Interesting
start to the year in South Africa, I am well pleased that we are finally speaking
about it! If you are born American, ‘upper crust’, white, male, able bodied, straight,
the chances of you and your family prospering are almost guaranteed... Privilege
does exist! Someone told me about a kid’s analogy of privilege in relation to
South Africa and it went something like this: ‘Privilege is like we are sitting
in class and the teacher asks us to throw a crumpled piece of paper into a
rubbish bin in the front of the class. The kids in the front of the class will
have a better chance than the ones at the back, in South Africa, the kids in
the front are generally white kids and the ones at the back are blacks” WOW!!
At varsity, I
stayed at my mate’s digs, his folks had bought him a house to stay in and our
rent was part of his pocket money, I had about 5 jobs at the time. I remember
cycling home from work at the gym on Sunday afternoon and watching the guys
having a ripper recovering from last nights rave. I didn’t think it was
privilege at the time, I was doing what I had to do to get where I needed to
be. Oooh and then there is ‘black tax’, it’s hard out there. So now you have
‘made it’. You have to pay off a student loan, get a car, a house etc. AND ON TOP
OF THAT, you have Auntie Serwaa and Uncle Jojo that you have to send cash back
to in the village or folks you have to look after cos they spent what they had
to make sure that you did better than they did.
Privilege is
marching because travelling overseas is that much more expensive, but when
human beings are mowed down by the police in Marikana, not eve a peep, yep I
too am guilty.
I too was privileged.
I grew up in the Transkei, attended a great Cape Education System school. Only
after school did I realize how fortunate we were to attend such a school during
the height of apartheid. Looking at my past school photos, I noticed that in
the early years, the only class mates of colour were kids of expats or south
African kids whose parents had some influence. Insane right?
Apartheid might
be a dead system, but its effects are like embers that people choose to throw
kerosene onto. Yes it’s been 21 years since the first democratic election but nothing
has changed significantly in the lives of many. The haves continue to feed off
the fruit the system offered, the have nots continue to feed off the
offshoots/leftovers. Employment Equity/Affirmative Action may limit some job
opportunities, but the economy isn’t in a great shape at the moment generally.
Only those with the means and support structures are able to book a ticket
overseas and make it there, when they’ve had enough, they come back and either
start a job of find a job in a top firm or go back…because we can.
A friend of
mine and I were having a conversation the other day and she was telling me
about a guy she met that was a ‘black’ version of a friend of hers, why did she
have to use the word black? Why couldn’t he just remind her of her friend?
A south African
economist posted a tweet “More than 25 years after Apartheid ended, the victims
are increasing along with a sense of entitlement and hatred towards
minorities….” If I read it, which part of what he is saying is 1. Not true 2.
Racist? I can not comment on his intentions or frame of mind when he wrote
this, but if I read this it makes sense. The victims of apartheid have
definitely increased. More people have been born into squalor, lack of
opportunities, indoctrinated with hate and anger and the use of race as a first
judgment of another. There is a growing sense of entitlement amongst all
parties, haves want to continue having, have-nots want to have some of this
deal called the New South Africa. There is a growing hatred towards minorities
for sure. Minorities could refer to foreigners too right? I think he left out
is that there is also a growing hatred/fear towards the majority. We are so
blinded by race that it is our default position. If Moeletsi Mbeki had written
this I doubt anyone would have batted an eyelid.
I look at this
country and since 1994 it has mainly been the disenfranchised that have been
‘offering the olive branch’. TRC hearings, not too many haves even bothered
with it. Rugby, the embodiment of the old guard, 1995, RWC, the formerly
opressed rallied behind the Boks hard. Rugby went to Soweto, red carpets were
rolled out and what an experience that was. On the other hand, I remember when soccer
was banned at Newlands in 2001 and it had to be taken to parliament.
Sure the haves
worked damn hard to build their wealth and status in this country, but please
tell me who works harder than a lady who has to wake up at 4.30am, make sure
her kids and husband (if he’s at home and not on a mine somewhere) are fed,
washed and ready for school/work…walks a few km to a taxi rank, sits in how
many taxis so she can get to my house before 7.00 so I can get to work before
8, sit in my air conditioned office, having meetings and run spreadsheets on my
fancy laptop, whilst she scrubs my floors, feeds and walks pets/kids, washes
and irons clothes, leaves to get home at some ungodly hour, feed the family,
washes up goes to bed…repeat...all this for a mere fraction of what I earning
working my ‘hectic’ office job.
So can we
accept that a lot of people’s stations in life are a DIRECT result of what was
a system of indoctrination, empowerment and protection of the minority at the
absolute expense of the majority. Miz Sparrow is as much a victim of apartheid
as anyone else. And please don’t kid yourself and think that in this country
she is alone in her thinking you aren’t being honest with yourself!
Ok so now that
we have accepted that privilege exists, what now? That is where the game
changing occurs if you ask me. Clearly we can see that in South Africa the
government is overwhelmed by the task at hand. Firstly park that get over it
and move on talk. Empathy! We as corporate South Africa and citizens stand to
lose if we don’t do something about it. Blaming the government or trying to
protect your ‘turf’ or right to exist won’t assist.
This whole #feesMustFall
saga, I got to thinking I got to where I am in life because my I was fortunate
enough to have parents that instilled in me the value of education as well as
the opportunity to receive good education from great educators. A EUREKA
moment! Education is a key to solving many of our woes. I have amazing friends
so I knew if I was thinking as such, many would definitely be thinking
something similar so I sent out a tweet and just like that we are almost done
setting up an educational trust with 32 people committed to contributing R10
000 a year (that is roughly R833/month) for 4 years…R1.3mil. That is hopefully
10-13 potential engineers, accountants, scientist, engineers etc. not to
mention the multiplier effect in the communities they come from. Either by way
of assisting those around them or inspiring others.
I didn’t write
the above to tell you how great we are, no no, many of us are armchair critics,
we sit with our iPads on Twitter, FB, News24 and cry foul about the state of
the nation, then we go back behind our high walls and watch DSTV. Yes we pay
taxes etc. but the situation is dire and it needs all hands on deck and
everyone of us can make a difference no matter how small. That’s if we care,
else I guess keep complaining.
We are the sum
of our parts and we are stuck with each other the sooner we all shut up and
step up the sooner we fix it.
