A coconut is a term used for a black person who acts and speaks like a white person. It is described as a person who is white inside and black outside in terms of thoughts, beliefs and cultural practices.
It is an advantage for black youth to be familiar and learn from the western ways and cultural beliefs, especially for a developing country such as South Africa. The majority of people before 1994 did not have the privilege of going to multiracial schools where they are exposed to different cultures. Democracy therefore has brought a great privilege to black South Africans because they may equally compete with their white counterparts and learn from them. I am however against the idea that people should throw away their own cultural systems and beliefs because of the dominating western cultures and systems of the western ways they have learnt.
Being inactive in African cultural beliefs and practices is a sign of losing one’s identity and cultural history. Therefore, combining African teachings and balancing it out with other cultural practices, is a more lucrative way of keeping one’s own identity.
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It is so important for people to be proud of their cultures because slowly but surely people are losing their identity.
ReplyDeleteI think this is the biggest challenge because when our parents sent us to multiracial schools, they did not bargain that we would throw away our cultural beliefs. I had a colleague who was impressed that her daughter can't read Xhosa because she said it was not necessary that she knows. So parents also have the responsibility to teach their children our cultural beliefs and practices.
ReplyDeleteI love this one* I sent my daughter to a private school just so that she can be a "coconut"...
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