The Rainbow Nation is Black

I do not want this to merely be a book, but an experience. I want us to encounter these difficult narratives together, and navigate the racial tensions, demagogy, and dysphoria we have all felt due to our prescribed identities. We need to unsettle them, interrogate them, resonate with them, then dismantle them. We first need to endure the blackness of the rainbow before we can appreciate the colour. And that can have varied meanings depending on the individual. In each chapter: grey, white or black. There is an exploration of poems that resonate with an African identity, especially a South African identity. Post-apartheid South Africa is a unique place and not just in terms of historically but also in terms of socially. There is this constant wrestling between reconciling with the past but learning to also grapple with the aftermath and how it continues to threaten the illusiveness of inclusivity and diversity. These very broad terms are easy to bandage over a wound that is not as severe as the one contemporary South Africa is immersed under. I would say that these very terms need to be interrogated further and explored in South Africa if progression is to be truly achieved. This collection of poems is essentially about digging deeper and exploring uncharted areas whether it is in a larger sense or in an individual sense. As I assembled this poetry book, I was not hoping to place myself on an indisputable moral high ground nor was I neglecting my responsibilities as a writer. I was instead, hoping to call myself into question therefore I chose to share some of my personal narratives which have influenced my perspective on certain issues and identity. I too, have been wrestling with the complexity of what it means to be African, let alone South African, in a post-apartheid context and to add to the layers, as a scholarship recipient of a predominantly white student's private school. I too, have been torn in between multiple identities, and have wondered which I owe my loyalty. Is it the black South African Zulu girl who will always be disadvantaged by white systems, or is it the coconut black Zulu girl who has simultaneously benefitted from white systems. The words girl and black, have for a long time, felt crippling to my identity because of social standards which are explored in some of the poems I have written in the book. The vulnerability required was one I had not yet been acquainted with but felt necessary in order to share my truth. And the truth, as an abstract concept, is one of the most terrifying yet liberating commonalities of the human condition. Whether the poetry moves you to tears of relief or rage, my deepest hope, it that it moves you closer towards your truth.