Don't let labels define us.

Labels are meant to divide us not unite us. Don't let labels define us.

Hey white people.

Is racism still a thing? 

Housewife and Dog Psychologist Start Race Riot on the Ridge

Seeing as I am in New York City this week and clearly having too much fun to blog, I have a guest blogger whom is no stranger to my blog.  She’s the infamous GeeGee Curtained from the Blog Two Fat Cows and she is also the token straight woman and columnist for the popular online Lesbian magazine The Modern L.  In this time of political correctness in South Africa, GeeGee unashamedly calls it as she sees it.  And if you don’t like it, as she would put it, “You can go fuck yourself!”

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m about as racist as I am homophobic and I haven’t been called ‘Superlettiebag’ and ‘Superfaghag’ for nothing.  I’m just fed-up, or as we say here in Gauteng – Gatvol!  I was standing at the till in the supermarket a few days ago and a black man behind me in the queue asked me if I would pay for his groceries.  I’ve done it before when I felt someone needed my help so I glanced down at the contents of his trolley and it was full of luxury items.  Not basic necessities like bread, milk, maize meal and tins of food but rather massive slabs of chocolate, ice-cream, t-bone steaks and so on.  I thought he was joking so I just looked at him and smiled politely so he says to me that he’s serious.  I think the disbelief at the bloody cheek of it was written all over my face because that’s when he called me a racist.  Without me saying a single word I was called a racist.  Asshole.  I thought to myself that he’s a very lucky man because if the incident had happened while the tumour I named Irene was still lodged in my brain it would have ended very badly for him.  Irene didn’t take shit and lost her temper spectacularly when she was fucked with.  Sometimes I miss her.

That brought to mind 2 things that happened while Irene was still very much alive and well.  The first was right here in my own back yard.  I’m ashamed (ok, not really ashamed – I just thought I’d put it out there to see how it sits) to say that morning I was a poster child for the saying ‘You can take the girl out of the hood...’  I was sitting minding my own business and having my first cuppa of the day (never a good time to mess with my ass) when all hell broke loose outside.  My elderly Golden Retriever Daisy was going absolutely apeshit and she’s a friendly muttley who loves everyone on sight, so it was strange enough for me to go to the window to investigate.  Our lovely neighbours are the Embassy from some God-forsaken African country.  I won’t mention which one but suffice to say it’s one that hangs gay people for the ‘heinous crime’ of loving someone of the same sex.  Anyway, one of the kids that live there was standing on the wall throwing stones at my dog.

"Hey! Stop that!" *through the window in my sternest voice*

He has the nerve to throw another rock, waggle his bum at me and stick his tongue out!  Well.  Clearly that was me!  Before I knew it I was outside in my robe, pyjamas and slippers trying to climb the 7 foot dividing wall. All I was focused on was getting my hands on that little shit and showing him what a crazy ass white bitch is capable of first thing in the morning if you mess with her muttleys.  I don't know what would have happened if my son hadn't come outside to see what the commotion was about and pulled me off the wall...  I don't even want to think of the image Shadrack now has in his head of his madam being held off the floor by her son, arms and legs flailing in her pink pj's and fluffy slippers.  Said neighbours have branded me a racist.  Assholes.  I would have reacted exactly the same if the child was white, a naughty child is a naughty child, no matter what colour.

The second erm... incident was while I was walking our dogs in the park around the corner with our dog psychologist. Don’t judge – I was trying to integrate my beloved late Doberman Samson with our smaller dogs and finally end the apartheid in our household.  There are massive signs everywhere telling people to keep their dogs on the leash but suddenly this ugly ass dog that looked like a hyena (in retrospect I think it might very well have been) appeared out of nowhere and was trying to bite Daisy.  She’s a gentle soul who wouldn’t hurt a fly and this bloody beast is nipping at her flanks and legs, my poor girl looked terrified.  Two black women wearing black t-shirts with white clenched fists on them come strolling over the rise and shout for us to leave their dog alone.

"We're not touching your dog, please put it on a leash" *politely*

"We don't have to do it just because you say so..."

WTF???? Huh?

"It's the law, read the signs" *doing my best to keep cool in front of the dog psychologist*

"You white bitches can't tell us what to do, we're diplomats..."

OMG....

Clearly that was me and all previous thoughts of decorum flew right out of my head without so much as a backward glance.  I made such a scene that two old white men who were there in a bakkie full of black construction workers came running. I could just picture the headline: 

“Housewife and Dog Psychologist Start Race Riot on the Ridge”

It got ugly, really ugly and I got nervous when I realised us whiteys were outnumbered 4 – 30 but my temper had total control over me by then.  At one point the dog lady was holding me back because all I could see was red and I wanted to smack the sanctimonious smirk off that bloody woman's face Oh. So. Badly.  Next thing she was right in my face, spittle flying, shouting that we tortured black people!  Me!?!  I've never tortured anyone or anything in my life but at that point I would’ve been more than happy to start with her.  Things only ended when I told them that one signal from me and Samson would rip all their throats out, starting with their ‘dog’. Gawd, one would think that one could walk one's dogs in peace...  The pure venom and undiluted hatred in that woman’s eyes was something else – I’m pretty sure if she had a gun on her she would have shot me, a perfect stranger.  Asshole.

I like living on the Ridge, but these bloody diplomats really get to me. We pay to live here yet they act like they own the whole neighbourhood, happily living the high life off their countries' gravy trains while their fellow countrymen starve to death.  Assholes.  Oh, and while on the subject of gravy trains - since Missus Z No. 5 has moved into the street our electricity bill has gone up by loads, funny that...  Asshole.  I'm not a racist, but days like that, when I'm exposed to reverse racism at its ugliest, I tend to waiver in my beliefs. My generation had no part of apartheid yet we get punished for it every day.  Growing up the first I ever knew racism even existed was when my mother’s best friend Jubi, her husband Josef and their kids would come over to visit and the neighbours wanted nothing to do with us because of it.  When I asked my friends why they weren’t allowed to come over anymore they told me it was because we had coloured people visiting at our house and their parents didn’t want them to play with me anymore because they saw me playing with coloured children.  Fucking assholes.

I don’t care whether you’re black, blue, green or pink but if you’re an asshole you’re a fucking asshole.  I’m sick to death of being accused of being a racist and keeping my mouth shut, walking on eggshells around black people with chips on their shoulders in case I offend them.  An old friend of mine often rants and raves about the state of affairs in this country – to the point where we tease him that he’s sounding more like a Right Wing AWB leader by the day.  I’m sure old Eugene Terreblanche would turn in his grave if he knew a coloured man was being compared to him!  Can’t help having a bit of a giggle at that...  Ah well, he was an embarrassment anyway – I mean, apart from all the shit the damn fool spoke, the fucker fell off his horse.  Walking in a parade...  And he called himself a Boer?  Perfect example of what I mean by Asshole.

Last year at Pride when I went undercover as a lesbian my Gentledyke and I were asked by a black man whether he could watch us have sex and he kept pestering us for ages, making a complete nuisance of himself.  He got more inappropriate as the hours went by, completely spoiling our day.  If he was white he would’ve had his ass kicked into the next century by the men who were with us but because he was black he got away with it.  Asshole.  And don’t even get me started on the black women in the parking lot of our local supermarket.  Driving massive 4x4’s they can barely see over the steering wheels of – but if they have diplomatic plates you can be sure that bitch is going to either scrape your car or drive over your foot and beware if you so much as say a single word about it, then you’re a racist.  Assholes.  If I did the same thing accidently?  Then I’d be called a racist.  You just can’t win. 

I have often partied and had great fun with people of all races in our Rainbow Nation but I don’t walk around talking about my black friends.  I don’t talk about my white friends either.  Friends are friends, no matter what colour they are.  So I don’t sit down with Precious for a cuppa and a natter – I had a white maid in Spain and I didn’t socialise with her either, as one does when someone is part of your household staff, but I wasn’t accused of being prejudiced because of that.  Besides, Precious is completely uneducated and comes from a small Xhosa village in the Eastern Cape and communicating with her can be a bit of a challenge.  I had no idea until friends from the UK came to stay and they asked me what language we speak to each other, apparently it sounds like a strange form of Pidgin English.

If there was a word for someone who can’t tolerate assholes I wouldn’t mind being called that at all.  An assholist perhaps? But being called a racist?  Yes, I do fucking mind thankyouverymuch...

Time for a voddie shot methinks, I'm all worked up all over again.

*clink!*

GeeGee xx

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The Ugly Truth!

South Africa had a very eventful Easter weekend. The brutal murder of a white supremacist and the blame for the murder justly or unjustly squarely put on the shoulders of a radical youth leader who have been singing a song ruled by a South African High Court to be hate speech. Did the song “Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer” and the careless attitude of one radical person lead to the murder of the country’s most infamous farmer? Will this senseless act of violence tear the fabric of tolerance and is South Africa on a precipice of erupting into chaos of racial tension and retaliatory murders?

Sixteen years after the abolishment of apartheid South Africans wanted to believe we live in a country that has moved beyond institutionalized racism. We declared ourselves the Rainbow Nation where blacks and whites live together in peace and harmony. Was this only an illusion and optimistic idealism? Hopeful ideals slowly started to wane with the emergence of an extremist 29 year old youth leader called Julius Malema. This young man who covets publicity and power first started making reckless utterances attacking and insulting politicians in his own political party and then he focused on opposition parties. In the last year his blatant racist slurs and perpetuation of intolerance slowly escalated. Some interpret his calls to “Kill for President Zuma” and now “Kill the Farmer” to be inciting the masses to murder, creating an environment of festering hatred and racial tensions polarizing our nation along very definite racial lines.

This weekend South Africa’s most infamous farmer was murdered. Eugene Terre’Blanche was found bludgeoned and stabbed to death in his farmhouse. The attack was so violent his face was unrecognizable and blood spatter was even found outside the bedroom he was murdered in. It’s alleged he was murder by a 15 and 28 year old respectively over a wage dispute. Eugene Terre’Blanch was not a nice man. Once the leader of the Afrikaaner Resistance Movement (AWB) he violently tried to derail South Africa’s first democratic elections by a terror campaign of planting and setting off bombs that killed many. He was found guilty of attempted murder and spent three years in jail for attacking a black man who is now brain dead. He made no secret that he believed the white race was the superior race and his neo-Nazi doctrine and style of leadership made him very unpopular amongst liberals in the country. Personally I condemn Terre’Blanche’s murder but he was by no means an angel. He was just a human being with radical political beliefs, beliefs that I do strongly condemn. His death is almost poetic justice as the “Swart Gevaar” (Black Danger) that he and his right wing group feared would destroy South Africa finally led to his untimely demise. But murder, no matter the victim is a vile act of inhumanity!
Many South Africans are reeling with shock over the murder. Some right wing groups are calling for retaliation. White people are enraged and some even scared. Black people are also angry and political leaders are calling for national calm. All the while Julius Malema appears oblivious and deviant. The day after the murder he once again sang the banned song “Kill the Farmer” in Zimbabwe and in a television interview when asked about the murder he apathetically responded by saying he had no comment to give about “such people”. Many people have drawn a direct connection between Malema’s song and the murder of Terre’Blanche and rumours of the pending assassination of Malema has also been reported in the media. To top it all conspiracy theories are rife and people are starting to draw connections between what has happened and a third force operating in South Africa wanting to destabilize the country before the 2010 Soccer World Cup that South Africa is hosting in June this year.

So is this the beginning of a major calamity in South Africa? Should people be scared?

Let’s consider the facts. Racism is still alive and well in South Africa. In some parts of the country it’s more overt than in others. Farmers are killed in South Africa every week and for some reason the killing of one farmer (Terre’Blanche) has made the international media. What is not reported is that on many farms the labourers are treated badly by their employers; some are exploited and treated with no dignity. In some parts of South Africa apartheid never ended and it’s causing anger – an anger that leads to murder. Julius Malema with his song “Kill the Farmer” certainly is not helping to resolve boiling tensions and since he started singing this song at political rallies farm murders increased. The true problem lies with the relationships between white farmers and their black employees. If this is not remedied blood will continue to be shed and our prisons will be filled.
It’s also not just white people that are racists and Julius Malema is a prime example of this. The large scale xenophobic attacks during 2008 also spring to mind where 62 people were killed and over 150 000 people were displaced. The ugly truth is South Africa still has black and white racists, discrimination even in ethnic groupings and hatred towards foreign labourers stealing South African jobs and their women.

South Africa is in a crisis – a public relations crisis. The ranting of an attention seeking young man and the country’s leaders’ inability to rain him in is causing tension that may just finally boil over. A career racist’s murder caught the world’s attention even though it may be only for a brief moment. Our ability to hide from the world that South Africa is still racially divided have been exposed. Our persistent denial that we as a country still have some serious problems and still have a long road to reconciliation ahead has been obliterated.
It took great effort to dismantle apartheid, why now 16 years on is the same effort not being put into building a united nation free from discrimination, racism and fear.

Till next time.

Tempers Flare!

Julius Malema kicks BBC Journalist out of Press Conference

AWB man causes chaos at e-TV studio

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