Whiteness, Mzansi style
White people, don’t you enjoy being the only white person around? You know, those odd occasions when you find yourself surrounded by black people? Tell me you don’t love it! I do!
Like, if I’m in a township and I turn heads because the locals aren’t used to seeing white folks there? I feel like Johnny Clegg! Like DJ Ankletap! It’s all I can do to prevent myself shouting, “Amandla!” out the window of my Aveo, because I feel like the Joe Slovo of Alexandra. Even though I’m just taking a shortcut to Greenstone Shopping Centre.
We are a strange lot, us white people. Strange enough to warrant a book about our predilections. Several books, in fact. One of the more successful franchises has been Christian Lander’s Stuff White People Like.
It began as a blog and totally blew up. It cracked 40 million views and was soon adapted into a book that was syndicated into the various territories that people of the Caucasian persuasion call home. And so it has become South Africa’s turn. We punch above our demographic weight, so we probably deserve a Stuff White People Like.
I think of myself as something of an expert on whiteness. I’ve been white since birth and have a fair idea of what “stuff ” South Africa’s particular strain of whites tend to like.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but we’re not like other white people. It’s a firm belief in our unpretentious, salt-of-the-earth, bluecollar roots that sets us apart. This, all the while accepting we are worldly, upmarket operators entitled to happiness in all things.
This distinguishes a South African white person from his American counterpart. We are the most well-off working-class people you could hope to meet.
A South African white person could drive to Menlyn in an E-Class Mercedes wearing tiny Judron shorts, slops and a Bulls rugby shirt. We can be millionaires while still fondly nurturing a value system inherited from our hardscrabble roots in Uitenhage or Springs.
The ways of whiteness are strange. From Organic Food to Madiba to Events With Backdrops, we like. Two-Tone Tops, Carrol Boyes and Threatening To Move To Australia? We like. Oh, and Being The Only White Person Around, of course.