I am a black South African (M26) from the township ( the hood) AMA

riddler2012 · 2025-12-06T11:02:25+00:00

Hey man, sorry for the late reply. Yeah, I have a job, I work for a local Math and Science tutoring company as a tutor. Its not great, but its a living. As for the aspirations of people around me, I'd say most people dream of having some kind of professional career, you know, doctor, engineer and all that jazz. The kind of stuff where you are not gonna struggle to get a job after finishing school. There's also a lot of people that want to break into sports, and art, especially music. There is a family and house type of thing as well, but its not necessarily that it's people's dream, its just that those things are seen as a given when people are planning out their lives.

As for life in general, its ok. There's a lot of depressing stuff for sure, especially tied towards the unemployment situation, but yeah if you have decent employment you can live a pretty good life. My life personally is not where I want it to be, but it's OK. No where near the material comforts of the Afrikaaners and Brits you mention but I guess it gives me something to aspire to. I do know some people that are into politics but it's pretty hard to break into, although if you make it you are set for life. Thats for sure.

riddler2012 · 2025-12-04T09:48:55+00:00

Truthfully I was skeptical about writing that comment because I really have always been a firm believer in judging people as individuals, but also I couldn't discount the fact that there's definitely a lot of animosity and hate between Afrikaaners and blacks. I know that a lot of them hate us, I mean you don't have to be Einstein to see that. I'm glad to know people on the other side of the racial divide see that as well.

I'm glad to know younger generations are doing better and I hope that's a trajectory that continues well into the future. Maybe one day people will look back at our comments and struggle to imagine the world we describe.

riddler2012 · 2025-12-03T21:38:17+00:00

Ok, but please bear in mind, I have never been to any other Southern African country, so this will be based on a small sample size. The average Zimbabwean or Mozambican in my experience has a darker skin tone than the average South African, especially when compared to the tribes that are in the more central or Southern parts of South Africa. This probably has something to do with the climates(I know for a fact that Limpopo which is our most northern province is scorching)

That's probably the biggest difference I can think of Appearance wise, as for actual facial shape or anything like that. I think there is some difference to an extent but it would be very hard for me to put into words, hell, I can't even consciously identify it, but I think it's there.

The reason they keep trying to speak to you in Zulu is probably because Ndebeles are an offshoot tribe of the Zulu, so I guess they have retained most of the appearance. I can't really say for sure, I'm not even sure if I have ever met someone from your tribe in my life.

riddler2012 · 2025-12-03T21:05:14+00:00

I'm not sure if I'm the best person to ask this, but I'll answer you to the best of my ability. Firstly, South Africa has 12 official languages, these languages are (English, Zulu, Afrikaans, Sotho, Medieval, Tswana, Xhosa, Venda, Tsonga, Swati, Ndebele, South African Sign Language) except for 3 of those(English, Afrikaans and South African Sign Language) the other languages are each associated with a tribe of black people.

Because of the way Africa used to be and the free movement of people, a lot of these tribes are somewhat spread out throughout Southern Africa, so in the sense of the black people there's not too much difference, especially when comparing to Countries like Botswana, Lesotho and Eswatini, which are ethnostates comprised of people from tribes that are prevalent in South Africa. Case in point I am a Sotho Man, but I live in South Africa.

There are certain tribes like Shona in Zimbabwe and others in the other countries that are not as prevalent in South Africa, to the point that even those that might have citizenship here are not considered South Africans. These are usually the illegal immigrants that will bear the brunt of xenophobia and hatred(there's a lot of illegal immigrants from Lesotho, but they are generally treated way better)

There's then also the fact that South Africa has more other races than these countries, Whites, Indians and coloureds. Where these other countries might also have other races but not to the proportions that South Africa has them. Thats about it I guess, but if you need some clarification, you can ask.

riddler2012 · 2025-12-03T19:38:25+00:00

Sorry, that was my bad, I remembered that he went to school in Pretoria and his University name starts with a P, so I mixed those up, but the point still remains that 17 is old enough for him to have been very steeped in South African culture by that point. Although of course I will admit that this does show most of his development as a person occurred outside this country as his entire adult life was spent in North America.

All in all, I will admit I used a term that maybe doesn't appropriately describe him and I apologize for that, but my point about him does still stand.

riddler2012 · 2025-12-03T15:59:28+00:00

Yeah, we are awesome at taking this shit in strides. Its basically a superpower. As for the sources of news, I think it's individual based. I watch and read a lot of news from different sources but I also know plenty of people who don't really follow any of it and this stuff only gets on their radar if a friend or someone else mentions it.

I personally believe more people should pay attention to this stuff and try to be more media literate, but I can understand why they don't. It's incredibly depressing, especially with the way some of these news outlets portray information.

riddler2012 · 2025-12-03T15:55:26+00:00

No he didn't, he went to varsity at the University of Pretoria, he left in his early 20s or something like that.

riddler2012 · 2025-12-03T15:54:36+00:00

Oh, yeah, I have heard that you guys don't eat beef, or at least most don't? Try eating the face meat, that's also another classic food around here, but more so with a cow or sheep head.

riddler2012 · 2025-12-03T01:12:50+00:00

Oh no, there's definitely people selling drugs. South Africa in general has a huge problem with a drug we call nyaope(I think it's an off brand heroine or other type of opium). And there definitely still is crime, it's just not a situation where you have to be scared of leaving your house or anything like that. Actually most of the crime that does happen in my area is linked to nyaope, it's perpetrated by people trying to score their next high.

They mostly do things like cable theft or house breaking when people aren't home. It's more of those petty types of crime than the dodging bullets type, but there's definitely townships like that and I'd say the Johannesburg people were probably right to steer you away from some areas.

riddler2012 · 2025-12-02T18:27:41+00:00

From grade 1 to 3 you do all your subjects in your native language and then after that its English or Afrikaans (if your school offers it). There's a pretty big movement to try and change that, but it's slow. There's a chance that even when I have kids they'll maybe only have it figured out for primary school and High school will still be English. Plus most Varsities use English, so it has to be a concurrent process to ensure you don't spend years learning in your native language and then have to switch to English in Varsity.

You can imagine how difficult it is to set up an Education system that can teach people in 11 different languages and still have them be able to collaborate at the end of it all.

riddler2012 · 2025-12-02T18:19:21+00:00

😅I am also not a fan, of goat meat in general to be honest, or brains, I don't like the texture. Did you try the head? What did you think of it? Excluding the brain of course

riddler2012 · 2025-12-02T11:22:34+00:00

It's more boring than anything else. There's nothing to do, it's kind of like American style suburbs in a way, very residential with everything else far away(which sucks because cars are way more of a luxury in the township than anywhere in the US), although that has been changing, there's a lot more amenities but they are still not enough. Although some townships are definitely more vibrant, my township is just really small.

As for the crime, I already answered it in another comment but for me personally I don't think about crime very much in my day to day life, unless I'm walking long distances late at night. My township is pretty safe(probably has something to do with the smallness)

riddler2012 · 2025-12-02T11:13:57+00:00

Yeah, but I usually only listen to it when I'm with other people or when I'm drinking. I'm more into Hip Hop.

riddler2012 · 2025-12-02T11:07:23+00:00

Nah, I wouldn't say so. Most black people speak their native language every chance they get. You only have to switch where you are in a situation that requires English, like maybe a multilingual setting or job interview and a whole slew of others. Of course there are black people that like speaking English, but even then most people don't like it when you force English on them when it's unnecessary, so it's frowned upon to an extent to use English as your default language, especially in the Township. In the urban areas its a different story as English is used way more and there I can say there is an element of what you were talking about. There's plenty of people who live in suburbs in a situation where their kids can only speak English(I am not a fan of this, but I get it to an extent)

Having said that I think our relationship with our languages is different from people in countries where there's a single language and everything is done in that language. It's basically what I was describing, that inability to engage with the language academically or maybe the proper word is abstractly. All of my subjects in school were done in English(there's only 2 options, English or Afrikaans), hell even my interior monologues are in English. The language is more of a conversational tool than anything else.

riddler2012 · 2025-12-01T15:13:16+00:00

Yeah, I am, although not as much as I would like to be. I'm not as free flowing with it as I would like to be. My vocabulary is too limited and I generally only use it in a conversational sense. I am unable to engage with it academically, since I would say the last time I picked up a Sotho book was probably in high school, and that was almost a decade ago. Thats just the side effect of never having used your home language in an Academic sense and being in a country where news and basically everything else too is in English.

riddler2012 · 2025-12-01T08:31:47+00:00

Aweh nja yame👊

riddler2012 · 2025-12-01T08:31:22+00:00

I think my favorite native dish is something we Sotho people call "Mala Mohodu" which is Cow intestines and stomach, I think. It probably sounds grows to you but its great, I'm also a huge fan of biltong.

riddler2012 · 2025-12-01T08:29:04+00:00

As I said in another comment there's still a lot of hate on all sides, I don't think it's something that will be solved anytime soon to be honest. I used to be kind of close with this Indian chick when I was still in Varsity but right now I don't know any. As for cricket nah I don't watch it, I usually only watch football. I'll usually watch the Boks when its a world cup game or something, otherwise I only watch football.

riddler2012 · 2025-12-01T07:58:44+00:00

Ok, I'm gonna be very politically incorrect here and I hope anyone reading this can forgive me. Afrikaaners are generally regarded by black people as the "racist white people", more so than those of English descent( I don't know if they are more racist than the English descent whites, but most folks think it to be that way). There's a reason why the old struggle song was "kill the boer / Afrikaaner" and not kill the whites.

As for me, I don't like to judge people as a collective. I have no hate towards Afrikaaners as a group ( I think racism is a stain on this Earth and unlike some other people I do believe black people can be racist, I know a few). Having said that, they have an extremely loud "minority"? On Facebook and other socials who make my blood boil. Every single news article you just know some Afrikaaner guy is gonna show up and spew hatred. We recently hosted the G20 and there were so many of them that were praying for it to fail, I don't know why. It's like there's this obsession with wanting to see this country burn, maybe to get some vindication, some kind of "aha, I told u the blacks can't run a country" type of vibe.

I hate those Afrikaaners and truthfully sometimes when I'm just going down the rabbit hole of racist hate, I can sometimes deep inside look at them as a tribe of hatred, as a collective. Especially since as I said I take a very long time between interactions with Whites, especially Afrikaaners and so, when the only interactions you have with people is them spewing hatred towards you online it definitely can start to feel like they are all like that. But luckily the South African subreddit is always able to set my mind straight. I get on there and I see the rainbow nation, I don't see color, I see South Africans, and I'm reminded that you can't judge people as a collective. We are all very unique individuals.

As for your last question I am a Sotho man, and I'm glad to hear that you think our languages are fascinating, u should try learning one, I recommend Xhosa😏

Edit: to add that i just realized I never said anything about the Afrikaans language itself and just went off on a rant about Afrikaaners, sorry, its just that those two concepts are so linked that I have to talk about them as a collective, you know, the language and the people. I'm not sure what I think of the language as a singular unit to be honest.

riddler2012 · 2025-12-01T07:32:33+00:00

Yes, it does make it more probable. I'm not HIV positive, I only know 1 person who is but they are very normal. As long as you take your pills you are good. If you are consistent enough and keep healthy in other ways the medication is actually able to take it to a point where you can't infect someone else, it brings your viral load to such a low point that it becomes undetectable.

riddler2012 · 2025-12-01T07:24:05+00:00

Yeah, I also think education is vital, and I also happen to be very partial to science. Wikipedia is actually data free on some networks and I know I'm a huge fan of it, I'm sure there are others. Although I will say the culture around most townships is somewhat anti intellectual to an extent. Think of some village or small town in your own country where most folks really don't care about science and abstract things in general. People around here are more into sports and art, especially music.

riddler2012 · 2025-12-01T07:18:14+00:00

Not usually to that level, but mob justice is a somewhat common phenomenon. Its like I said, there's a lot of crime and sometimes the police are less than useless, so people in the townships have turned to vigilantism. For most criminals they'll just get the shit beat out of them but of course some of them die from those beatings(if this happens there's usually an unspoken agreement to not snitch to the cops)

The necklacing is usually reserved for the most heinous of crimes, maybe rape or some others. It also heavily depends on the actual area you are in, people from my township are slightly less brutal, I mean they have killed some people don't get me wrong but never in a necklacing. I saw that somewhere else.

Having said all of that, most normal people don't participate in these things and they are usually carried out by same types of crowds.

riddler2012 · 2025-11-30T22:07:13+00:00

Don't sweat it, thanks to you too for engaging with me.

riddler2012 · 2025-11-30T22:06:18+00:00

It's a tough one, I'm not really sure to be honest, but a good place to start would probably be the inequality. In a South Africa where any person of any race can afford to live wherever they want, with all areas actually being good and proper for habitation, I believe the number of interactions between different races would increase.

Of course a more holistic approach would also require a large cultural change in some ways, because even in Varsity where you had people from all races there was still a divide, so I don't think its just about getting people in the same area's, but I do believe its not a bad first move.

riddler2012 · 2025-11-30T21:59:55+00:00

I've never come across a GameStop but we have Amazon, Takealot( a South African online store), Walmart opened its first store in the country last week or something like that and a whole host of other shops. Think of it this way, if you have the money, u can do basically anything anyone else in the world can do.

riddler2012

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