Eighteenth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

The dawn of democracy served as an important catalyst for a somewhat better world view for black South Africans youth. Almost overnight racial segregation was constitutionally outlawed, while integration and non-racialism became a national rallying cry in a desperate bid to craft a new and ostensible colour-blind nation. Epithets such as ‘Simunye, we are one’, ‘Rainbow nation’ and ‘non-racialism’ abound as the midwives of the ‘new’ nation attempted to deliver a land devoid of the abhorrent apartheid system. This new worldview, though, turned out to be a mere mirage for some black youth. As economic opportunities opened up, it became evident that only those with superior ‘white’ education could take full advantage of them - hence the exodus of black youth to ‘white’ schools. While many of those who acquired ‘white’ education achieved a semblance of social mobility – as is the case with some characters in Coconut – the price paid for it resulted in a diluted and sometimes an invisible blackness or, as Aretha Phiri characterises it, a ‘racial self-loathing and cultural betrayal’ (2013, 165). This article interrogates the challenges the youth encounter in Kopano Matlwa’s Coconut by examining its self-dilution and self-loathing as it embraces whiteness while losing its black identity. Derrick Bell’s critical race theory will be considered in this regard. The article will also discuss the white world’s scorn for and rejection of the black youth which result in serious identity crisis.