monochrome in the rainbow nation

It wasnt until , was it... three odd years ago that i was told by my friend Lwazi, in casual discussion, that he, along with other people from whom he had received testament, too feels an overwhelming sort of sensation (like a fury accompanied with a burdening sort of hurt he more or less described it) when discriminated against on obviously racial grounds. We both agreed in the end that its a type of intensity white people can never understand, as they will never really suffer it as as we do. As we have.

Being black for me is a constant intensity. Its a concious state of mind, of which i always harbour. Its probably coming from a place that is trying to be sewn together after acres of racial fray, and then being brought up amidst the crosstitch of it all. Its a carrying constantly of a memory, of a reality of suffering. Even if we are rising.
Yet we have an innate ability to overcome, thats what i think is the tie that binds us as black people .
We have fought oppression from the very onset ,and so one should consider: what effect do eras of discrimination on a people (especially generations later) render? Our grim history has led us to believe that struggle it part of our destiny. Which is is ironically a shared quirk of us blacks, that we- like the Rom that have and continue to endure a similar strife- embrace, but it's also all the more reason not to have to continue to accept it.
we are complex, we have huge chips on our shoulders.
we many still have issues of submission. Trembling at the opportunity of equality because of incredulousness in our own worth. A great majority of black people are still mentally living in the darkness of inferiority. This is to expected seeing as the black areas in South africa were the last to be afforded the basics of electricity.

I was raised in a township with suburban aspirations. Spruitview. A place for darkies 'going places'. i remember IFP riots in thte streets at random, and being forced to stay indoors by my mom. Banners of Mandela some hidden, some mounted, like the one in my house. Talks of a guy always on parents' lips. I recall thinking: "Who is this Honey guy, and how does everyone know him?" (i realised later that it was the assasinated Chris Hani, at the time, leader of the South African Communist party, and chief of office of Mkhonto we Sizwe).

At age 8, we moved to actual suburbia- with all the conveniences only the white previously enjoyed. all services in close proximity, unlike townships that are alarmingly less developed. It was still fresh, the bitterness in the white people's mouths, it was 1995 mind you, a mere year into the new revolution when my family and I wasted no time fully immersing ourselves in the dream of a 'Rainbow nation'. It must have been our first couple of months in Edenvale, that we decided to visit the Mikes Kitchen (restaurant franchise) one sunday for lunch. A classmate and her family were dining at the cubicle behind us, when suddenly the bulging eyed grandmother choked on a bolus of her carvery, at the sight of her granddaughter, Jenny waving amicably to a little kaffir girl. (chuckle)

Stuff like this has never deterred me from mixing myself in though. There are no longer rules that forbid integration. simple. There are no such things as zones for slegs blankes you know. I'm living in Italy now, and demand, everytime i feel its missing , the same treatment as any caucasian counterpart of mine,even in their own territory. why should one settle for anything less anyway?It has been in recent years of enlightment, that i have developed a resentment in the gradual education of the history of us black South Africans. But i shan't lament. It's for this, that i am propelled to reiterate Steve Biko's words that "Black is beautiful" at any chance i can.

"Man, you are okay as you are. Begin to look upon yourself as a human being" the quote continues. it is with admiration then, to see my people making waves of disastrous proportions. to see the ghetto always home, but the mentality that comes with it, unsheltered in the minds of those that dare to be different.
For in our communities, lies a loathing for the successful. Those that (it is always assumed ) by luck or wealth, or the intervention of some fair skinned saviour, have moved foward, have in turn been percieved to have left their ethnic pride behind.
Why witchcraft is still a strong practice and has not dissolved in cultural diffusion, is because we black people are always ready to gnaw at each others' bones. To pull each other down, Tall poppy syndrome its called. A phenomenon that arises when in a society, the outstanding are resented for their achievements, which Wikipedia would explain, 'distinguishes them from their peers'. In this case race is the collective. It raises secondary enquiries into our ethnic predispositions, as this i have witnessed and heard is a universally black thing. This is too speculative a subject to get into into i know, i'll lightly tread over it. My theories pivot on my initial point about our complexes of ourselves in relation to whites. "the mind of the opressed" being the "opressor's greatest weapon"

Our wounded minds cannot be blamed for their pettiness though. From its birth, our nation has had to deal with racial traumas. Mentalities are weak. we cannot expect our country to be in form when its only just recovering.
I of course do not support it, but in truth western doctrines cannot tell african men that rape is a violation when forever prior, a woman had been treated as a subordinate. In a brief space of 15 years, helmut headed men cannot be instructed to stop beating their wives on account of this sudden 'gender equality' . All this change, in such a short space of time. Culture is essentially accumulated habit, and we all know how old habits die hard.
How do you go about convincing a believer in the South African version of christianity- i would go so far as specify, that actually a religion brought to our country by ill intending 'christian' colonisers has expired in its relevance, if it ever was in the first place. We black people are hores for fucking religion. The whole world is granted... but i repeat, in context these spiritual organisations came into existance in our culture when the white people tried to infiltrate it. Church was a subliminal means to control- to unify the ignorant with absolute concepts that have overtime seeped into our modern heritage. its not ancient. nor is it sacred. Contrary to what the translated (and censored) scriptures in the bible say, i wont be smited for arguing with my elders, especially about a point i am allowed to have opinion about by the way.
We do not see that religion has metamorphasised into a national routine, 'tsohle, tsohle' has become a soccer warcry. Bantu christianity i prefer to call it, might as well be the cheesy soap opera Generations on SABC.

Thank God, we have a strong minded youth in emergence. Young people are realising that with a changing South Africa, a conciousness of 'blackness' must be maintained and preserved, and it need not come with prescription either. Its a pride, that needs no justification. Its a shared feeling of victory to see one of our own represent. It is a refusal to yield. The ability to be an individual in a fundamentally communal society. It is the long awaited freedom to be able to- as i am doing in the example of Biko-"write what i like". Giving full credit to the fighters of every battle before my own, now the opressor against me and others in my zone, is with no ammunition.