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This one might be a little uncomfortable but someone has to say it. Well, I’m not exactly saying it but I sure as hell will write about it because this woman is tired.

I’m sure you’re probably racking your brain, possibly wondering what it is that I am getting at. However, silly me forgot that I put a pretty obvious title that leaves nothing to the imagination so maybe you’re not racking your brain. Well, whatever side of the coin you fall on I’m sure we can all agree that Zimbabweans have a certain obsession with anything foreign adjacent and dare I say white adjacent?

Ugh, ew I know. Roll your eyes, crawl under the bed or rip fistfuls of hair from your scalp because this is an uncomfortable conversation we ought to have because I will be damned if I sit in the comfort of my bed erasing colonial ideologies forced on me while I let the rest of my fellow Gen Z counterparts and Gen Alpha eggs live a life of foreign adjacent idolisation or worship.

Maybe your diaspora desires come from colonisation. The European systems, aesthetics, accents and products were historically deemed to be superior so your ancestors believed that and passed it on to you.

Then again it could be because British education and religious systems trained generations to distrust African ways and idolise Western norms.

I can’t help but think that this is also caused by the fact that foreign brands are deemed superior to local brands so you don’t even think twice when you pass someone selling roasted maize on the side of the road but you will doll yourself up and sit in an American themed restaurant and gobble up ‘corn on the cob’.

It could be that you suffer from acute Diaspora syndrome. There’s a belief that everything is better ‘kuUK’ or ‘eStates’. Zimbabweans are so quick to treat returnees from the diaspora with elevated social status, regardless of how they were living abroad. When a Zimbabwean sister bags a man with a foreign passport, the elders are happy and ululating with joy because she has apparently married up. Sigh.

Don’t get me started with the discrimination of education. If Bongani studied in the UK or SA their degree is respected more and their opinions are given more weight because God forbid you choose to get a degree at the University of Zimbabwe or Midlands State University.

Maybe it could be that you ridicule the old men and women who practice African traditional religion. You call it evil. You call it lesser. You call it performative. However, you will find a way to attend that mega church with Western-style branding and spend your pension on the pastor’s dream for better lighting in the church but come back to church next Sunday to find that the pastor has got himself a new range rover.

Maybe the only acceptable reason you might hate yourself and where you come from are the economic realities sprinkled with a dash of elitism. The hyperinflation and interesting choice of governance has eroded you and your gogo’s confidence in local institutions, products and everything else in between. Then there are the lucky human beings with access to foreign currency, schools and even opportunities which are often seen as having ‘escaped’ the system which does nothing but reinforce the allure for the foreign.

The majority of Africans that I know have inferiority complexes. They live with these inferiority complexes, feed them, bathe them, clothe them and occasionally talk to them. They give them a power that is now manifesting in the most vomit inducing ways possible. It’s actually kind of disappointing, sad and albeit even embarrassing to witness.

That inferiority complex is alive and well when conductors call passengers ‘makhiwa’ in Ndebele or ‘varungu’ in Shona, this basically means white person or Caucasian. Before your bare your teeth and aim for my jugular, I know that it’s just a way of making conversation or buttering people up to cough out their bus fare but it has its unconscious consequences. Notice that when these conductors, hawkers, salesmen and women call us ‘khiwa’ or ‘murungu’, they use it as a term of endearment. They aren’t necessarily calling you white but they are admitting that whiteness is better. They are admitting that whiteness is something one should strive to be. They are admitting that whiteness is equal to respect. Call me melodramatic but that is the truth.

The inferiority complex is alive and well when black women, with skin carefully and wonderfully bathed in melanin picks up carowhite or light and rids herself of that skin. When she’s finally white enough for the world, she is considered as a worthy candidate for jobs and a worthy wife. But one can’t help but wonder how she feels inside. How often will she have to keep lathering herself with poison? Her goal is white adjacency because the world, especially African communities have colour problems and preferences. The truth is that she will never be white and that’s okay. But there’s no one who can tell her that. There’s no one to change her mind.

The inferiority complex is alive and well when families pick English names for their children because the name Dumo or Tarirai is far too black. They sit around their table deliberating on names. They tell each other that their white counterparts will not be able to pronounce the African name. They forget that they can teach said white counterparts how to pronounce their names properly the same way said white counterparts stress accurate pronunciation of syllables. If they can pronounce the word Swavroski then I’m sure Lethukuthula or Gamuchirai or Lerato can become easy on the tongue. The new parents will claim that the child should be called Talknice, Flower or Confidence because that’s more digestible. But it’s not, yet no one will tell that the name Luba is beautiful, that the name Panashe is lovely and just as important as a John, Mark or Clark.

The inferiority complex is nurtured when women in salons tell each other that they will never have hair as beautiful as a white woman’s hair. Time and time again I have said that’s true, you will never have hair like a white woman’s because that is not your hair to have. There are reasons why different races have different types of hair. Some hair falls past the shoulder in lovely tresses. It’s blonde, maybe brunette and sometimes as black as the night sky. As beautiful as that hair is, so is yours. There’s a reason it grows up and out. There’s a reason why it resembles a lion’s mane. If you stopped burning it to a crisp or hiding it from the sun maybe it would feel loved and start to grow.

The inferiority complex is fed when we tell each other to eat, dress, talk and reason like other races of people. Why is it that we can’t let each other speak however we want to? After all, English is not our mother tongue. It is not ours. It is a language we were made to use and have to use till this day.

Your inferiority complex is as clear as day when you put a South African flag in your biography on Instagram when you’re a Zimbabwean. Please don’t do that, it’s a bit sad if you ask me. There’s nothing wrong with Zimbabwe (well there’s a lot wrong with Zimbabwe) however, what I’m trying to say is that there is no shame in coming from Zimbabwe. Absolutely none. Shame only becomes real when you nurture it and allow it to grow.

I could go on and on about inferiority complexes. We all know them. We’ve lived them. We’ve tolerated them.

I realised something when I was glued on the toilet seat scrolling on my ever-disturbing TikTok feed. I realised that Zimbabweans are so obsessed with foreigners or their own people who grew up in foreign lands. Basically, anyone who isn’t Zimbabwean or doesn’t ‘look’ Zimbabwean (what does this even mean? Please regale me?) is highly praised. There was a gorgeous woman on my screen narrating her life. She told us about her parents and how infrequent her visits to Zimbabwe actually were. There was a hive of Zimbabweans in the comment section droning on and on about how the girl was too pretty to be Zimbabwean, how she didn’t sound Zimbabwean (again, Zimbabwe has 16 official languages so what does it mean to sound Zimbabwean?) and how she didn’t act Zimbabwean. They went on and on about her skin tone, accent, sense of style and content. To them she was ethereal, otherworldly and without fault.

Right after that video, there was a video of another gorgeous woman. She was born and bred in Zimbabwe and a resident of the country. She narrated her life, while doing her skincare. This time, the hive of Zimbabweans in her comment section was not so impressed. They told her she was Zimbabwean and that she needn’t pretend to be anything or anyone else. They claimed she was bleaching that’s why she was light. They said she was pretentious and should speak the way other Zimbabweans speak which again, makes me extremely livid because WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? “WHAT THE HELL IS EVEN THAT?” I was so shocked. Why were people so mad and less supportive? Here she was, a pretty Shona girl in front of her camera vlogging and now getting vilified. Why? Because she was neither white nor foreign. Her crime was that she spoke Shona, had a Shona name, was born, raised and lives in Zimbabwe. It was appalling to witness them tear her down.

I questioned why Zimbabweans were so obsessed with everything that is not Zimbabwean. I mean sure, this isn’t the best country in terms of economy and basic living conditions but whether we like it or not, it is where we come from. We already have half the world’s hatred because of strange misconceptions and I find it awful that we do that to ourselves as well. The hatred of who we are and where we come from, despising ourselves and making ourselves a monolith is why I think we’re obsessed with anything and anyone foreign or seemingly foreign. Not all Zimbabweans are the same. Not all of them sound or act the same. We don’t like it when South Africa amongst a slew of other countries practically stereotype us so why should we do that to ourselves? Don’t you think we, and by we, I mean you and I, deserve to live freely and happily in the skin and land we were born and raised in?

I know what I’m saying may sound deluded. I mean I wouldn’t be the weird brown girl if I didn’t truly believe my delusions could be a reality. I just find it sad that Zimbabweans will praise and support beautiful Gemma because she is a white person who happens to make music in Shona but won’t extend the same courtesy to other monoracially black Zimbabweans who make music in Shona because they aren’t foreign enough. Sorry to burst your bubble but Gemma is Zimbabwean and as far as I am concerned, she ought to be able to speak Shona or any other tribal languages spoken by Zimbabweans just as much you’re expected to know how to speak English! You have got to get up!

I promise you that being born Zimbabwean doesn’t make you a lesser being or is being born black. You only become a lesser being when you come to believe it. And dear reader, if you’re putting the South African flag in your bio, knowing damn well you’re not South African then you may as well go straight to the people who call Zimbabwe a shit hole filled with crappy people.

So, do we have an antidote for this sickness?

Hmm, I don’t know. I’m just spit balling here but maybe cultural confidence? There’s nothing wrong with being Zimbabwean. Whether you communicate in Chewa, Chibarwe, English, Kalanga, Koisan, Nambya, Ndau, Ndebele, Shangani, Shona, sign language, Sotho, Tonga,  Tswana, Xhosa and Venda.

Secondly, I think getting our human excrement together and paving the way to economic empowerment for all is a step in the right direction.

Then last but not least, re-imagining Blackness for ourselves. Why would you sit back and let other races of people tell you what Blackness is? They call it ghetto, poor, stupid, the list is endless. I believe that as a people we have a lot we need to sort out but I’ll be damned if I let anyone dictate to me what my Blackness is or what it ought to be. And neither should you.

– The Weird Brown Girl