I don’t have a “people”.

And that is okay.

It wasn’t always like this. I had a people once.

I was born a male into a white, straight, Afrikaner, Christian, Apartheid-loving farming family. As privileged as you can imagine.

The more I became aware and studied what each of those meant the more I realized they can’t all be right as they contradicted each other. So over time I started rejecting them. One by one until there were none left.

The white one came first. The more I dug into my family history the more I learned that I wasn’t white. Ansela van de Caep was born into slavery - her mother a slave from West Africa taken to South Africa in the mid-1600’s. She had three kids while a slave with the father(s) unknown - born in 1686, 1690, and 1692. Van de Caep was the surname given because it was the place she was born and the same name was given to the kids.

In 1695 she became a ‘free’ person and fell in love with a German soldier working for the Dutch East Indian Company. Because of who she was - a vrye meid - they could never marry but she and the kids took his last name. They never had other kids.

And in one foul swoop I realized I wasn’t this white kid anymore and I wasn’t even a Campher.

But I looked white. And no matter where I looked, I could not find “my people”. I couldn’t define myself as black (or in South Africa part of the coloured community) as I didn’t live those experiences and did not look black. As a mix breed without the experience of living as such, I am without a racial identity - but the guilt and the responsibility of helping to address the past remained, and rightly so.

I also gave up on this male idea of the family name needing to survive beyond me. I am not a Campher so why should I give a shit about it? It’s just a piece of identity that is for now and should not burden future generations. Take whatever name you want as it should not define who you are.

A great regret is my wife and I deciding for her to take my name. Yes, it was part of a tradition but not being a Campher AND realizing that the whole concept of “taking” the husband’s name is rooted in a tradition of ownership and control of women meant it was another tradition that should simply go. But I digress.

Once I started going down this path I questioned everything. I rejected everything and started from a clean slate. Religion was the easiest one - too much hate and genocide in the different religious scriptures I read.

So here I am. I am not an Afrikaner. I am not white. I am not straight. I do not believe in any gods. I am just me.

But stepping out of those things that defined “my people” meant I had no people.

Yes, I was South African but even that was meaningless. Borders are stupid. It is another way to say “them” and “us”. For people to be used so they think they are better than others. And that became even more apparent when I became American. The flag waving stupidity or shouting America is the greatest without having a single substantive argument or data point to support that claim is the epitome of herd mentality.

America is just a country. It didn’t always exist. It exists today. It won’t always exist. It has no special right to exist other than serving the people who live there. It has good things and bad things. It’s just like every other country apart from this belief that it is better. It’s not.

Even if it was great, it does not give it a special right to treat others differently from how it will treat it’s own people. Again, I digress.

I have no people. I do not belong to anyone. Because I belong to everyone.

But I also realized that me believing that I belong to everyone simply doesn’t hold true for others. I will never be held with the same value as someone who is from their group. Everyone is my people but I am not anyone’s people. I know I will always love them more than they will love me. They will always be on my list while I am, at best, on their second list.

That was the part that hit the hardest. I will love but I will never experience the same love back.

If you have a group you will pick American, Israeli, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Russian, Palestinian, white, black, or whatever first when the pressure is on - you will defend and look after your own people first. We see this day in and day out. When the squeeze comes people will move from the “love for all” to picking their “people” over others.

Do I miss being from a group? Of course I do. It is a warm blanket when the world feels cold. It is the one safe zone in a world gone crazy.

But I also don’t want it back.

It has taught me to truly love unconditionally. My love cannot depend on whether someone else loves me back.

As much as what “my people” can be a good thing, it is also the thing that breeds hate. The thing that is used to talk about them and us. The thing to make us feel better about ourselves. The thing we use to tell ourselves we are special and superior. The thing we use to bomb others. To deport others. To starve others. To not help others. To be quiet.

Not having a people means I can look at anyone and ask myself “what if they are my people” because they are. That my first instinct is to love someone not based on their group but them as a human. And to want to help the most vulnerable because they are my people.

And it has taught me another lesson - never be comfortable with who you are. Question your behavior. Check your assumptions. Challenge yourself to rethink. Because not having a people to define who you are means you have to find yourself and that is never ending.

How can I be a better ally? How can I be open to changing my views? How can I learn to be a better people to everyone? How can I be open to be challenged?

I do miss having a people that view me as their people but I am forever grateful to be able to love unconditionally.