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part three: 169 ways to know if you’re coloured

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If you’re Cape Coloured and you know it, clap your hands.

  1. You say jirre, yittie, jissus or jinne.
  2. You had/have a Gomma Gomma lounge suite.
  3. You LOVE the ladies, with your wolf whistles, catcalls and shouts of “come, smile for me, sexy girl!” to any female under 60.
  4. You always root for the All Blacks even when they’re playing against SA.
  5. You still use words like ‘whitey’, ‘European’ and ‘bantu’.
  6. You know what bus sonner wiele means.
  7. You instinctively know how to speak like a fisherman or a bergie.
  8. Your family owned a Passat, Datsun, Mazda or Cortina in the ’70s. And they’re still driving it.
  9. You’ve been told “you’re such a coloured”.
  10. Your biological mom and dad are coloured.
  11. Your mom crocheted doilies for her imbuia dressing table, table cloths for the dining room table, antimacassars for the lounge suite and dresses for you.
  12. Your parents have an imbuia bedroom suite they’ve kept since the ’60s.
  13. You like the phrase ‘I love you wirra passion’.
  14. After school you ate jaffles at your granny’s.
  15. You’ve eaten yellow rice AND you know how to make it.
  16. You scored your own small cultural victory in the ’70s by riding (undisturbed) in the whites-only carriage with your best friend, who’s Chinese.
  17. One of your siblings brought home a kroes-haired/dark-skinned person and “set the family back at least two generations”.
  18. “Wie-jay van ekke?” and “sieke ekke” are stock phrases.
  19. You understand what that drunk bergie’s saying.
  20. Your surname’s September, Plaatjies, Oppel or Juries, among others.
  21. When you say you’re coming now now the other person will wait at least 24 hours.
  22. You can start a family fight just by letting your hair dry naturally.
  23. You know that jentoe is not a nice word to use on a woman.
  24. You’re a man and you address women as “hey girlie” or “my lady” or “merrem”.
  25. You’ve been called klimmeid or ou toppie.
  26. You describe dyed blonde hair on a coloured person as “shit and butter mixed”.
  27. When your mother is the moer-in you know to stay far away.
  28. When you drive by your neighbour’s house (in your brekgat black Polo or souped-up citi Golf), the car system HAS to be bass enough to make their windows/diaphragm rattle.
  29. You pepper your sentences with the words fokkol, fokken, frickin’ or blerrie.
  30. Your freckled face makes you an anomaly.
  31. You nicknamed Canal Walk ‘Kanalla Walk’.
  32. You call someone with too many teeth, bokbek.
  33. You know the difference between tief and tef.
  34. You know it’s an insult to call a male, ‘moffie’.
  35. You attended Belthorn Primary School.
  36. Your favourite teacher in primary school was Vincent Farrell. He wore a purple suit.
  37. You say “my mommy” when referring to your mother, even though you’re over 50.
  38. Your brother’s a gaardjie and his name’s Gammie.
  39. Your mother used to say “maachie Allah” and “lalaai”.
  40. Instead of saying ‘you’ you say ‘yous’ or ‘hellos’.
  41. You know when a lady says “ga-se vir jou mal antie”, she’s angry.
  42. You know when a lady says “ga-kak innie Kaap”, she’s angry but not over the edge.
  43. You know when a lady says “ek ga-jou fokken opdonner”, she’s confrontational and things could get violent.
  44. You know when a lady says “nou raak ek fokken befok, jou …. (insert rude afrikaans word here)!”, you need to vacate the area immediately.
  45. When discussing a life-threatening disease, you whisper it for emphasis eg: “Lavona, did you hear, Estelle’s husband’s got (sotto voce) cancer in his klonte?”
  46. You use the word gat as a noun AND a verb: “ek gat jou innie gat skop”.
  47. You like Frida Kahlo*.
  48. Your black dog barks at black people.
  49. You can fit at least 70 words into a one-minute conversation.
  50. You walk at least six family members abreast in shopping centres, supermarket aisles and at functions.
  51. Your mommy and daddy sometimes have a mombakkie.
  52. You sometimes ask for a ‘Christmas box’.
  53. You like Chris Brown, Rihanna, Beyonce, Miguel, Pharrell Williams, Level 42. What’s the most telling way how to know if you’re Cape Coloured? You know the music of Matt Bianco.
  54. You call posh coloured girls sturvy.
  55. You set off firecrackers six days before and on Guy Fawkes Day, but when asked, you don’t know historically, why.
  56. You know the difference between “daai man dra n mooi jas” and “daai man is lekker jars”.
  57. You mix English, Afrikaans and Cape Coloured slang in one sentence.
  58. Your teeth whistle when you speak.
  59. You often spoil yourself with a Brazilian blow-dry and you got the ghd hair straightener as a gift.
  60. You live next door to the guy who sells the ‘No Jokes’ potatoes.
  61. You drive a horse and cart.
  62. You have to toor your hair daily to make it look nice.
  63. You may have a chip on your shoulder.
  64. Your teeth are sporting silver or gold caps.
  65. You’re in the Klopse.
  66. When you stood at your front gate, you could see the Coons and Atchas march down Klipfontein Road.
  67. When you wear your hair in a centre parting, your mother calls it a poes paadjie.
  68. “Die fokken kind is vol strond” is your go-to phrase when talking about a child.
  69. You call male genitalia a “vool” and female genitalia a “gwar”, among others.

So you’ve ticked at least 100 of these but without the necessary pedigree? Congrats, you are a Closet Cape Coloured and unofficially part of the most entertaining, irritating, passionate, common, good-looking, long-suffering and generous race group in the whole world. Lucky you. How to know if you’re Cape Coloured? Surely there must be more than 169 ways to know, so please feel free to post new ones via the third-last letter of the alphabet, formerly known as Bitter @2012buyadonkey #ChloraNation

*Me, in my winning Frida Kahlo costume for a themed work function. How to know if you’re Cape Coloured? Just embrace it.

part one: 169 ways to know if you’re coloured

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I’ve been told I’m “not coloured enough”. Nigerian please. I mean, check out my colours via Adobe Kuler.

Dominique shades copy

Disclaimer: This article is best read by those who understand Cape Coloured – ie South Africans. The subtleties will be TOTALLY lost in translation.

As extra evidence of my colourfulness here’s a ‘tseklist (checklist) for the naysayers and for those who always need to label things and people. If you tick 100 or more of these, you can safely assume you ARE coloured. And I mean Cape Coloured. None of that watered-down Jo’burg crap. We are a wonderful breed and a source of many inspirational quotes, wisdoms, giggles and mass blanching at family gatherings and public outings – and proudly so.

And just in case you want to bring out the race card or get offended – opinions are like the proverbial donkey, everyone has one – these musings come from some personal and some shared experiences but mostly my own memories. These opinions are (probably and definitely) not shared by my husband, child, family or friends. I have also spelt most words phonetically and not necessarily accurately, so get some dip for that chip en hou jou fokken in, because …

  1. You know how to give a good lammie.
  2. You’re missing two front teeth. On purpose.
  3. Your mother made you sit with rollers in your hair until your scalp bled. Then you had to put on a swirlkous.
  4. You’ve gone to the shop in rollers/doek/swirlkous.
  5. You seeing mist outside brings on a sense of anguish akin only to that felt by people in movies upon seeing zombies.
  6. You own at least 12 anti-frizz products and they either make your hair cake like icing or flake like snow.
  7. You have a highfalutin voice for the phone and a coloured voice for everything else.
  8. You use and know words like jislaaik, laaitie, naai man, kak, my bru, jou ma se poes, voetsek and tati. Sometimes even in the same sentence.
  9. You use the words kroeskop, boesman and kortkoppie as an insult towards your fellow man.
  10. Your brother uses phrases like “die lelik is niks, maar die STUPID …!“
  11. You know what jits means.
  12. If there’s an all-you-can-eat buffet available, you’re not too shy to go back for seconds, thirds or even fourths.
  13. You’ve used or been at the receiving end of the phrase “keep you white“.
  14. You end every sentence with nih.
  15. You ate smoortjie every Saturday night as a child.
  16. You know that a great Gatsby is something with chips, tomato sauce, lots of magenta viennas and no Leonardo.
  17. Your mom made you fried French polony sandwiches in primary school.
  18. Every labarang-gatjie your Moslem neighbour would bring over ornately decorated biscuits with little silver balls and angelica on them. They were a joy.
  19. Your mother warned you not to be ougat and to sit with your knees together at all times.
  20. Your mother told you “nice girls don’t laugh uitgelaat“.
  21. You have one of these combos: light eyes + dark skin OR kroes hair + fair skin OR dead straight hair + dark skin.
  22. You went to church at least once a year as a child. At Christmas time. In shiny shoes and new clothes.
  23. At Christmas time your parents bought pan peanuts, mebos, chocolate covered Brazil nuts, peanut clusters and those jelly sweets shaped like citrus halves at Wellingtons Fruit Growers. But you couldn’t eat them – they were ‘for the guests’.
  24. Your dad used to take your mom flower-shopping on Adderley Street every Saturday evening and you’d stand in front of the air vents so that the warm air blew against your legs. And the flower ladies always gave you a flower because “my, but your derrie is SO beautiful!”.
  25. You say derrie not daddy.
  26. You used to shop for bridge rolls at Rosmead Superette on Saturday mornings and sneakily scoff the tiny warm rolls in the back of the car.
  27. You’re a Seventh Day Adventist.
  28. You’re a Jehovah’s Witness.
  29. You know what a happy clappy is.
  30. You are a happy clappy.
  31. As a child you liked Niknaks, Flings, Fizzers, sherbert, bunnylicks, Coo-ee and peanut butter and golden syrup sandwiches.
  32. You were the first child in your primary school to wear braces on your teeth, so the one boy called you “tanne manne josster‘. You still do not know what this means.
  33. You have a smoky rust bucket truck/van/bakkie/car/motorbike that you rev noisily in front of your/your neighbour’s house or in your yard, day and night.
  34. You hoot loudly when you arrive in your car and hoot when you leave.
  35. Your head barely reaches the dashboard (you like bucket seats).
  36. You drive with your arm straight out, holding the steering wheel with one hand.
  37. You have spoilers, fins and VIP-worthy black-tinted windows.
  38. When you have parties you say drunken, loud, drawn-out goodbyes on the pavement, in the early hours of the morning.
  39. Every social gathering you’re at, either ends in a feud or a shirtless fight in the street.
  40. You braai every weekend. Even in winter.
  41. You eat meat at least six times a week.
  42. You think eating salads is ‘white’.
  43. You’ve hosted at least one It’s A Pleasure Party.
  44. Your parents had their portraits taken at Van Kalker.
  45. Your mother makes Three-Carb meals like tomato bredie (lamb chops, tomatoes, potatoes AND spaghetti served with white rice).
  46. You were brought up on green bean stew, soup with marrow bones and dumplings, bean curry and breyani.
  47. You owned a tape recorder in the ’70s and made tapes of the whole family singing.
  48. Your mom cooks with dhania – WTF’s coriander/cilantro?
  49. You played with pitchy balls as a child and ate sour figs out of a little brown bag.
  50. Your parents had a beloved flower seller on the Grand Parade called Dol.

tbc …