I see that Trevor Noah was trending on social media because he is leaving The Daily Show. But also because he is reportedly dating some white woman I've never heard of. Don't read anything into that; I'm 50 years old. That means I do not know roughly 99.99% of the celebrities that everyone talks about.
Just the other day someone looked at me incredulously because I'd never heard of some famous horse called Megan, the Stallion. Shoot me, but the last time I paid attention to equestrian sports was in the '90s during the peak of Wolf Power's popularity in Durban July circles.
Anyway, Black Twitter is split right down the middle. Half of us are outraged that here’s another wealthy, famous black man who seems to exclusively date white women. I know, I know; Trevor is black over there in the States. Here at home, we know better than that. He’s just like any other ‘bro from Eldos’.
Our racial politics is far more complex, you see. I personally also harbour strong feelings about dating across the racial divide. And they can be summed up in one sentence. If you don't believe in interracial dating, the only option available to you is to not date anyone from another race. Nothing more. Writing 750-word think pieces on who Trevor Noah decides to tongue wrestle with, 12,900km away in New York City, is the height of worrying about all the wrong things. I already have my hands full, trying to finish this column before "Lights Out" de Ruyter snatches my electricity from me.
I must hasten to add that I understand the phenomenon of folks expressing outrage about matters that really do not concern them. It’s a situation created by the advent of social media platforms. Twenty years ago I would never have known that Kutlwano from Nkowankowa in Limpopo thinks Trevor Noah is "a typical self-hating black man who believes that white is right". Kutlwano who, from where, I hear you ask? My point exactly. I don't know Kutlwano either. That's mostly because I just made her up to illustrate the absurdity of getting sucked into moronic Facebook debates about things that don't concern me.
As with everything in life, someone is to blame for this nonsense. And I nominate Mark Zuckerberg in this blame game. Bear with me. Have you ever walked into an empty room and found a set of drums, just sitting there? Be honest, didn't you get an immediate uncontrollable urge to pick up the drumsticks and start whacking the bejesus out of them, playing a Grammy-winning song you just composed on the spot?
The same goes for finding a tennis racquet lying around in someone's yard. Don't you find yourself playing "air tennis", executing vicious topspin forehands, imagining yourself at Roland Garros at match point against a beleaguered Rafa on the other side of a phantom net. Well, that's exactly what happens to the billions of social media enthusiasts. It's a case of "I have an iPhone, I have data, I have downloaded the Insta app and I have perfectly functional thumbs, so I might as well share the turd nuggets inside my brain". That's exactly what social media has morphed into; a worldwide cesspool of mental turds swirling around like molten chocolate in television ads.
For the record, I have dated across the phantom colour barrier. That qualifies me to harbour strong opinions on interracial dating
Earlier this year, South Africans woke up to news that parliament was engulfed in flames. Until that point, Kutlwano from Nkowankowa hadn't been aware just how strongly she felt about our parliament. It was just another slumber chamber for geriatrics absconding from playing with their grandchildren on a stoep. A few times a year, the Red Berets would wreak havoc and the Speaker would order a few dozen penguins to pinch their balls and carry them outside. And yet Kutlwano found herself penning 10,000 words on her conspiracy theories about the source of the fire, exhibiting an incredibly sharp grasp of pyrodynamics. But before she could crack the case and finger the Guy Fawkes in our midst, Putin invaded the Ukraine. So, she had to abandon the case and author new think pieces on the geopolitics of that region. Why? Because she was armed with two weapons; uncapped data and strong opinions on the former USSR.
For the record, I have dated across the phantom colour barrier. That qualifies me to harbour strong opinions on interracial dating. And let me tell you something about white, coloured and women of Indian descent. They enjoy nothing more than bossing black men around and dragging them from shop to shop at Menlyn Mall, on a Sunday afternoon when we'd rather be at home watching the Manchester United goalie pick up the ball from the net six times after a Halaand avalanche.
Coincidentally, this is exactly the same thing my very black wife loves to subject me to. It’s all really much of a muchness, unless of course your name is OJ Simpson and you end up slicing her up with a stiletto blade.
I have three sons, that I know of. All of them have, at some point, been romantically involved with girls who are not black. The thoughtful, caring, but one-trick pony that I am, I have always responded to it the same way. And that is digging into my vast DVD collection and fishing my dusty copy of Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever and forced them to watch it. That’s my way of saying, "Go right ahead and love who you love but just be aware that Kutlwano and her posse are watching you and they will destroy the house that Jack built on Instagram and you need to brace for the impact."
In the final analysis, the colour of the person you choose to lie to about never leaving them is not going to make any difference to the repo rate, the price of 95 octane or the wet coal that will keep us in the dark during the rainy season.
