HOW II WISH WHITE PEOPLE COULD WAKE UP

ENTIRELY WITHOUT PREJUDICE

This post is in direct response the cancellation of the Cape Town bicycle race and will no doubt cause huge controversy and anger among white people and ii did send this letter to the local community paper The False Bay Echo who ran the story of the township concerned being Masiphumelele Fish Hoek Cape Town.

Dear White People Please Wake UP!

When ii heard that the bicycle race was cancelled due to the wind my first thought was ‘there’s more to this story’ and today ii hear about what happened in Masi and now it all makes sense.  Firstly ii would like to salute the leaders and community of Masi on giving a brilliant display unity and solidarity. Maximum respect!

Personally ii grew up in Simons Town and my father had me sleep in a cell in the police station in 1981 with instructions to the police to ‘sjambok’ me.  Being a staunch racist he was unhappy because ii had pictures of ‘black men’ on my bedroom wall as well as the Ethiopian flag. The pictures were of His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I my JAH, and therefore ii was praying to a ‘black God’ and this was worse than the posters of His Majesty, Mortimer Planno and of course Bob Marley. My father referred to me as a “kaffir boetjie”.  As soon as ii finished school ii left for Eastern Cape where it was easier for me to move with people of colour and ii returned last year on February 1. 

Saddened was ii to realise that not much had changed in the consciousness of white people who are still largely very racist and ii feel this very deeply even after all these years because ii can see children reflecting adults behaviours which ii witnessed over 30 years ago. But having said that ii can also see that a lot of white people have become conscious and ii see a lot more white people from overseas coming to volunteer this is a good start but much more needs to be done because the problem is bigger than you think or can see.

For me personally to be able in Cape Town to finally walk freely down the street with my brothers and sisters and not be chased by police for doing so, although honestly ii do get a lot of ‘dirty looks’ especially in Fish Hoek and Kalk Bay is a taste of freedom .

When ii first got back ii put my shopping bag on my head in main road Fish Hoek and that caused a bit of attention from other white people and it actually caused me to take the bag off my head as ii felt so uncomfortable, lucky for me it wasn’t a bucket of water.

The only reason ii know a little bit about black people is because ii have lived in communities with them and ii have a Xhosa family in the Eastern Cape and still ii consider myself only semi- conscious to African cosmology and all the wonderful elements which are involved in such beautiful African cultures which ii wish ii could encourage more white people to embrace. 

Honestly ii could not understand why the government sent a white lady into Masi to negotiate black people’s needs then ii remembered that it’s the DA in power down here.  For the community leaders and spokesmen to issue a statement indicating that the greater community of Masi (being black people) do not have a problem with the people of the valley (being mostly white people living around Masi) except for Ms Purchase. 

Personally ii would leave town, but the truth is that whilst a lot of white people might not even realise it, you have seriously offended these people and this is just from how ii know black people, this culture is all about respect, something we don’t have much of in the white nation as evident by behaviour seen around. Gosh white people can barely greet one another. Moleweni!

All ii would like to say at this point is that white people should really respectfully count their blessings that black people are so humble and patient because they have higher wisdom ii can promise you this because if they wanted to kill us white people they would surely have done so already. 

But ii can also tell you what ii have learnt from black people, is that deep in their hearts they are able to find forgiveness and they actually love white people but not our arrogance and egos.  Just the other day ii spoke to one of my neighbours whom ii seldom see and she told me that she works for a white family for 16 years already in Somerset West, yes she travels everyday back and forth to this family literally across the bay to care for them and she told me that she would never ever leave them, wow so much love ii cried when she told me this and to be honest ii have heard this story many times before.

Please my fellow white people, ii am begging you to wake up and see that it doesn’t matter which way you look at this story, it is better to humble now because truly resistance is futile at this point.

Whether we think we are aliens from the stars with super powers or if we think that all people come from Africa and that there is only one race the human race…well the truth is that nothing which did or didn’t happen in history, nothing will ever change the fact that it was the white man who came to Africa with the intention to steal the black man’s gold and silver and force him to seek his Heaven after death.  It is this doctrine that has brought disgrace to both black and white people and causes us both to die in dishonour.  Now we have a chance to break this cycle if we can all just humble.

The white man knew that he would have to pay for the gold and silver and this is how he came to colonize Africa (except for Ethiopia Rastafari) so he could control the people and the land, this is the truth, it is an African thing not a ‘Cape Town thing’.

As white people we all need to start looking at black people as humans.  Now, seriously for me personally and definitely for tourists visiting our country it is impossible to look at Masi and see a human image.

What you see is certainly no different to how rats live all squashed up together in small spaces where people are forced to live in closer than close proximity to their dirt and ablutions.

Do we really want to be seen as a country where the life of a rhino seems more important to white people than black people’s lives? Where white people’s pets have medical aid but their gardener and house keeper or child minder must stand in day long queues at False Bay Hospital?

So our constitution which by the way black people fought for, says that everyone is entitled to life, dignity, a home, water and food so we are failing our people and yes ii can hear all of you saying ‘where is my free house? My free water my free electricity?’  This socio economic crisis we are dealing with right now runs so deep that truly a deeper consciousness is necessary to completely understand the dynamics and seek solutions for all the people and Cape Town is diverse. Black people can teach us about these things. Believe me they have a solution for any problem and this is one of the reasons ii love black people so much.

In my life ii have been raped by a black man, the woman whom ii considered to be my foster mother and ii even have a dread lock named after her RIP Hester Koch, was murdered on her farm in Phillippi, ii lost my niece who walked the Rastafari path with me after she was abducted in Johannesburg by Nigerians, also ii have been mugged and had a few cars stolen and plenty house roberries when ii lived in white suburbs. I have also suffered terribly at white racism because of Rastafari being a ‘black religion’ with a ‘black God’.

Collectively as white people we need to show black people that we are truly remorseful for what our ancestors did to Africa and especially South Africa. Just try to be a little bit more humble maybe learn a few words of Xhosa just basic greetings ii promise you it will change life in the valley and you will see that there is a hope that we can truly live together but first we have to up the game and accommodate our brothers and sisters.

We have to redistribute the land so we can do away with ghettos and townships. It is unacceptable on so many levels that our people are living like this in the first place. This is exactly why ii swore to never buy land in a ‘white suburb’.

We simply cannot and should not tolerate a society where we the majority of our people have the exclusive identity of poverty, hunger, under-education, landlessness and cheap labour.

This identity then presents us with the ‘black condition’ and this condition feeds our collective white arrogance which has it foundation in this identity which personifies the condition of being black, so we absolutely have to shift this attitude of ‘minority white superiority’ in order to deal with this ‘black condition’ we have collectively created.

The comment of Ms Purchase about the Masi bicycle team proves exactly how deep her ignorance of black people runs.  Black people care not about a bicycle race when their human rights are at stake they will say ‘next time bhuti’ and the cyclists themselves would rather embrace freedom than a cycling event. Black people are prepared to die for their rights.