to be unguarded. I am always meticulous in the way I want to be seen, so that most people only know me as far as I let them and that I am a different version of myself based on context. And this is not to say that I put on a façade. I consider myself a multifaceted individual, and I am layered, but I am also careful and precise. 

I ruminated on this piece because it catapulted me back to a period in my life that I would much rather forget. A period in my life that was not meant with malicious intent, but solely focused on survival. Unfortunately, survival doesn’t teach you how to be proud of yourself or celebrate yourself; it only teaches you to move on to the next catastrophe. I never wanted my feminism to hurt anyone, that I was not someone you couldn’t see yourself in community with, that my solidarity wasn’t big and clear enough, but the protection feminism gave me does not hold for everyone – and although my feminism and what I believe does not advocate for every single marginalised womxn, hopefully does activate and hold space for most. 

I no longer see this piece as performative. I do, however, regret calling it Liberation on a Budget. Everything that I have consumed about liberation, whether by feminist scholars or intellectuals on social media or listening to the plans the womxn I know are conjuring up. Liberation is wishing and dreaming a life into existence that you never thought was possible for you or the womxn around you. I am reminded that I am still a womxn who writes down her manifestations on bay leaves under a full moon and makes a wish at 11:11. I still believe in the magic of it all, the whimsy, the hope. I will never be a womxn who doesn’t manifest for all those who got way less than what they deserved or think they are undeserving of peace and kindness. But to pause on spirituality for a moment. In many religious traditions, specific prayers are performed at particular times to ensure they are received more directly by the divine. Although spirituality - especially manifestations is often dismissed as self-centred, my own practice is quite the opposite. During the peak manifestation periods, I intentionally place my own intentions last. I begin by manifesting for Congo, Sudan and Palestine, or for individuals awaiting hopeful news. I manifest that everyone goes to bed with a full tummy and a safe place to sleep. Only after this do I articulate my personal intentions, and even then, I preface them with, 'If these collective needs are met, I am willing to wait.' I hold onto the belief that flowers can grow out of concrete, and that some things should not be constrained by scarcity.

The chosen image for my narrative is a selfie that was taken in the barbershop in 2023 when I shaved off all my hair for the first time. On this day, my dad taught me barbershop culture. Most barbershops have a bench; you sit down, but you do not necessarily have to wait for your turn just because you were the last one in. It depends on what you want done. If the barber feels as if you would be the quickest client to get out of the way, they would call you up first. This has been my experience, as many men have a specific cut or shape or facial hair grooming that they want done – it is more time-consuming. Being femme presenting, I usually do not wait very long to be called, and I usually ask for a number two cut all around with a ladies trim – quick and easy. I hate when they shape my hairline, as they often use a blade and aftershave. I do not enjoy the smell, and it often burns a little; however, it makes me feel like one of the ouens, so I do not stop them. 

Firstly, one of the main reasons I chose this image is that I like the way I look in it. My lips are moisturised, my skin is clear, my eyebrows look full and well-shaped, and my septum piercing is sitting just right. Secondly, I chose this image because for the first time I didn’t hold onto something that I spent years creating, trying to love and care for – my hair. I remember reading a quote on social media that said, “Everything I’ve ever let go of – has claw marks on it”. Hair is political, especially as a naturally haired Coloured womxn who chose to face her natural hair texture without a GHD or a swirl kous waiting for me at the end. That actively chose to let their hair have a mind of its own, and as someone who got to know their hair and its needs, to provide it with what it requires to feel bodied and safe. 

I am not overlooking the toxicity that comes with being a part of the natural-haired community. That certain textures are seen as more worthy and beautiful than others, or that the upkeep of having natural hair is time-consuming. I wholly understand why many womxn do not want to be natural, and it is not because they lack self-love. Everything I have learnt about natural hair came from Black womxn with 4C (my hair is 3C) textured hair. I am a womxn with thick hair and hair with a different texture than my mother's. I am a Coloured girl whose mother couldn’t ‘control’ or had the time to care for her hair when she was younger, and I started getting blow-outs at the age of six. All I have ever known was rollers and heat; I have only ever known maintenance. 

In 2018, all of that changed. The previous year, I started wearing my natural hair more. What started as pure laziness to actually do my hair became the pinnacle of my transitioning journey. Meaning I have never had to do the big chop, but simply cut off the dead ends, hence I transitioned into my natural hair, and I did not have to start from scratch. Funny enough, many people thought I was doing a big chop when I shaved my head and phrased it as if I was finally doing it the right way. However, it was not that. I simply wanted to be someone twenty years from now that said, “I have shaved my entire head before” and, “I have been a girl with a buzzcut”. I shaved my head simply because I thought it would be fun. 

Furthermore, it becomes much more than that. When I had long hair, I could position my hair in order to hide a skin irritation or if I forgot to shave my sideburns, which grow all the way down the side of my face. When I had a rosacea breakout on my scalp, I could hide the redness that came with it by simply putting my hair up so no one could see it on my head. Those things are gone now. Now I actually must face my skin, an organ I have no control over and an organ that will regulate itself as it sees fit – and that is okay. I hold onto the feeling of exhaling I had when I sat in the barbershop chair for the first time, that feeling I had of not clawing onto comfort and simply taking things as they come. 

Moreover, leading up to this day. I was not afraid or consumed with the idea that I was letting go of something that shapes the body as political. I knew, to me, that shaving my head was nothing more than being silly, funny, girly. It was just another type of hairstyle, and it felt like the same phase I went through when I dyed my hair pink and green in undergrad; I was merely experimenting. The only thing I was concerned about in the days leading up to this decision was the possible shape of my head. My hair has never been this short, not even at birth, and the shape of my head was never a concern with thick hair. I was right to be concerned since my mother now calls me “butterball kop”. Something I lovingly embraced and even alluded to on my finsta.  

I think the phase is coming to an end. Lately, I have been missing her, my hair - the longer version. In the next year, I am ready to welcome her back home.  A lot has changed since she left. I have changed - and I am sure so has she. I know she will come with all the tierlantyntjies and tantrums, but like always, we will figure it out, kwaad and frustrated. I just know I want her here, and existing for my next chapter.

My friendships are at the root of my camaraderie; it is why I relate to the need and understanding of why community is essential to life. The majority of my friends are people from lower-income neighbourhoods with marginalised identities, and mostly friends I have made at university. As someone whose biggest concern was thinking I would never find community or simply disposing of the idea out of frustration and my own hardkoppigheid. Although we all hail from the hood, we had very different upbringings, which showcase various forms of Black/Coloured identity and even feminism. Some of our feminisms are directly linked to religion, motherhood, beauty standards, queerness, and financial difficulties. But we have found a way to make all work, we advocate for each other even if we do not always fully grasp the extent of each other’s survival. In our moments together, we cultivate community through active involvement, through advice, lending an ear or shoulder, and often being angry or delusional alongside each other. I made a post on Instagram titled “2024???? the year of the brasse”, where I uploaded a series of fifteen pictures with all of my friends, from my academic community of friends to my childhood friends. 2024 was a tiring, grief-filled and chaotic year, but I had my constants by my side through it all.

Previously, I mentioned that I have always had a community around me; it just wasn’t always loud or vivid enough, and it doesn’t need to be as long as it exists. In many, but not all instances, I do need a boisterous and bold sense of community. I do need safety and security that is not up for question – and that is what I have found in friendship. My friends understand me, they know me intimately, they know why I am reticent, and I cannot always be my raw self. They were once strangers who actively chose to love me and want me to be a part of their lives. Even at my most insufferable and when I don’t function at my best, there are people in my life who get down in the gutter with me, sit with me and talk me through it and people who say, “You cannot die before me. I must go first”. People who have no prior obligation to do any of this, yet they willingly do. 

The hard truth about being in community is the fact that it is inconvenient. When you would much rather be alone, you show up, when all you want to do is forget the week you have had, you show up, when you have resources to share, you show up and when you need to change bad habits, you show up, it is when you friends move halfway across the country and you must get on a plane to see them although you find flying boring and tedious – it is the unceasing cycle of continuously showing up. I try to take what friendship has taught me wherever I go, and this is not to say that I am a safe space – that I am all-knowing and unflawed.  I am purely a community member who wants to unlearn, share and process. Moreover, friendship also taught me that not everyone can be in the community alongside you. Here, I cannot help but think of Kelly Smith. Although I understand survival and addiction, I have to do the unthinkable to soothe your inner wounds and merely make it through the day. I, however, will never understand justifying or empathising in any way, harming and putting a price tag on your child’s bodily autonomy. Community is not unconditional love or having to tolerate mistreatment; it is, unfortunately, transactional. I recognise that transactional gets a bad rep, which is completely valid and sounds like a business transaction. Transactional can signify keeping track of favours, gifts or even validation. In my view, transactional means that there are things that need to be put into practice for a friendship to work, like loyalty, vulnerability and paying attention to detail, but ultimately it is responsibility. There are things I wouldn’t necessarily do for myself, but I know how much it would mean to a friend. It is being aware of the things about yourself that could hinder a friendship. It may even be abiding by love languages; my love language is acts of service, whereas theirs could be gift giving or words of affirmation. 

Moreover, I watched an Instagram reel about how love languages come into play, and that it is tied to the psyche. For instance, gift giving can often mean that growing up, no one went out of their way to show that they were thinking of you or paid attention to your interests. And acts of service could relate to hyper independence or never feeling like you could let your guard down to ask for help. My friends know that I do not like the kitchen, so they always offer to cook, and in return, I know they hate admin. Therefore, I am the friend who books the flight tickets, I pick the restaurants, and I would do extra research for a project they are working on and try to make it less dense for them. We all relate love and care to different forms of requirements, and that empathy is at the root of community. 

I would have to agree with Sam. I do not know what I require and need. I think those things come with age, maturity and lessons. I do know what I want, though. I never want to be the smartest person in the room, just the most passionate. I want to be rich enough to give, and not only in the financial sense. I want to put the SPCA out of work, make an elaborate care package for someone, have a weekly, no daily soup kitchen, say, “I got it” at dinners with my friends, say, “I don’t need it back” when someone borrows money from me and when I see someone selling socks on the street, I want to buy the entire box so they can go home early. I have always just wanted to be rich enough to give before being asked. 

I like being alone and doing things on my own. A perfect day for me is cooking breakfast with an unlimited amount of bacon, it starts pouring down uncontrollably, crawling back into bed after an everything shower and watching an amazing horror movie or reading a book in one sitting. I don’t want to hustle for the rest of my life. I crave slow mornings, hot girl walks and grabbing a coffee with a friend on a random Tuesday morning. I want to be exhausted by the things that I choose to pursue and that pursue me back. I want a life that is in the form of a love letter to little me and a life that I chose, curated and wouldn’t exchange for anything in the world. 

As for my community, I wish peace be upon you. I wish for you to access your neighbourhood without worrying about gunshots and gang wars because they no longer exist. That you find an Uber driver who doesn’t see your location and thinks you are couriering drugs and automatically cancels the trip. I wish you the education, the financial freedom and for you to openly chase your dreams no matter the odds. That better days are coming and engulfing you. That your kindness, intelligence and wit do not go unseen. I wish you softness that does not require you to perform to be acknowledged, heard and cared for. I wish people outside of our communities knew that we are aware that many things that occur in the hood are not customary, that we are not turning a blind eye or normalising it, we have always been cognizant, but we too must survive. As Winay said, we do not need saving; we need better resources and equal opportunities. Because the hood is also filled with angels in human form, soul, markers of community and ethical bad asses. 

Yoh, ek is duk ge iet//Conclusion: 

Answering my own research questions was a daunting task. I tried not to over-compensate or overthink my responses, though there were moments when I slipped into intellectualising my own ideas and began doubting myself. I realised that embracing imperfection sometimes means allowing certain uncertainties to remain. Despite this, I feel lighter and more at ease, and I hope my collaborators had a similar experience working with me on this project. Thinking on your feet while staying credible and maintaining your humanity is never easy.