My perfect black world

For a long time I thought I didn’t care about racism but the truth is, I had very little reason to. I was born in Cameroon. At the age of four, I went to primary school and for seven years all my teachers were blacks. At eleven I went to secondary school and for another seven years all my teachers were blacks. Then university, and for four years, I only had black lecturers. Then I had my first job, all my colleagues were blacks, my Editor- in- Chief was black too. Even though he thought I was one stubborn addition to the newsroom, he valued my insights and I valued his, our disagreements were never dealt with on racial lines. Everything in my world was black. Everything I had become was made possible by a black. Everything which looked great in my eyes was  black. I lived in a perfect black world. 

Truly and honestly, I couldn’t relate to racism. The notion that a race could see itself as superior and act on it was simply absurd in that perfect black world. There was of course a small expatriate white community in Cameroon. There’s a good chance they had a lot of  influence – as donor agencies, embassies – which inadvertently trickled down to my reality.  But that connection was far-fetched  at that stage in my life, so my perfect black world was intact. 

For those first 27 years of my existence, the closest I came to racism was through media exposure, through cinema. You know the black guy who always dies first? That was the only racist thought that ever crossed my mind, while it made me uncomfortable, it wasn’t anything I took seriously, it was fun, it was entertainment. Whiteness and blackness didn’t matter and I lived a good life.

Then, I had the wisdom to immigrate to South Africa. A whole new whole of race relations awaited. 

Two weeks into my arrival in South Africa, I was at the University of Johannesburg for my post grad studies. My university was at the heart of racism in apartheid South Africa. Years of reform meant a black woman like me could study there but the remnants of its past were hard to completely shake off. In my postgraduate year, all my teachers were white females, every single one of them. A few weeks into school, I made friends with Lebo, she was a South African, born free.

My perfect black world had conditioned me to be so indifferent to race, I didn’t see it. I couldn’t see racism even if it was staring me in the face. I just didn’t give into it too. But Lebo was different, she saw racism in every spoken and unspoken word, in every action and inaction. I regularly chastised her, 

 “Lebo, you must remember that in this thing you call racism, the giver is just as guilty as the receiver” I will say. “The giver for dwelling in the shameful ignorance of their imagined superiority and the receiver for giving a rat’s ass. Why should anyone’s opinion, actions or inaction even bother you? 

Lebo saw racism everywhere but Lebo wasn’t racist and I was naive.

Lebo firmly believed that the apartheid era had created a system that sought to undermine her type, that meant she had to work twice as hard to get recognised. She might not have been born during apartheid South Africa but she firmly believed her life and existence will forever be in the shadows of the system it created and she disliked everything that looked like it. 

Lebo groomed me to be racially aware. To see beyond the spoken word, to observe the system. to question and to challenge. And years of work, years of living in South Africa, years of being alive in a racially tense global context, years of watching and listening, I have come to realise that my perfect black world attitude can fight some forms of racism but not all of it because over and above the day to day interactions between races, racism isn’t about black and white, yellow and green, peach and orange. Racism is about JUSTICE. 

So while the girl from my perfect black world continues to resist succumbing to racism, while she continuously chooses not to  judge people by colour but by  their character and quality of their work,  while she tells herself, she is enough, she is hardworking, and one else’s opinions, actions or inaction matters, that young girl has grown to understand that racism is not just about social interactions. It is not simply the day to day shenanigans that arise when one group assumes superiority or inferiority over another. Racism  is about justice, racism is about the absence of our sense of humanity. 

And that girl cares about justice, If racism is the vehicle that carries injustice around, then I give a rat’s ass about racism. Because I give a rat’s ass about justice and I give a rat’s ass about our collective humanity.

I give a rat’s ass that a sixteen year old black boy is killed on a farm for ‘stealing’ a sunflower, I give a rat’s ass that black dominated jobs are severely underpaid, I give a rat’s ass that a black woman is expected to be in the same pay grade and earn the same salary as a white male that reports to her, I give a rat’s ass that jobs get downgraded when a black person takes the position, I give a rat’s ass that black people are found guilty everyday on the streets of everywhere. I give a rat’s ass that George Floyd was murdered not because of his crime but because of the colour of his skin. I give a rat’s ass about racism because racism is all about justice and the absence of our sense of humanity.

And, I give a bloody rat’s ass that our world is still so unashamed and so pretentious in its commitment to deal with systemic racism. 

It ain’t  just about race, it is about justice, it is about our collective humanity.