Showerthoughts: On Race and Equality

Dozens dead in Christchurch, New Zealand. Trouble in Charlottesville, USA. And closer to home, who will forget those pictures of black children cowering a corner - far removed from their white schoolmates at Schweizer Reneke primary school in Johannesburg. And every time people of colour are victims of racist acts everywhere, you have politicians dusting their vocal chords and vocabulary, wank lyrical all over the microphones,  offer thoughts and prayers. Occasionally, they will let their guard down and let the world in on their true views on White Supremacism; "There are fine people on both sides." 

After a few days, the politicians will go back behind their shells; the media might be seized with the latest outrage for a few days more - until Kim Jong Un 'threatens' to freeze the world into the long night with a nuclear winter (Anybody wonder whether North Korea actually does threaten the world; or it is just somebody with vested interests who wants to ensure the world stays afraid?) - then the media remembers they too have assets and families to protect; and the very important job of reminding the world of the scourge of millions of black parasites pervading this planet and how they should stay underfoot of the white light. 

Unless it is election season - where you will get token protestors flying banners and tossing rocks and few words of outrage for the cameras to grab, racism is not something that will get the real attention it deserves in the world. But my experiences of it are about Southern Africa. Funny, eh? There is racism in Africa, the very place where black people are supposed to call home. The very place where black people were not supposed to be identified by the colour of their skin. But incidents like Schweizer Reineke and many other places where white people have been forced to be in contact with black people have managed to fly under the radar as of now. Think blacks being whipped at farms by their white bosses. And many other examples. 

Racism - the warped idea that one group of people with a certain shade of colour on their skin is greater than the rest of mankind combined - is the only source of all that is wrong with the world today. But say whatever you will about efforts to heal the world and rid it of racism; of the world dreaming of a day when there is no colour anywhere; of days where people can say, oh the only race that matters is the human race, with a straight face and actually mean it. Fuck that. Race relations is something we will never heal in our society. You know why? That's because the race victim does not have enough resources to force his voice to be heard. Black people are too poor, and the white man, being rich, will rarely have a need of the black man to the point of being forced to suck up to him, let alone make time to listen to his coloured colleague and understand his eternal fight for world equality. Tell me where you have ever heard of anybody in an actual position of power fighting to ensure that he raises the poor below him to his level? Where have you heard white people willing to set things right so that the world has as many rich black people as there are whites? 

(But there is Bill Gates...)

Isnt it funny how, the moment one suggests that governments everywhere introduce social policies that might ensure that workers - most of whom are people of colour - might be left with something set aside for a rainy day, one will be a subject of heavy attacks from the white world, filled with fear mongering and reminders of failed socialist states the world over. So why does the world continue to delude itself that it will solve racism when the people holding all resources do not want to share them? You can all bear witness to how conservatives in the USA are descending on Democratic Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - just because she has dared suggest that people can actually be equal on this earth. In a capitalist society, blacks will forever be the help. And they will be paid just enough to enable them to feed themselves and return to work tomorrow. Farm workers know they cannot do without peanuts they get from Murungu at the farm. Same with blue collar workers of colour everywhere. We sell our labour simply to exist, forget about actually living.
Hell; black people are so poor even their own black presidents will stick their noses up in disgust at the sight of the dark stains that refuse to be wiped out of existence. In Zimbabwe, President Emmerson Mnangagwa - who rose to power on the ill-advised national hope that he would be the antithesis of Robert Mugabe - would not even stay in the country to watch his people drown in the fury of Cyclone Idai. He had tried the same disappearing act when soldiers were unleashed into the streets to quell murmuring voices of discontent from the masses disillusioned by the expensive bottled fart the president and his party had sold them. I cannot imagine his disappointment when he touched down in Harare to be greeted by the sight of beggars still infesting the streets with their rancid poverty. Also, remember that time when he used government funds to charter a private plane to gallivant around the world, or to bring the Mugabe family home from Singapore so Mrs Grace Mugabe could mourn her mother - but then asked for donations to deal with national emergencies like the cholera epidemic; the fifty miners trapped underground, and the Cyclone Idai disaster? You think this shit would have happened if Zimbabwe was full of rich black folk? 

The only place where racism would have been fought on equal footing was the school. Because at school everybody is young, innocent, impressionable, and in uniform. Well; they usually are where I grew up. Everybody learns the same things from the same teacher. (Except in history, where we were taught that David Livingstone discovered Victoria Falls, that Columbus discovered America, as well as many stories of heroic conquests where white people brought light to dark places that were ripping themselves apart with unmitigated cannibalism. No mention of how colonialism and slavery uprooted everything people knew about their culture, history and governance, and crushed them into a life of subservience and self shame. No, I do not buy the fallacy that white people brought light to the dark continent of Africa. Africa was not dark at all; we did not need white people before white people came. But that is the short answer. the story of colonialism is a story of why black governments are failing tragically to do their jobs today - and a story for another day). In the classroom, there is at least an illusion of equality. Or there was supposed to have been one anyway. Now it seems that has been lost too.

It is the main reason why I feel so angry with black politicians who love to appear at every hot spot with placards and a few choice words before they disappear and wait for the next hot spot to whore themselves to the electorate and the media. The only answer to racism is ownership of the means of production. That's why you heard so much noise from the white man after Juju threatened to take land away from their grasp through expropriation. That is why Zimbabwe is in deep shit right now. And that noise you hear from white people whenever slavery reparations are mentioned in the USA? It is the sound of a people terrified of losing their grip on the agenda they set for the world. It is the sound of their fear in having their infallibility exposed. They know the means of production are a complete instrument of control. Karl Marx was right, at least on this front. He who owns the infrastructure determines the super structure. As long as black people own nothing, they will forever be mental slaves of their white counterparts.

Therefore, it should be given that, for as long as the whites own everything, let us forget about race equality in this world. The world we live in today is their world. It has their economy. Their money. Their religion. Their culture. Their politics. Their governance rules. Their media. Their caste system. Their agenda. The rest of us will always aspire to be white. And that is the Mission Impossible we face today; to convince our people today and generations to come that we were once kings. We own civilisation. We are the cradle of mankind. The challenge is for the black man to raise himself to the same level as the his white counterpart. Because white people have no interest in helping us rise. It is like a relationship between an elephant and an ant; I cannot think of a situation where an elephant acknowledges the existence of the ant, let alone considers its feelings.

We might spend pages of newsholes and burn in the sun protesting until our voices leave us. But as long as we do so with empty pockets, empty minds and no will to better ourselves whatsoever, we shall be inferior for the next millennium. And the one after. And the one after that. We shall forever be at the mercy of people with resources. 

Take the example of homosexuality. It was not long ago that people looked down upon homosexuality as an ungodly act that provokes hellfire in the afterlife. Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut... gay people found the support of... (drumroll)… money. They pushed the right buttons - or their money did the pushing for them... And in June 2015 the White House was drapped in rainbow colours after their supreme court ruled that same sex marriage should be legal. And now Kevin Hart has been forced to step down from hosting the Oscars - for gay jokes he made ten years ago. 

Mr Hart is being forced to forfeit his lifelong dream for jokes he made a decade ago. Trump made a joke about grabbing women by their pussy (yes, that is exactly what he said - grab them by the pussy)... and he is president. For those who might be in the dark, Donald Trump is white - he is a proper WASP. Would he be president now had he chosen to say the wrong things about gay people, instead of powerless women whom he knew would not hurt his campaign among fellow powerful whites? You think that would happen to a black person who is as broke as a rat? Barack Obama himself was forced to claim some distance from his priest; because the man had uttered words that threatened the peace and tranquility of the first race. 

I do not think there will ever come a time when black people will ever be treated as special as people treat homosexuality in this world. Or the holocaust survivors. That is because we have NOTHING! We are the basket case. So we settle and scrounge for the scraps. We do not value ourselves... Our governments do not value us. 

You wanna solve race? You really wanna solve race? We need to create our own cookie jars if we are to be treated as an equal race on this earth. Let us create a world where we do not need the help of the white man. Hell; China did it; and now the Americans are resorting to kidnapping just so they can stay ahead of world domination. 

Otherwise we are fucked as a people if we think that the onus is on white people to end racism. It has served them so well thus far - why the fuck would they want it to end?