Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Another G-Roundup

At around noon my boy D. called to look in on my roller-coaster head and was surprised to hear I was home.  We agreed on lunch and it was around the time that I was paying for lunch that I realized my debit card was gone.

I thought it through and figured it had to be at the Pick & Pay grocery store I stopped in before going home last night.

We ate quietly before going to look for my debit card just watching folks walking by and talking about this and that when an Indian woman and white man passed us and D. looked at me smiling.  I said squat.  Still smarting from the smash-up on Saturday.

When it happened again with another couple he looked at me and laughed through a mouth full of Schwarma.

"Boet it is normal now.  I am not saying f*ck all but will say something when one of these Indian sistaz walk by with one of us.  We bushies to them boet.  White men are trophies.  We are mongrels and undesirable."

"Me more so boet.  At least you have straight hair and look less coloured than me," D. said shaking his head.

No day in my life is without race analysis and no day in my life is without some unrepentant cracka just working my last f*cking nerve.

D. and I walked into the Pick & Pay but they did not have my card so we drove up the hill to my love shack and there the card was in the pants pocket I wore yesterday.

"I knew it would be here just like that time in Saldanha when I found your wallet on the floor of your car only after you called the police to report it stolen from your cupboard,"  D. said.

We decided on coffee at another mall and walked out to the hatchback when this white woman who manages my complex calls out and comes over looking all serious and flushed.

"Could you pay more attention to your garden and clean the beds of dead leaves.  You are responsible for raking leaves and cleaning the beds," she said with a condescending and dismissive arrogance.

I looked at the wrinkled b*tch with historical hatred but remained calm.  The moment reminded me of an incident with a white woman in Grahamstown in the hey day of apartheid.

The Guru (in training then) and I stopped by to pick another friend up for a weekend escape from law school.  I pulled up in front of his house in a white neighborhood (still illegal then to be living in a white neighborhood) and beeped my horn to alert his ass.

Before he could make it through the front door this white woman walked over to the car and started scolding me about being civilized and not hooting in their neighborhood.  "We have rules here.  You obey our rules.  I will be taking your number down and telling the police how disrespectful you are."

I had literally just returned from five years in the US and here this apartheid relic was telling my nigga ass where I belonged.

In the moments that passed in-between the 'clean your beds manager' and my thoughts I just remained similarly calm.  "It is winter and leaves fall faster than anyone can pick them up but it does not matter since I am moving out in two weeks."

"Oh you are.  OK then," and she just walked off to stand in command next to the two black men she was overseeing as they dug deep trenches.

"Let it just be boet," D. said to me as we drove off.  "I can see you are offended and hurt but you know white people.  They must always remind us about our place.  She could have been nicer and even suggested how you may go about it without telling you your place.  That is what it means to be white boet.  They cannot stand that we can live anywhere now.  And they can't stand that they can't stop us but they will make life hard no matter what," he added.

"I hear you D. but I was also thinking that her teeth were filthy while she was talking.  And she is worried about the leaves in my garden."

My little garden is no more full of leaves than any of my neighbors.  But I remember this woman summoning me when I first got here and the lecture she gave me about responsibility and being a good neighbor.

In twelve months I have seen only about two other folks of color in a gated complex of hundreds of townhouses.

Her words burned me throughout the time we spent having coffee and looking for a new laptop.

White folks wonder why some of us from that era hate their asses so much (not all of them but most).  Makes me wonder what those new era Indian heffaz talk about to Koos, Jannie, and Donald.

There is an uneasy history between us and it is not over.  I will not pretend anymore that I want to find common ground.  It is a waste of effort and there are not too many years left.

If white folks want racism to end they need to check their racist asses on their own and on their own time.  I am not about serving whiteness in any way.  And that includes even allowing YT close to my ass.

If things are to change whites have to disown whiteness.  They have to become race traitors and not just expect that they can continue to be white and not racist.

Racism is the main ingredient of white identity.  You cannot be white and not racist.  So they should start reclaiming their humanity.

And please don't even ask me how that b*tch's interaction with me was racist ... if you don't know your ass is most likely white or just ignorant.

Onward!

2 comments:

Erica said...

Unfortunately nothing has changed. Doubt if it ever will.

Ridwan said...

It won't until they give up there vested interest in always being in control.

Thanks for the heads-up on the multiple posts. It is a new blogger quirk and it is driving me whack.

Peace,
ridi