“Product of rape”: Normalising the language of sexual violence

The nuclear family feeds directly into capitalism because every child conceived, let alone born, pushes workers into further precarity and cheapens the value of their labour. Feeding a growing family with a single income stream leaves very little room for growth. It’s an endless and deliberate cycle that deepens the divide between ordinary people and their oppressors.

Placing value on some over others is a tactic of control that keeps oppressed people fighting for table scraps instead of proverbially eating the rich. It distracts people with infighting and drives animosity between groups (classic divide and conquer). But racism did not only create social buffers between the elite and the masses, it garnered buy-in for the system with the potential of social mobility, if not a promise of prosperity for those who conform.

Naturally, those living under the South African oppressive regime (which has continued long after our political “freedom”) adopt dominant cultures, assimilate to social norms and even abandon their own spiritual belief systems for those of their proverbial masters. In racist regimes, some people go so far as to change their appearance, hair texture and skin tone; others go out of their way to dip into the dominant gene pool for the benefit of future generations. It is unlikely that faced with the choice, anyone would choose strife.

Nevertheless, while many would like to believe that this assimilation and desire for privilege is the main driver of miscegenation in South Africa, my community actually had very little say in the matter in the broader scheme of things. And even though our history is well-known and extensively documented (these degrading social media narratives wouldn’t be so popular, if not) this very assumption that we slept our way into privilege is a major factor in the growing animosity toward Coloured people.

The truth is that there was very little to gain from our creolisation. Colonisers made sure with their racist laws that mixed people were denied claim to their paternal lineage (and any privileges that came with it). The rape of our great ancestors and the systemic blockages to any sort of recourse indeed forced us into a type of illegitimacy.

Not only do we remain blocked from estates of our assumed forefathers (colonial rapists) we have no legal means of addressing the displacement they caused. Yet, even in this democratic dispensation that places so much emphasis on redressing the pains of our past, our collective trauma is ridiculed and not met with empathy or action.

I am by no means suggesting that patriarchal attitudes arrived with coloniser ships. Queen Nandi’s exile on account of Shaka’s illegitimate conception is a clear example of its long presence in the country. Women have always borne the brunt for men’s supposed lack of sexual control. However, the colonial agenda supercharged the vulnerability of South African women.

Their economic exclusion and legislative suppression exacerbated existing gender divides. The free pass men already had was written into law.