Tyla, a South African singer of Coloured heritage, had a prosperous 2023, breaking into the global sphere with her sensational summer bop, “Water.”

I first heard Tyla’s music a few years ago via Netflix’s Blood & Water soundtrack; “Getting Late” is a pretty good record. I was slightly surprised to see her have an international hit as its been mostly Nigerian and West African musicians who have been able to achieve global mainstream success.

Then after I read some thoughtful think pieces shared by @mayowasworld and @darkest.hue, as well as a few threads online, I realized that ‘the powers that be’ selected Tyla to be the global face of the South African musical scene simply because she is a young, skinny, attractive multiracial woman who can be mass marketed and curry favor worldwide. The failsafe in her strategic positioning is that South Africa is a multiracial society, reductively referred to as the “Rainbow Nation” — I dislike the name because I hate feeble attempts at assuaging and soothing the white-sympathizing psyche by making superficial nods to ‘we’re all one,’ as if speaking of racial and ethnic differences is divisive, when everyone has been divided by white supremacist caste systems that require hard work to uproot, and there are many multiracial societies — and so they feel like they can hedge any “she’s not Black nor African” discourse by saying she’s African-born, and not white, ergo she’s Black (enough). Not true.

This woman and her antics have made me sick in recent months, but that’s not exactly the point of this post. I will share that I do not think she is especially alluring. She has a nice voice, I do like some of her songs (but I refuse to keep them in my audio library), and I suppose she can dance. She lacks a certain level of authenticity in her persona. It feels like she’s trying too hard to be sexy and it’s just not coming through in a way that feels real. In contrast, someone like Rihanna (I definitely have thoughts on her as well) is naturally sexy and exudes that confidence in herself and in her body.

Tyla is a phony industry plant. I have even seen South Africans online note that she has never been particularly popular within the country, so it’s strange to see her become a global celebrity. She should not be the face of female African artists nor the face of African music, and she damn sure should not have won the inaugural “Best African Music Performance” grammy. (I hope you all know that the grammys and all industry awards shows are political, misogynoir bullshit, anyway.)

On the “Getting Late” album cover art from a few years ago, you can see Tyla on a side profile, fully clothed, and looking like a rather unassuming child. This new sexed-up image, where she always has her long-ass midriff showing and is seen trying to eye-fuck the camera is just — odd. I know, I know, sex sells. But please look genuinely sexy while doing it! Own it.

Quick aside: I was recently considering the cringeworthy irony of a South African woman pouring out bottles of water on herself, and her dancers doing the same during how many video takes and concerts. On top of this, she and her marketing team are encouraging people around the world to join in on the water-wasting dance challenge, while representing a country that has such a profound, palpable issue with water security and access for lower-income residents. Like, really…that is…bull-it! Shake your ass if you want, but please stop egregiously wasting water while doing so!

Overall I’m glad to see that South African artists and Amapiano music are penetrating the global entertainment market. The country has massive amounts of creativity and artistry; I am glad they can gain economic success from their talents and artistic expression, and I am glad that I can experience them. The South African film industry has also been helpful in introducing me to artists like Brenda Fassie (RIP), Letta Mbulu, Benzo, Boohle, Amanda Black, Dope Saint Jude, Shakes & Les, Blxckie, Kelvin Momo, Black Coffee. Oh and the contestants on The Masked Singer South Africa who claim they cannot sing — yoh! I was blown away by how many people who are not full-time singers but have such beautiful voices.

I recently discovered DJ and producer Uncle Waffles, who is from eSwatini but moved to Johannesburg to pursue her craft. Waffles, birth name Lungelihle Zwane, is definitely someone who also benefits from light-skinned, pretty privilege, but she’s genuinely sexy and creative. Her artistry, energy and image are a lot more authentic and resounding to me. She’s definitely a stronger talent than Tyla. But yes, I certainly acknowledge that the catalyst to Waffles’ viral ascension to fame was that biracial man-child’s crush on a young, cute, light-skinned woman.

Back to the topic at hand:

According to Insider, Tyla made history as, “[Her single] “Water” entered the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 67 in early October 2023, becoming the first solo song by a South African musician to appear on the chart since Hugh Masekela's "Grazing in the Grass" in 1968.” Insider further writes, “Tyla, real name Tyla Laura Seethal, was born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa. The 21-year-old is the middle child of five and is of Indian, Zulu, Mauritian and Irish descent.”

Late last year, I was doing my usual perusing of Mzansi’s blogs — I’m nosy and South African and Nigerian celebrity gossip just do it for me — and of course I stumbled upon an article discussing Black Americans’ contention with a South African woman being described as Coloured.

Here we go…

Coloured is an ethnicity

Coloured: a person of mixed European (“white”) and African (“black”) or Asian ancestry, as officially defined by the South African government from 1950 to 1991.

Individuals assigned to this classification originated primarily from 18th- and 19th-century unions between men of higher and women of lower social groups: for instance, between white men and slave women or between slave men and Khoekhoe or San women. The slaves were from Madagascar, the Malayan archipelago, Sri Lanka, and India.

In early 20th-century South Africa, the word “Coloured” was a social category rather than a legal designation and typically indicated a status intermediate between those who were identified as “white” and those who were identified as “black.” The classification was largely arbitrary, based on family background and cultural practices as well as physical features. Most South Africans who identified themselves as Coloured spoke Afrikaans and English, were Christians, lived in a European manner, and affiliated with whites. Many lived in Cape Town, its suburbs, and rural areas of Western Cape province. Significant numbers also lived in Port Elizabeth and elsewhere in Eastern Cape province and in Northern Cape province. In Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, they represented the middle and working classes and were employed as teachers, clerks, shopkeepers, artisans, and other skilled workers. Those living outside the towns were mostly labourers on white-owned farms. A Muslim minority, the so-called Cape Malays, lived mostly in separate communities and married among themselves for religious reasons.

(Source: Britannica.com)

First things first: race is a social construct which was created to dictate power structures. On a global scale, it is mostly based upon a broad generalization of phenotype, but also has geopolitical connotations. The definitions of categories within the concept of race change across cultural contexts; the categories contract and expand over time to maintain (white) supremacy. Blackness and whiteness are both constructs created based on mass enslavement systems initiated by Arabs and Europeans to rationalize and sustain the enslavement of Africans; they are not factual definitions of humanity. And yes, there are categories that fall in between the originally constructed binary, i.e. Asians are not Black and neither are multiracial/Indigenous American/non-Black Latinos. 

There were four broad racial categories imposed during South Africa’s apartheid regime, which were, in order of social hierarchy and proposed superiority, with exact terms changing over time and subsets in certain groups: white, Indian/Asian, Coloured, Black.

Coloured is usually termed as a “mixed-race” racial category but it is more accurately an ethnic category in Southern Africa.

Ethnicity refers to the identification of a group based on a perceived cultural distinctiveness that makes the group into a “people.” This distinctiveness is believed to be expressed in language, music, values, art, styles, literature, family life, religion, ritual, food,…

Ethnic group, a social group or category of the population that, in a larger society, is set apart and bound together by common ties of race, language, nationality, or culture.

Ethnic diversity is one form of the social complexity found in most contemporary societies. Historically it is the legacy of conquests that brought diverse peoples under the rule of a dominant group; of rulers who in their own interests imported peoples for their labour or their technical and business skills; of industrialization, which intensified the age-old pattern of migration for economic reasons; or of political and religious persecutions that drove people from their native lands.

(Source: Britannica.com)

FYI, hispanic is also an ethnicity

Due to the racial hierarchy enacted by law during apartheid, the ethnicity of Coloured became a racial category and people identify and recognize it as a “race.”

Similarly, Hispanic is not a race, but a cultural umbrella, with many subcultures within it; even so, the United States frequently denotes Hispanic as a race, and people identify as being part of this “racial” category. Most Hispanic people do not care to claim another race as theirs in addition to being Hispanic because the cultures and histories are dissimilar. Before you start with your supposed “pro-Black” nonsense which is just intending to erase centuries of admixture and cultural diffusion, and diminish the nuance of their distinct histories, Hispanic/Latinx culture is not just African culture, it is a veritable blend of African, European, and Indigenous American cultures.

Hispanic/Latino/Latinx is an ethnic category used in the United States. I hope that presenting this parallel helps Americans to better understand the existence of Coloured as an ethnic category that is sometimes conflated with a racial category, and in its unique culture and origins should not be erased due to ignorance and discomfort.

Y’all have no problem understanding that Latinx and Hispanic describe mixed-race, multiracial ethnicities, of which people can be various races and complexions, not just Black. Open your mind a little further and wrap your head around the fact that “Coloured” is also a mostly mixed-race ethnic group; you just need to educate yourself on its history.

I have noticed that both Hispanic and Coloured groups tend to exhibit extreme anti-Blackness within their ethnicities and cultures, as well as outwardly towards Black and African people. The aforementioned groups of people are posited as being slightly higher on the socioeconomic totem pole than Black and African people and happily accept and internalize an ideal of superiority. There are some overlapping social categorizations between the two, i.e. between Black people and Hispanics in the U.S., and between Black Africans and Coloureds in South Africa; even so, the groups are viewed with distinct nuances and experience society quite differently.

Second, each country has a unique history that has shaped its present-day sociopolitical sphere and how its concept of “race” is defined. I recall a biracial man born in France, with a Black French mom and white American dad, living in Morocco, questioning why Black people in the U.S. would greet him on the street but not do so when he was walking around with his white father; he then tried to compare race relations in the U.S. with its dynamics in Morocco, and to compare two countries with as disparate histories is just simpleminded. 

A lot of American people don’t even realize that “Indian” isn’t a race in the U.S., i.e. people from South Asia and specifically the subcontinent of India are part of the “Asian” race. In South Africa, the population of South Asian descendants is higher than the population of East Asian descendants, so Asian is predominantly used to describe South Asian people and culture; I have heard that this is also the case in the U.K.

In the U.S., we usually use the term Asian for East and Southeast Asian people/cultures, but other regions of Asia are also still home to Asian people…!

“Pro-Black” & Anti-African

Third, why do Black American people call themselves “pro-Black” when they know nothing about African countries and cultures, have no desire to learn about African countries and cultures, and never even make it a point to travel to African countries? This is why they know nothing of South Africa and its rich history, cultures and ethnic categories, and therefore why they need to shut up about what is and isn’t “appropriate” for a South African woman to designate as her ethnicity. 

Many “pro-Black” Americans show no interest in any Afro-descendant cultures outside of their own, and again do everything possible to fit into white dominant culture by replicating white customs and mores, i.e. having light skin, straight hair, slim noses, prioritizing and valuing masculine people/men over feminine people/femmes, being formally educated, being “productive,” being Christian, etc. They think that the pinnacle of Black pride and empowerment is being in a relationship or marriage with a white person, which is duh, internalized anti-Blackness. If your sole purpose in life is to be validated, recognized, and included by white people and whiteness, and feel like you’re now in the position of “master” and “dominator” in order to feel a sense of accomplishment in your individual life, you have absorbed and accepted all facets of white supremacy. If you would rather procreate with and financially and emotionally support a white or non-Black person over a monoracial Black person, particularly a Black femme, and you even go great lengths to support the destruction and violation of monoracial Black femmes who do not look like Vanessa Williams, you are white supremacy’s greatest agent. Make no mistake. Being proud to be Black means caring to support, protect, value, care for, integrate with and fully humanize all monoracial Black humans, particularly Black femmes, and to strengthen and preserve Black and African cultures! Black people can only be pro-Black when they realize that white people and white people’s opinions don’t matter, especially when it comes to our actual liberation. White people have maintained white supremacy for thirteen centuries and will continue to do so; their minds won’t be changed by having you in their physical proximity.

How can you be “pro-Black” when you’re kissing white butt? How can you be pro-Black when you’re worshipping non-Black cultures and putting non-Black people on a superior pedestal? 

Most Black Americans know nothing about South Africa, probably the most triumphant modern-day African liberation story in our millennial lifetimes, even though you claim to be so “pro-Black.” The apartheid regime of South Africa took hold in 1948 and only ended formally in 1994 - most of you “real ass niggas” were born during that timeframe. Then how and why do you know nothing, have you not familiarized yourself with - even after a South African woman has entered the mainstream radio waves of your American pop culture scene - South African culture and history? 

Why do you know nothing of the very real and very firmly established ethnicity of Coloured people in South Africa? Your discomfort and ignorance will not erase a centuries-old ethnic category, culture, heritage and way of life for approximately 5.3 million people living in South Africa today.

We live in the age of information, with information right at our fingertips; ignorance is a choice.

So you’ve never heard of the ethnicity of “Coloured” and instead of doing your research, you’re going to tell people to erase themselves and their understanding of an ethnic group in Southern Africa, simply because you refuse to educate and de-center yourself…

I’m completely accepting of and comfortable with the term Coloured because, 1) I visited the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, 2) I visited Cape Town and saw the phenotypically-distinct Coloured majority there, and 3) I’ve chosen to study South African history and culture on my own for the past four years. I did not balk nor flinch when I first heard or read the term because that is South Africans’ language and culture, and I cannot tell them what is and isn’t appropriate, especially when it comes to the complex yet malleable construction of racial identity as well as steadfast ethnic identities.

From what I’ve observed from South African Coloured people in real-life videos, interpersonal interactions, television portrayals, and through my research, Coloured people have distinct sub-cultures, accents, histories (experiencing slavery in Southern Africa in a distinct way), languages (predominantly speaking Afrikaans), religions, cuisine, have communities concentrated in specific parts of South Africa (due to apartheid), have specific stereotypes that affect them, and look a variety of ways in terms of phenotype based on their predominantly mixed-race/multiracial heritage; they are usually easy to distinguish from monoracial Africans (and Asians), although there are exceptions just as there are Black people who can pass for white and white people who look partially or half-Black.

I have noticed that Coloured people also tend to have English, Dutch, Scottish, other European or Muslim names and surnames, whereas most monoracial Black South African people have Indigenous tribal African names and surnames. Coloured people also seem to hold specific prejudices against monoracial African groups and enjoy certain privileges over monoracial African peoples.

You will not erase a group of people’s heritage as they have come to know it, based on their country’s history of racial and ethnic classification that has predated your life by 10 times, just because it makes YOU uncomfortable. How dare you?

“But It’s a Racial Slur…”

Language is also unique to different cultures and what is acceptable is unique across cultures. Nigerians use the word “half-caste” to describe biracial people, and yes it is again rooted in a level of anti-Blackness, but I’m not going to demand that Nigerian people not use the term. We know the word “nigger” is offensive across all English-language contexts, that’s fine. “Coloured” is an established ethnicity within South Africa. “Nigger” was never cemented as a modern-day racial category. 

Next, as a tie-in to this brilliant video, why are Black Americans so offended by the usage of a “racial slur” when they use the N-word in their everyday lives and have been doing so since the days of slavery, with no intent nor desire to stop using it? 

The American slur “colored” is a lot less blatant, less offensive, and less widely used than the slur “nigger.”

I recall someone who calls themselves “pro-Black” — one of those fake ass Black American people who actually hates Blackness and African features, thinks of Black people as inferior, thinks of monoracial Black women as less socially desirable beings relegated to objects of sexual desire — get so offended when I, a Black person, mentioned the term Coloured in reference to the South African ethnic group. This person says nigga ALL the time, calls Black people ghetto, praises non-Black cultures and features, etc. So I can say nigga/nigger, but I can’t say Coloured? What? Why are you shook now? I don’t get it. That is so stupid and myopic. 

You’re going to be offended by me using a term that you know nothing about, while you’re so comfortable using anti-Black terms and peddling anti-Black views in your everyday life…?

How have Black Americans “reclaimed” the N-word?

Does it hurt you any less when a white or other non-Black person calls you that word? 

Why do some of you tell your non-Black friends, whether they are white, Asian, or multiracial/non-Black Latino, that it’s okay for them to use it, even though other Black people state that we are offended by that? Y’all will literally push back and tell those Black people that they need to stop being offended because YOU said it was okay for non-Black people to say it. I have had white and multiracial (i.e. NOT Black) Latino family members and acquaintances, who are extremely anti-Black and racist themselves, who have gaslit me and argued with me about what they feel is their inherent “right” to use the word nigger/nigga as they wish, even after I as an unambiguously Black woman say that I am offended by it, because per their flimsy explanation, “A lot of people still use that word.” I know what it means to be called that word in a derogatory manner, and they do not; it means nothing to them. 

The undisputed fact is that it is an extremely offensive term that shouldn’t be used by anyone, much less by people for whom it has no real meaning. They feel no pain, no shame, no hurt, no degradation, no possible dehumanization, discrimination and violence that can occur by being called and/or characterized by that word, and other slurs created for Black and African people for that matter.

I can’t stand that silly explanation of “reclaiming” the word - how? What has Black people using the N-word in everyday life done for Black people’s progression and pride? All it has done is kept the word alive and well in the general American lexicon, and offered it up as a piece of pop culture to be usurped and touted by any which person who feels the desire to say it to appease their desire to be cool, transgressive, “Black” for a moment, with no economic gain, sociopolitical advancement, nor forward movement being experienced by Black people. Black Americans’ prolific and insistent usage of the word has commercialized it. It’s been sold in popular music which has been exported around the world, for even more swaths of non-Black people to happily partake in its flippant and blissfully ignorant usage for their own entertainment.

I was warned before going to Morocco that locals might greet our Black American cohort by saying, “Hi, nigger!” I’ve been called a nigger to my face by a white American woman most recently in 2019; I was neither amused nor unfazed because, “As Black people, we have reclaimed the word.” Black people are still the butt of the joke, so to speak. So now what? What has your “reclaiming” of the word “nigger” done for you? Nigga and nigger are the same word.

Mixed-Race is Not Black; It’s Mixed-Race

Lastly but most importantly, mixed-race is not Black. Someone being non-white, i.e. not looking to be of 100% Western European descent, does not make she/he/them, Black. Tyla having Zulu ancestry, in addition to other non-African ancestry, does not make her solely “Black.”

Someone online stated that Tyla is Coloured in South Africa, but that she is Black everywhere else. This is FALSE. If she goes to Nigeria, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Cape Verde, or a slew of other countries, she is not Black! Even in the U.K. they only recently started calling mixed-race people, Black; they previously made a clear-cut distinction between mixed-race and Black. The U.S. does not represent the world. Every country in the world does not constitute a white-majority that defines anyone outside of a Western European phenotype as Black. That’s just not the case. That’s not how the world works. Get into it. There’s this thing called multiracial white supremacy but y’all not ready for that.

If you think someone needs to be only half-Black, or less than 50% African, to be socially acceptable, desirable and valuable, that is anti-Blackness! Wanting to “dilute” monoracial, unambiguously African phenotypes and cultures is erasure and it is indicative of a hatred of Blackness, far from pride. 

You cannot be pro-Black if you hate: Black women/femmes, dark skin, broad/round facial features, textured hair, voluptuous figures, every African country outside of Egypt, etc. FYI present-day Egyptians are not Black and they have not been Black/ethnically African - they are only geographically African - for thousands of years. Egyptians also colonized Sudan and Egypt was a prime market during the East African Slave Trade because they consider themselves to be white and not Black. Egyptians were so irate, bothered, and insulted that they had lawyers sue Netflix for by some reports, $2 Billion, for depicting Cleopatra as a Black woman in a film production. Use your fucking brain!

As such, calling mixed-race or non-Black people, Black, is anti-Black. It’s indicative of compliance with white supremacy which has successfully fooled you dumbasses into thinking that your erasure of monoracial Black human beings is “pride” in Blackness, when it’s the exact opposite sentiment. It’s indicative of a disdain for Blackness, so that African heritage and features can be diluted to the utmost degree and yet still be recognized as such, and be even more appreciated the less it is visible. Whiteness on the other hand cannot exist unless it is “pure” in its representation. Blackness becomes an ethnic dumping ground for the “undesirable” non-whites.

If you value something, you protect it. If you actually valued Blackness and being Black, you wouldn’t let just anybody become or call themselves Black. Whiteness is socially valued which is why it is regarded with exclusivity, and which is why you refuse to call everyone white. 

FYI the construct of whiteness, particularly in the U.S., has fluctuated over time, contracted and expanded as I mentioned, to maintain supremacy. In the next 50 or so years, biracial people will be absorbed into whiteness and part of the “white” race - which is why you see so many mixed-race couples and children, mostly with a biracial mother and white father or white mother and mono racial Black father in present-day television and advertisements - as Southern/Eastern European and North African people have been absorbed into whiteness in the past 50 or so years.

Biracial and mixed-race people have been shitting on monoracial Black people, calling themselves more human and superior, for centuries across cultures and countries, and will continue to do so, i.e. Claudia Jordan, Keke Wyatt, and those nasty ass Latinos donning Blackface and streaming on the channel of the devil, who have all simianized, animalized, dehumanized monoracial Black people. I have heard multiracial/white Latinos call Black people monkeys, gorillas, apes, Black bitches, and niggers more than I’ve heard non-Hispanic white people do it. They are not Black, they are not more African than Black American people, they are not proud to be Black, and the vast majority will gladly accept their newfound social superiority as a “white” person when the time comes.

The One-Drop Rule is White Supremacist Erasure

An analogy to help you better understand and contextualize the disdain for Blackness that is inherent in the white supremacist “one-drop rule,” is that water is “pure and good” while cyanide is “evil and undesirable.” So, in terms of broad social regard, let’s say that whiteness is water, and Blackness is cyanide. The one drop rule says that one drop of Black equals Black, even if 90% of the blood (contents) is “white.” White can only be white if it is all parts white. Now, if I put one drop of cyanide (Blackness) into water (whiteness), it becomes poison: evil and undesirable. If I put one drop of water (whiteness) into cyanide (Blackness), it is still undesirable poison. The presence of Blackness (cyanide) taints, but the presence of whiteness (water) does not taint? It is demonstrative of the socially accepted value and perceived “purity” of whiteness and the undesirability of Blackness that “needs to be lessened,” needs to be made closer to whiteness and further from Blackness in order to be deemed more palatable and more socially acceptable.

When we live in a country - that country being the U.S. - where people want to call a white woman with an artificial suntan, lip injections, dark hair, and a Black baby daddy, a Black woman, we have a problem. You do not change race based on association nor relation, you do not become Black by osmosis, just like Black women do not become “white” once they have a white romantic partner. You have erased monoracial Black women and femmes so much so that we have to emphasize and specify “monoracial” and “dark-skinned” to give these people any social visibility. No other race/gender category in the U.S. requires such description, i.e. white men are white, white women are white, and Black men are monoracial unless specified. It’s sick.

This is why you assholes think light skin, loosely curled hair, light-colored (non-brown) eyes, small/slender noses, and small bodies constitute the most desirable type of “Blackness,” particularly female Blackness. White supremacy seeks to segment people based on phenotype and ability and then state that certain groups are superior to others. Socially amalgamating non-white groups does not negate the superiority that one group enjoys and feels over the other, and how these divisions have operated for centuries and will continue to operate for centuries to come.

Yes, white (and other non-Black) people know the difference between mixed-race people and Black people; it’s why white women always say they love mixed babies, not Black babies. Black people also know the difference which is why most Black men and masculine people are seeking mixed-race or white (non-Black) female or feminine romantic partners. This is why colorism is a very palpable and consequential social structure, that operates within the Black race and outside of it. This is why light-skinned biracial women, either Black and white or Black and Asian, are always cast as Black women characters and love interests in American and Brazilian cinema while dark-skinned, monoracial Black men get to play Black men characters. Thinking Paula Patton, a very light biracial woman, is the epitome of Black beauty is anti-Black. Most people, regardless of whether they are Black, white, Asian, Indigenous, multiracial Latino, etc. can see the difference between mixed-race and Black people. Stop playing yourself.

De-Center Your American AsS

I wish Americans would stop being so ignorant and self-centered. Americans make up about 4% of the world population. Your definition of Black is not everyone’s else’s definition, and your definition of a slur is not the same as everyone else’s. 

Americans really need to get their heads out of their asses and see how things work in other parts of the world. American views are not everyone’s views, nor should they be. Stop centering yourself; stop thinking that everyone has to agree with what you think about Blackness and that people have to label people a certain way to appease your uninformed, narrow point of view. Your internalized white supremacy, your internal desire to be a dominant colonizer, is showing. 

***

I spend an immense amount of time, energy and mental and emotional labor on my work. Please consider contributing support below or via this link if it impacts and/or resonates with you.