Rantism on Racism, South Africa and Pending Fire
On an outing to Long Street today. I happened to run into some more South African racism. The funny thing is that I was standing there waiting to order something to eat. I pull out my tab ( a gift from Thekwane) and scan for nearby wifi in the vicinity. My scan is barely complete before some handsome, well-dressed, shoes-too-polished fellow African walks up to me and asks me what I'm doing there. For the record, this is 210 on Long Street. This man does not know me from a bar of soap, neither does he care. His disrespect and irreverence is met by my patience and mild surprise. What business does he have asking me what I'm doing while I mind my business, waiting for grub? According to him, he "makes the rules here" and I need to go. Now I'm really surprised. What have I done? Obviously, I have stood where Blacks should not. Ironically, I was there 4 weeks ago with Hezron and Jules, who were having sushi there. I guarantee you this place will get no more patronage from me as the way in which he continued to blame me for my apparent disrespect at questioning why he singled me out to chase me out of an apparently public establishment purveying food, cigarettes and libations. He approached me. Anyway, I told him to have a blessed day and left, laughing outside, seething inside.
It has been a hot topic lately, the rife racism and classism in Cape Town. We have see the kaffir word used one too many times in our media, on graffiti, posters and our DOTA 2 channels. Yes, I play DOTA 2. And you will not believe how many Afrikaners still refer to something that irritates or angers them as kaffir. Yes, they do. And one was forthcoming enough to call me a kaffir when I killed a hero he had his eagle eye on.
Then there is the Rhodes Must Fall campaign, which has ignited the debate to a wonderful degree, exposing White ignorance and it's infection on African minds. There is a picture that makes this clear. The scratched out words are "barbaric kaffirs, " by the way.
Anyway, when I go book hunting, and I hunt books (it's even in my CV), I am constantly bothered by how security guards tail me and leave my White friends be. Actually, when I walk into anystore in town, really. Maybe I should start being a decoy while the White mate steals a copy of Paul of Dune for my growing library. I kid, of course. I already own Paul of Dune.
When I go clubbing, I am searched up and down to near cavity search degrees, but when I show up with White mates, we are welcomed in with smiles and even well-wishes. When phoned or phoning for job hunts, I am inundated with compliments about how I "don't sound Black." Yes, not sounding Black is a good thing. This city is rife with racialism and racism, and I avoid such debates more often than not. But how do I avoid an entire city I am in? How can I the Writer, be silent?
While I'm at it, one more thing. The homeless and beggar situation here is frightening! Need I say more? Well, I will. The walk around Long Street and its environs will reveal a beggar at every corner except the ones where they are forcibly removed.
After getting my ass handed to me at Chess in the piblic library, I went out to get a bus back to Blouberg. A homeless man smelling like a professional garbage diver was tring to cross the street. He was actually crawling on his ass and hands. Cars would not stop to let him cross. He was crawlin too slow for the hustle and bustle of 16:30 traffic. The foot traffic was plenty. Many people walked around him, very similar to how The Flash would walk around you if you happened to be too slow for his progress towards the next villain on his list. They looked down, some of them. Some didn't look as his smell told them what was below, scraping it's destitute ass on their tax-bought tarmac. I could not just walk by. I said hi to him, picked him up, crossed the red robots with him and put him down before Parliament where he could crawl to wherever his sloth-like speed would take him. Some White kids, who were crossing the street too, looked at me and said, "Äw nice bru. That's so kind of you. Thanks." And I said " Fuck it, man, it's the street."
What was I to say, anyway? What was I to do? WHatdid they do? People are behaving like stupid (note, stupid) ants that care not for their fellow being. I smelled like a hobo for 30 minutes, but any one that knows me knows I couldn't care less about scrapes, bruises, cuts and smells when it comes right down to it.
We're gonna go extinct if we lose the vantage of the future which involves all of us. Hatred, racism, stupidity and IGNORE-ance will be our unmaking. The same people who ignore the plight of a fellow being will be those same people voting for a "better" South Africa. Those same people who "have many Black friends, bru." They are not the ones there when Rhodes is falling. When Black women are being tazed in the mall, they're not there, stopping it. When police are tearing through our privay because "he looks like a smoker." When racism is happening before theeir eyes, they keep eating sushi and look over their chopsticks at the spectacle. Add more wasabi.
I warn you, Cape Town ,you will burn in the fires of your ignorance and this fire will be hotter than any veld fire you've ever seen. The stupidity and ignorance is ingrained in your children, who all dress the same and pretend like Nelson Mandela cleared the board of every infraction their grandparents and parents made. Ask your 19 year olds about the Truth and Reconciliation Commision. Ask for their opinion. Ask them about Chris Hani. Ask them about what a dompas is and see their response. Ask them what racial ideas their hold or abhor in them selves. Look within your self and the self reflected in your friends.
There is a dark, dark cloud hanging over South Africa, and if we keep pandering to Germans and Americans in our restaurants while our airports are surrounded by shacks, we'll burn. If we keep going to Tiger Tiger with our White Friends and are proud to be the token Black, we'll burn. And there is a way out, you know. Consciousness. Awareness. ACtive, conscious awareness. You know that popular word, Übuntu"? It's actually the deepest Philosophy this side of Plato's cave.
You aren't powerless. 6 able-bodied people can lift up a bakkie, you know. Imagine if we turned such energy inward.
So much has happened in just this one week. I'd like to talk abbout the Epping fruit and vegetable market. I'd like to talk aboutt hypocrite Rastafarians and closet gays. I'd like to talk about the waning ethic and selective sight of the Capetonian. I'd like to talk about the R60 million mall being built in the neighbourhood where thousands were evicted just a few years ago. There's so much going on and people amble along like automata. I wanna join uGudu and Pastel, sometimes. I really do. But if I die, who will build the Chaotic Front?
Not you, Cape Town. Not you.
It has been a hot topic lately, the rife racism and classism in Cape Town. We have see the kaffir word used one too many times in our media, on graffiti, posters and our DOTA 2 channels. Yes, I play DOTA 2. And you will not believe how many Afrikaners still refer to something that irritates or angers them as kaffir. Yes, they do. And one was forthcoming enough to call me a kaffir when I killed a hero he had his eagle eye on.
Then there is the Rhodes Must Fall campaign, which has ignited the debate to a wonderful degree, exposing White ignorance and it's infection on African minds. There is a picture that makes this clear. The scratched out words are "barbaric kaffirs, " by the way.
Anyway, when I go book hunting, and I hunt books (it's even in my CV), I am constantly bothered by how security guards tail me and leave my White friends be. Actually, when I walk into anystore in town, really. Maybe I should start being a decoy while the White mate steals a copy of Paul of Dune for my growing library. I kid, of course. I already own Paul of Dune.
When I go clubbing, I am searched up and down to near cavity search degrees, but when I show up with White mates, we are welcomed in with smiles and even well-wishes. When phoned or phoning for job hunts, I am inundated with compliments about how I "don't sound Black." Yes, not sounding Black is a good thing. This city is rife with racialism and racism, and I avoid such debates more often than not. But how do I avoid an entire city I am in? How can I the Writer, be silent?
While I'm at it, one more thing. The homeless and beggar situation here is frightening! Need I say more? Well, I will. The walk around Long Street and its environs will reveal a beggar at every corner except the ones where they are forcibly removed.
After getting my ass handed to me at Chess in the piblic library, I went out to get a bus back to Blouberg. A homeless man smelling like a professional garbage diver was tring to cross the street. He was actually crawling on his ass and hands. Cars would not stop to let him cross. He was crawlin too slow for the hustle and bustle of 16:30 traffic. The foot traffic was plenty. Many people walked around him, very similar to how The Flash would walk around you if you happened to be too slow for his progress towards the next villain on his list. They looked down, some of them. Some didn't look as his smell told them what was below, scraping it's destitute ass on their tax-bought tarmac. I could not just walk by. I said hi to him, picked him up, crossed the red robots with him and put him down before Parliament where he could crawl to wherever his sloth-like speed would take him. Some White kids, who were crossing the street too, looked at me and said, "Äw nice bru. That's so kind of you. Thanks." And I said " Fuck it, man, it's the street."
What was I to say, anyway? What was I to do? WHatdid they do? People are behaving like stupid (note, stupid) ants that care not for their fellow being. I smelled like a hobo for 30 minutes, but any one that knows me knows I couldn't care less about scrapes, bruises, cuts and smells when it comes right down to it.
We're gonna go extinct if we lose the vantage of the future which involves all of us. Hatred, racism, stupidity and IGNORE-ance will be our unmaking. The same people who ignore the plight of a fellow being will be those same people voting for a "better" South Africa. Those same people who "have many Black friends, bru." They are not the ones there when Rhodes is falling. When Black women are being tazed in the mall, they're not there, stopping it. When police are tearing through our privay because "he looks like a smoker." When racism is happening before theeir eyes, they keep eating sushi and look over their chopsticks at the spectacle. Add more wasabi.
I warn you, Cape Town ,you will burn in the fires of your ignorance and this fire will be hotter than any veld fire you've ever seen. The stupidity and ignorance is ingrained in your children, who all dress the same and pretend like Nelson Mandela cleared the board of every infraction their grandparents and parents made. Ask your 19 year olds about the Truth and Reconciliation Commision. Ask for their opinion. Ask them about Chris Hani. Ask them about what a dompas is and see their response. Ask them what racial ideas their hold or abhor in them selves. Look within your self and the self reflected in your friends.
There is a dark, dark cloud hanging over South Africa, and if we keep pandering to Germans and Americans in our restaurants while our airports are surrounded by shacks, we'll burn. If we keep going to Tiger Tiger with our White Friends and are proud to be the token Black, we'll burn. And there is a way out, you know. Consciousness. Awareness. ACtive, conscious awareness. You know that popular word, Übuntu"? It's actually the deepest Philosophy this side of Plato's cave.
You aren't powerless. 6 able-bodied people can lift up a bakkie, you know. Imagine if we turned such energy inward.
So much has happened in just this one week. I'd like to talk abbout the Epping fruit and vegetable market. I'd like to talk aboutt hypocrite Rastafarians and closet gays. I'd like to talk about the waning ethic and selective sight of the Capetonian. I'd like to talk about the R60 million mall being built in the neighbourhood where thousands were evicted just a few years ago. There's so much going on and people amble along like automata. I wanna join uGudu and Pastel, sometimes. I really do. But if I die, who will build the Chaotic Front?
Not you, Cape Town. Not you.
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