My Roots ..Sir? ?

Burnt fingers, smoke coming out of his nostrils ..''you have lost your roots'' ...this is what he said to me...as I walked passed him sitting on the side of the road with somalian street vendors -they were selling hats sunglasses and socks- the lot you get from street vendors in Wynberg ...

 I thought to myself really? ...you managed to make that out just from the way I was dressed...? The piercing on my belly and the black lipstick I wore? ...so I turned round to get a good look at him....I could tell he wished he hadn't said it...but something in him needed attention, it wasn't the first time I met an attention seeking person :/ what's wrong with him???

How could he say that I didn't know my roots just from a glimpse at me when he'd never conversed with me I know my roots but I wasn't going to argue with him

From me I was as african as I could be and that was enough. ...my black lips were an inherited trate from the Xhosa women in the eastern cape who took the ointmenty black oil from their  pipes and applied it on their lips (intshongwe)...my hair a representation of the natural african locks that were red from the rock that was cracked and begotten from the river  mouth

How could you say that Sir!!
Was this from the way I was wearing tights had a belly ring and wore yellow socks and vans?
How is it that I don't know my roots when I can mind my own business and walk passed you without telling you that the drugs on your hand was a bad example for people walking on the streets ..and what a bad role model you are to every kid walking passed this corner. ..

I do not know when or how it is that I lost my roots but as a person who's origins go way back to the times of Nongqawuse and the origins of time I could not be bothered and be told that I had none...

 Even if it ever came down to making a choice about who I am ..I would be the axcact African kid who has in her western ways of self expression and would never look and live under society's shadow!!