After the announcement of Mmusi Maimane as the new Democratic Alliance leader, I gravitated spontaneously to a song I had only discovered this weekend – Nina Simone’s “To be young, gifted and black”.
I danced as Nina sang “Oh, what a precious dream,” and delighted at the news that someone from my generation had, for at least a moment, made the apartheid ghost disappear.
The invisible weight of the ever present past evaporated as I sang on. The DA after all represented, a union of the Democratic Party and a remodeled version of the last ruling party, the National Party.
It is a past Maimane will undoubtedly continue to be reminded of by the opposition. It was the same story on the social networks when Lindiwe Mazibuko was elected as the DA’s youngest and first black parliamentary leader.
Not only that, she was also a young black woman making political history in our parliament. I recall how we, who rejoiced at her appointment, were scolded by those who refused to congratulate her because the DA was a white party.
Notably those who had expressed this displeasure were older than we were. In our comments we had expressed no interest whatsoever in voting for the DA. The point was that Mazibuko’s appointment indirectly affirmed us as a new generation of black women.
In response to that attitude I wrote a poem called “You can take your freedom and smoke it ‘if freedom means I can only vote for your party’”.
Maimane’s election also brought back my memory of what it felt like when Barack Obama was named as the first black president of the US. I ran to the mirror ecstatically and shouted at the reflection of my face “Yes! Yes! I am black!”
I had not anticipated such a surge of elation over an election result I had nothing to do with. But my own humanity and right to exist and succeed in the world as a black person was being affirmed after centuries of global oppression and rejection. On my blog I commented: “God used to be white.”
Those who have never lived in a world where their skin colour was once criminalised can never begin to understand the lived experience of being black. I have come across too many white people who take it as a personal offence when black people affirm their blackness. Many continue to afflict us by attempting to force us to ignore this wound, telling us we are all Africans and thereby leave us without a language to dress our wounds.
Maimane in his speech addressed blackness squarely: “If you don’t see that I am black, then you do not see me at all.”
He may have discovered Frantz Fanon, the philosopher whose words continue to find life among young politically inclined minds, particularly at universities.
There are however, millions of young black South Africans who have held out little hope of ever being seen as a Mazibuko or even a Julius Malema. When you are black, uneducated and unemployed very often the only way your existence is acknowledged is as a threat to the haves – of any hue. But the sight of younger black leaders emerging will offer and inspire someone – or many – the hope that they too can break through the ceiling of invisibility.
Where does this leave the white youth, you may ask? What hope do they have?
The white youth need to own their privilege and determine to make a contribution as the youth dialogue takes place in this country. Unfortunately I have listened to too many young white people whose parents have convinced them into thinking there is no hope or place for them in this country.
What a lie!
Maimane insisted on being seen as a black man. Later he showed off his white wife to the public, perhaps to show that he stands for all South Africans. He identified with the poor unemployed and unemployable youth. He offered himself as the leader for tomorrow, his words promising hope.
Yet, Mazibuko too arrived on the scene with much promise but her face no longer graces DA posters. Will Maimane last? Can he deliver? Time will tell.
The burning pen: Young, gifted and black ....
I danced as Nina sang “Oh, what a precious dream,” and delighted at the news that someone from my generation had, for at least a moment, made the apartheid ghost disappear.
The invisible weight of the ever present past evaporated as I sang on. The DA after all represented, a union of the Democratic Party and a remodeled version of the last ruling party, the National Party.
It is a past Maimane will undoubtedly continue to be reminded of by the opposition. It was the same story on the social networks when Lindiwe Mazibuko was elected as the DA’s youngest and first black parliamentary leader.
Not only that, she was also a young black woman making political history in our parliament. I recall how we, who rejoiced at her appointment, were scolded by those who refused to congratulate her because the DA was a white party.
Notably those who had expressed this displeasure were older than we were. In our comments we had expressed no interest whatsoever in voting for the DA. The point was that Mazibuko’s appointment indirectly affirmed us as a new generation of black women.
In response to that attitude I wrote a poem called “You can take your freedom and smoke it ‘if freedom means I can only vote for your party’”.
Maimane’s election also brought back my memory of what it felt like when Barack Obama was named as the first black president of the US. I ran to the mirror ecstatically and shouted at the reflection of my face “Yes! Yes! I am black!”
I had not anticipated such a surge of elation over an election result I had nothing to do with. But my own humanity and right to exist and succeed in the world as a black person was being affirmed after centuries of global oppression and rejection. On my blog I commented: “God used to be white.”
Those who have never lived in a world where their skin colour was once criminalised can never begin to understand the lived experience of being black. I have come across too many white people who take it as a personal offence when black people affirm their blackness. Many continue to afflict us by attempting to force us to ignore this wound, telling us we are all Africans and thereby leave us without a language to dress our wounds.
Maimane in his speech addressed blackness squarely: “If you don’t see that I am black, then you do not see me at all.”
He may have discovered Frantz Fanon, the philosopher whose words continue to find life among young politically inclined minds, particularly at universities.
There are however, millions of young black South Africans who have held out little hope of ever being seen as a Mazibuko or even a Julius Malema. When you are black, uneducated and unemployed very often the only way your existence is acknowledged is as a threat to the haves – of any hue. But the sight of younger black leaders emerging will offer and inspire someone – or many – the hope that they too can break through the ceiling of invisibility.
Where does this leave the white youth, you may ask? What hope do they have?
The white youth need to own their privilege and determine to make a contribution as the youth dialogue takes place in this country. Unfortunately I have listened to too many young white people whose parents have convinced them into thinking there is no hope or place for them in this country.
What a lie!
Maimane insisted on being seen as a black man. Later he showed off his white wife to the public, perhaps to show that he stands for all South Africans. He identified with the poor unemployed and unemployable youth. He offered himself as the leader for tomorrow, his words promising hope.
Yet, Mazibuko too arrived on the scene with much promise but her face no longer graces DA posters. Will Maimane last? Can he deliver? Time will tell.
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