White Girls Don’t Get Fat

I hope that people will finally come to realize that there is only one ‘race’ – the human race – and that we are all members of it. Margaret Atwood quotes (Canadian Writer, b.1939)

As our group of 2 black, 3 white and 1coloured girls sat, on a sunny afternoon this week, sipping on smoothies all scantily clad, we noticed how many black guys our white friend Marjie knew and kept rising to hug and greet. With some, her innate feminine aura of seduction came out a few times prompting my black friend Thabi to ask her if she was interested in black men. Marjie smiled naughtily and confidently announced that she was now dating the last hunk she’d hugged; tall, handsome, well spoken and seemingly intelligent. “What a catch!” she announced proudly, and proceeded to revel in the flurry of compliments we were paying her. Since we’re in a country where we’re all aiming to be accepting of mixed race couples, nobody said anything bad…except Thabi…who frowned, tisked and mumbled sarcastic remarks as she lit a cigarette, thus catching our attention. “What’s your problem!” Marjie asked, to which Thabi snidely responded, “White girls like you!”

Now, let me put some perspective here. We always have heated discussions about everything, from serious issues like the current topical threat of radioactive material Japan faces from the 3^rd blast at the Fukushima Nuclear Plant, to silly issues like why men leave the toilet seat up. And we even talk about the racial divide in South Africa and laugh at how people can’t just see that we are all just people. But on this day, a true reflection of what they each thought about race came out.

Thabi proceeded to explain to Marjie, initially in a joking manner that statistically the ratio of women to men in the Cape is 7 women to 1 man, but to have the few ‘total package’ black men taken by white women was worthy of a “bitch slappin’ ”. Her reasons were that it is particularly difficult for black women to get contemporary, educated, responsible, humorous AND good-looking black men who aren’t completely immersed in traditional ways of behaving and thinking.( Not that there’s anything wrong with that if that’s what one is after). Her reason reminded me of a show Oprah did some time ago relating to American women, but seemed to resonate here: