Sunday 12 April 2015

Colour Fool Letter - A letter to all of us

Dear Reader

The one who sees colour before the person wearing such skin, to you who judges others purely on the effects of melanin. Well I guess we are all racist and defend our racism by all costs. I use to think that this was a South African problem until I saw white police officers in the United States treat the black men as shooting targets, same across the world. Well I am not writing this letter to attack whites, blacks, pink or brown whatever you want to be seen as. This letter seeks to help you think beyond the colour of the skin, assist you to hear the human rhythm of the heartbeat that is similar for all, to notice the colour of the blood you spill while it looks identical as yours. I seek not to make you one as you will not be, nor to unite you cause you see more differences that similarities. 

I only seek to let you know that it is ok to be different, that we do not need to be the same to understand and love each other. Maybe I am the fine one to talk when I still cannot even forgive the things that some "White people" have done to "some Black people". But as I sit and observe while country men fight each other about colour disguised by artificial things such as statues I realise that their battle is not about anything but the colour of their skin, I am saddened by my White friends who welcome me in their houses without noticing my colour to the point of using the term "them" when referring to "blacks" in their discussions with me, letting me drink and eat in the same dishes as them while their helper is not allowed to use the same glass to drink water nor allowed to use the toilet inside the house rather the one built specially for them outside. I am sad  when I visit my mother with my white friends and she still battles to call them by name stopping herself many times from calling them "Master" or "Baas", when my coloured friends take me home and their parents give them funny looks and start moving everything of value out of sight.   

Hope is renewed however when I see my kids play with their friends and see no colour, when they see no limitations based on the colour of their skin but abilities as human beings, when they wipe each others tears and blood without realising the colour of the skin but the pain they feel. When they call each other by name and not race.  When I come back to my life I realise that no matter what happens between me and my friends somehow they will not see me as a soul but as a colour, I am BLACK and we are colour fools...

1 comment:

  1. True that is, and what a great move to have compulsory history subject to all kids in formal education because our people know so little of the history that shapes the country's future. It is so sad to see man of honour wasting a handful of energy chaining themselves and toppling lifeless statutes only for the simple reason of hatred - that's political malice. They should rather focus their energy of pertinent issues such as social cohesion and nation building. Destroying the history of the country (statutes) because I hate and like this one will definitely polarize society and people can not deal with historical monuments and sites as they please. Leadership of the country should step in swiftly before anarchy prevails and prevent xenophobic attacks on fellow African counterparts. The colour of melanin does not count anymore because regardless of how darker your skin is you could get killed just because you don't speak a Zulu ascent.....God save these satanic, barbaric, evil acts

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