“Yellow-bones are running South Africa!”

That’s what I heard at a Shoprite magazine counter the other day.

Now you may think it’s absolutely crazy or you may think it actually makes a bit of sense. Or you may even be asking yourself what the hell a yellow-bone is. At the end of the day, how crazy you think it is may depend on what shade your skin is and what you believe.

But before we even get to how crazy it is or what you believe, let me just make sure that everyone is on the same page. When I talk about yellow-bones, I’m talking about light-skinned people. This is what they’re called in the streets. I’ll be honest, of course, and tell you that I honestly don’t know what dark-skinned people are called. Dark-bones or brown-bones, maybe? I just don’t know.

All I know is that I had just finished doing my grocery shopping and was standing in the queue to the magazine counter when I heard one of two dark-skinned chicks laughing and making a comment to her friend.

“Thina bamnyama asina chance tu yaz’ (Us dark ones really don’t stand a chance, hey). Ezi yellow-bones ezi ziy’ phethe iSouth Africa (These yellow-bones are running South Africa).”

I couldn’t make out what the second chick mumbled back in response, but I saw that on the stand near them there was a magazine which read “dark-skinned vs light-skinned: what’s the big deal?”

So what is the big deal?

Maybe there isn’t a big deal. Maybe there isn’t more to the story than the different complexions that these guys and girls have. Or maybe there is.

One thing we can’t deny is that a lot has been said on the streets, in magazines and on TV, about how good-looking yellow-bones are. And each time I hear girls and guys calling each other yellow-bones it sounds to me like they believe that “dark-bones” are not as good-looking.

If these people really believe that yellow-bones are better-looking or more special in some other way then a debate is what they’re asking for.

In that debate there’d be those, on the one hand, who disagree and say yellow-bones are not more special in any way. Of those, some might argue that saying “dark-bones” are not as good-looking as yellow-bones is like starting a new Apartheid – black people’s Apartheid. They’d then explain that Apartheid made us believe that being of a lighter complexion made one much better to look at than those with dark complexions, and so that making a competition between yellow-bones and “dark-bones” is like bringing that Apartheid back.

There’d still be those, of course, who agree that being a yellow-bone is the greatest thing since the invention of the cell phone. My nephew, being one of them, would explain that yellow-bones are better-looking because “their skins have a glow” and so “their beauty is more noticeable”. In fact, a guy I once spoke to took it a step further and said that there’s a difference between an “ugly” dark-skinned person and an “ugly” light-skinned person. The truth, in my experience, is that people who say crazy things like that usually don’t have good reasons for saying those things. So I wasn’t surprised when he couldn’t justify his statements.

In case you’re wondering where I stand on all of this, I’ll tell you one thing: it all really depends on what you allow yourself to believe. Like, my ex-girlfriend was a yellow-bone and obviously when I was with her I believed that no girl in the world was more beautiful than her. But her complexion isn’t the reason I think she’s the best girlfriend I’ve ever had. Who she was and how she was around me and the memories we shared are the things that made her the best.
But now I want to hear what you think.

#ChatBack: What do you think about this hype around ‘yellow bones’?

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