You can tell when someone is White, or a Born Free. They think what my country is going through is awful, catastrophic… They’re the ones who like my old White rheumatologist ask, “Aren’t you scared of the way the country is? Aren’t you scared for your children?”
I looked at him and didn’t know what to say. I had two bones to pick with him. “Firstly, I don’t care about politics when you haven’t even told me what my disease is!! Who cares about politics when I’m here about my BODY and you don’t even have the courtesy to tell what tablets you’re expecting me to put in it every day for the rest of my life?”
Secondly, “You obviously didn’t live through what I lived through.” People complain about loadshedding (The government’s euphemism for “We don’t have enough electricity so we are conning you and telling you we are loadshedding -turning the grid off for hours per day so we don’t fully run out of electricity and have no power on any day- when what it is is black outs. Power cuts. Power outages. We are so inept that we can’t keep the country running. The rich guy solar panels and inverters. The semi rich buy generators and diesel. The rest of us just plod on. No power for hours at a time. Food spoils. Frozen food becomes mushy and gross and also spoils. Shops can’t operate. Small businesses have shut down. Those using online schools can’t teach/learn.
But I grew up with power disappearing. I had a rich uncle in Transkei who had a generator. I hated the noise it made and dislike it even now. But, we had no power AND often, no water. Well, we Black peoples in the townships had no water. The other folk in the stolen suburbs had water and electricity. (I think. Every time I visited, they had both.) So this, this is nothing compared to that. And at least now we know when we won’t have electricity. Back then we had no electricity and no voice and no hope. No choice and no freedom. No apps to tell us when to expect lack of electricity. No warning. Give me today. I prefer today to yesterday.
Wow. Nap time has ended and I don’t remember what I was going to say! My ADHD two are running around like headless chickens and I’m waiting for my busy three year old to come bang on the door any moment now. That’s what happens when I prioritise marking past exam papers (prep for real exams starting next month.) and ironing and dispensing reduced Ritalin doses instead of blogging during my free time.😉
Ok. How does this all come together? I titled it “I like all people.” But I’m distracted my eight year old yelling outside my window and stomping. “I said ‘I am Goliath!’” she rants.
Somehow, my rheumatologist topic was meant to segue into racism and to how I didn’t grow up hating any race. I just viewed us all as God’s children. Yes, the teachers were racist. But my headmistress wasn’t. She broke the law actually. Nkosi Sikelel’ I Afrika (God bless Africa) was banned by the apartheid government. But that’s the song we sang. My school was a ‘White’ school. An independent school. And they are the only ones who agreed to take me. The other private schools my parents applied at refused to take a Black child. And as you know, government schools were racially segregated. With Black schools being underfunded, with the education being given to Black people only enough to make us tea girls and garden boys, my parents had no choice. And in their words, “Coloureds were more racist than Whites.” True. And I heard it from a Coloured man in 2016 too. “We Coloureds hate Black people. Especially Xhosas.” (Which is what my mother is.) Coloureds and Indians were allowed to get superior education to what we got. But not as superior as White petiole. You don’t want them to become TOO uppity.
But you see, I didn’t see race. Which was interesting given my first racial attack was when I was only three years old. And weird given how racist my teachers were. I don’t know if I was unconsciously trying to protect myself from feeling less than when it was out of my control or what. But I just didn’t give in to the hate they were spewing at me. I didn’t let it affect me.
Not back then, at least.
For years, I viewed myself as a Christian.
I was a Christian. I was open to dating any race and was shocked when a White friend lamented the lack of Black boys for me to view as potentials in the school choir we were singing with. Why wouldn’t ANY boy be a potential?
In high school, more Black children started attending my previously White school. One girl in a lower standard (now called a grade) reprimanded me! She told me I thought was all that, busy having only White and Coloured friends. Don’t ask me who I’d have befriended given there was only one black girl in my class at that stage and I’d gone up from junior school with the White girl and knew the Coloured girl from church! (Her mother was Black. My friend was the product of an illicit affair between a married Coloured man and a Black woman. She was being raised by her Black family and didn’t know her father. She was Black (internally and culturally.) But all that angry Black girl saw was my being a sellout.
I seem to have made all races angry just by being me. I’ve been called the k word by an adult who was in the wrong. My children have been pelted with stones by Coloured children. They invited a White boy to play and his mother made sure he never got close to our yard ever again. People have turned around when approaching us just so they don’t have to pass us. We’ve had police called on us just because we were Black. (Too many times we’ve been uppity and lived where only White people are apparently meant to live.) We’ve been followed and stopped by police. Just because we are Black.
That’s my country. My husband asked some Coloured colleagues if it was true that Coloureds hate Black people. He is from a different country and he got along with all races too. His colleagues told him that it actually was true. Many of their relatives expressed great hatred of Black people.
It’s scary and sad.
I like everybody until they give me a reason to reject them. I wish we could all be like that. Don’t hate just because of what my skin is like. Love. ‘Hate’ me if I do something evil. And then pray for me to do right.
They said I should write a book 