Here's to another New Year

The date has changed like it changes with every passing day. We now move onto a new year, most of us, with hopes of new things. New as the season may be, some old things will remain with us. One such old thing is how one routinely gets treated like shit for no other reason than that one is black. I concede, that sounds really whingey (yes, it is a made up word). Whingey as it may be, the point is no less valid.

I have lived in 3 South African big cities having grown up in a small afrikaans and racist town. That town has remained small and brutally racist notwithstanding the claims of change and rainbow nation. In this town, part of industrial discipline is the crushing of an employee's testicles and jamming fingers into the employee's nostrils. That is the stuff that make it onto the paper for a day or three at best. The last I saw of this one incident was when the "employers" appeared in court. I have not seen anything on this story since. Most South Africans react with horror to these types of incidents. We react with the same horror when children are brutalised. These reactions of horror do not however find expression anywhere else but on social media or some obscure page of the newspapers.

The conversations on racism and prejudice are at best simply annoying. There is persistent reports of how white males cannot get employment yet the employment records do not support this assertion. Any and all forms of progress by black people is reduced to BEE or some or other leg up by white people. Any and all forms of criminal conduct by black people is nothing but the nature of "these people" and by the way all such conduct is committed in the name of all blacks. All good things are the norm with white people and an exception with black people.

In this new year there will be all manner of open competitions such as idols which will be won by some white guy. All representation of white in our society continues to be that it is right and good. White people work hard, they are clever, they are experienced and do not get or spread aids. That is the magic of representation. A white guy is not just a white, it is a representation of what marketing folk refer to as aspirational. It is the white surburb that I want to live in, a white school that I want my children to go to and the car driven by the white guy and his family that I want. Well you know what all that is black is like right? Why and who would want it?

No sooner than you have moved into that surburb, representation promptly get to work and before you know it, you are a representation of all manner of things. Raucus parties that go on for all hours of the night or the latest beneficiary of the ANC largesse or better still, a beneficiary of some white company BEE transaction. Yes, these are generalisations! The view of a black person as a lesser being is a generally held one.

What in the new year should we do, of course that is if we don't believe that this should be the way things are? Establishments such as restaurants and other places of trade owe their survival to the general public who spend their money there. The conduct of these and other places towards other human beings is done in your name and on your behalf. The way young men were sent into townships to brutalise, maim and kill. The same way a Somali trader is torched to death. These experessions of prejudice towards "the other" is carried out in your name and on your behalf. Your support is your silence or maybe even active participation. So, the next time that indian shopkeeper shouts at the employee like the employee is less than human, let your shock and horror find expression in the shopkeeper's pocket. Go spend your money somewhere humane and make sure that you spread the word.

You may have noticed the change of tone for the worst on social and other electronic media. There is a simmering resentment and anger. This too will someday find its own expression, alternatively it may just create the space and platform for mayhem and senselessness. It is not enough that as a man you do not rape. Every rape is in your name. Your horror and disapproval must find expression in your constant fight (in whatever way you choose) against rape and sexism. So you are not homophobic but you know and socialise with those who are. Give expression to your believe.

These are old issues and some may say these are tired issues. For me, this is a new year and each year that passes by without these old tired issues being dealt with, something will have to give. This may be a new year when we find new ways of having a conversation, even a screaming match, about the things we disagree about. You may find yourself at a place where you are the other and for that reason you may be kicked to death by young boys. Those who survive you may watch the young boys get away with it.

Happy New Year, whatever that means to you.