“I make sure my Blackness shows up in all its strength” - Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng (South Africa) - 2/4
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Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng . Photo credit: Zuzi
This is the second part of my interview with Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng, a medical doctor and reproductive justice advocate also known as Dr. T. After explaining why she chose to become an activist (see part 1), she now tells me how she goes about it: by showing up fully and unapologetically as who she is: a Black African woman. Glorious!
Let’s talk about your voice. You are not the only person sharing messages on sexual health and rights, but there’s something distinctive about how you go about it. I think it’s because of your perspective as a Black, African, female advocate. For example, I’ve read sexual health guides for women before, but I knew your book would be different from the cover alone. When I saw how centrally you put your Black skin, your big afro and your red lips on the book cover, I thought, she’s done more than sharing information: she’s poured her identity all over the pages. I hope I’m not reading too much into this?
I’m glad you picked up on this! You know, I grew up having to be aware of the fact that this body is political – even at a very young age, unfortunately. Even if I choose to do nothing and not be an activist, at the end of the day, my life being Black and being a woman is political. Not least because people project their interests on me. Right now, people as far as the United States Senate think they can tell me that even if I have an undetectable pregnancy here in Johannesburg, I must die of an unsafe abortion just because they gave my government money to fight HIV.
My book, and my work in general, are rooted in my Blackness and my womanhood because that’s who I am. I know a lot of people on Twitter who share the stories of what they had to unlearn in order to come into feminism or Black consciousness. I never had such a process because anti-Blackness never rooted itself in me. I don’t know what it feels like to rate myself less than what I am.
That’s amazing. It’s also very rare. I think your ability to show up unapologetically as a Black African woman is what makes your work unique. Where does it come from?
Cognitively, the brain is such that we don’t all have memories of when exactly we learned the things we learned. We don’t remember the day, we just picked up habits and knowledge. But I think my mother had a lot to do with this.
She was so deliberate, even in shaping the way I saw my own body. My mother was always asking, “Why are you wearing such a long dress?” And I'd answer, “But I’m fat.” And she’d say, “No, you're not. Take that skirt up and show your legs and open the zip and show your boobs. Just look how nice they are.” She was that mom. And I’d be like, “Oh yeah, actually you are right.”
So, it’s just a part of who I am. In certain spaces and for certain reasons, I do enhance my Blackness or express it in a more performative way, because sometimes we need to agitate even the spaces that we’re already part of.
“Sometimes we need to agitate even the spaces that we’re already part of.”
Can you give me a few examples of some of those times when you’ve felt the need to “enhance” your Blackness?
There are some things I’ve grown up being told, like “Oh, you speak so well, you’re not like those other ones” – those other ones being my fellow Black people. Or, “Oh, you’re so clean”. Now I’m an adult and I still hear things like, “You’re so articulate”. But I’m a doctor! Some things must be assumed, right? Those are conversations in which I make sure my Blackness shows up in all its strength, without apologizing or asking to be validated. It’s always fascinating to me how uncomfortable I make people then.
For example, whenever I give presentations locally in South Africa or even in global spaces, lots of White women ask me: “But why do you say, Black women? By saying Black women, are you excluding us?” And I'm like “I know that when you say woman, you’re not talking about me. I know you’re not including me – or Black women, or poor women”. I'm currently having difficulties with White women who are liberal and feminists by their own assessment and yet make me feel like patriarchy is in the room in full force. And because they are so-called ‘allies’ to Black women, suddenly it’s as if they lack accountability.
What do you think is the common thread between all those examples you just gave?
It’s the way people react to me being a Black woman who can speak freely about my body, who can articulate certain things about my life experiences, who can demand certain things of government, who is not intimidated by whoever in the room – literally whoever is in the room.
If people had had a different reaction, I don't think I would even know that me being who I am was a big deal. But because they are reacting as if it were a huge thing, I'm like, “Oh, so it means you are busy oppressing and silencing other people who look like me, who sound like me, just because you can?”
Also, I'm an independent medical provider and I’ve been an independent activist for a long time. I don't have an NGO and I don’t depend on a grant to keep my work alive. And so, because I don't have to answer to anybody, sometimes I say things on behalf of other people who must stay silent because they have to keep their jobs or their contracts. I'd be a sellout if I didn’t say those truths on behalf of my fellow Black women who cannot say them.
So yes, sometimes I use my voice deliberately to agitate. But I don't know what else I could use, anyway. I don't have any other party trick, you know. Being Black and being a Black woman is all I know. And so my worldview will always be from a Black woman's perspective and I don’t apologize for that.
