Race against time: Apartheid victims in a democracy

It’s shocking that violence of race is often direct. As someone correctly observed, we put plaster on a bullet wound in this country. We move on too quickly without dealing with how traumatized we are, and that’s why we will continue hurting each other.  In my first job as journalist, that’s back in 2004 – I came across the story of Nelson Chisale, a black farmworker who was beaten and the fed to a pride of lions by his white boss. I will not take away the fact that Simon Mathebula, a black man, was an accomplice.

In my opinion, Black on Black violence that still exists and the White on Black humiliation we see feed off each other. I think for as long as the one exist, the other one will survive. The way police of the new dispensation treat black people makes us all vulnerable to attack by racists. Police brutality reaffirms the notion that black life is cheap. That is why Kobus Muller and Charl Blom attacked Damane Gwebu for fun. Black man became easy target for drunk young white masters. And it seems to be a trend a the Free State University.

Black people have no social power like whites. We remain at the bottom of the food chain. No economic freedom. That frustrates us so much that we hurt each other. Our own bickering as black people is easily read as people with no respect for humanity and so how can anyone else want to preserve a life that is shown on TV dead like a dog? There are so many apartheid times for blacks in this democracy. Most of the time we inflict it upon ourselves.

We have to stop putting our salvation in politicians who sponsor poverty. We must never despair that the Mandelas, Bikos, Sisulus and Slovos are gone. We are the ones we've been waiting for. I hate cliches and quotes, but change starts from within. We must be the change that we want to see. Self-love is so hard to achieve when we are deliberately enslaved by social grants. It's a veiled insult from government. Its intentions are not to help us but to keep us exactly where we are. It makes us short-sighted and we will never realise our worth and value. 

The anger will ferment, brew and explode in our faces. Blood and gore!