Blogger and influencer Sarah Langa Mackay said on Wednesday she hates when people choose racial categories on behalf of others.
Judging from the gifs and memes in response to the post, her mentions were likely a mess within minutes, with people appearing to be quite confused by what she was saying.
Fans of TV series "Atlanta" would appreciate this meme of Paper Boi appearing on the "Montague" show looking unimpressed. In an insert on that same episode, a black teenager explained how he was "transracial", and identified as a 35-year-old white man.
OK, so back to Mackay: it all started with a tweet about the word "slaying", which she feels is problematic.
Who are u slaying against? Life is nt a competition, dnt value urself against others. Ur value should be limitless, nt determined by slaying
— Sarah Langa Mackay (@sarahlanga) February 20, 2017
Of course, Mackay is allowed to change her mind on concepts just like anyone else but the Twitter investigation unit is always ready to pull out the files. This user, who goes by Z, extracted this tweet from January where Mackay used the word herself.
Of course, she clapped back quickly.
Then came this...
Followed by this...
And then it was downhill from there. Mackay called out this person for calling her black without knowing for sure that she is.
Which then brought us back to the first tweet about it being nobody's business what race anyone else is. Mackay ends that tweet with "and anyway who cares?". In a country where race is what determined our social standing for 100s of years and still does, everyone should care.
Fatima then asked an important question about being mixed and what box people check in South Africa, because there isn't one.
When asked what box her parents ticked as a child she responded "other". Her last tweet on the matter was:
So of course, people did not tell her what race they thought she was but rather, what race she had previously stated she was.
Last year, she and her businessperson husband, Jehan Mackay had a traditional wedding where she donned a modern take on the Swazi cultural print.
The files were again grabbed from the cabinet:
- There was the time she identified with being black when she was joking about us posing with trees.
- Then when she argued with a Twitter user who said True Love magazine hates black people. She said they treated her, a black woman, with respect.
- Then there was this tweet, which is offensive and confusing.
Well. Now we don't know. Is she black or nah?
Sarah