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Happy New Year

as you remember: / whites are explorers. / blacks, nomadic. / If you are white, you are an artist. / black, craft-worker/handwork practitioner / whites are doctors & professors / blacks, ‘organic-intellectuals’, witch-doctors and sorcerers. /

By Rithuli Orleyn Artwork by Andrew Tshabangu
Happy New Year

as you remember:
whites are explorers.
blacks, nomadic.
If you are white, you are an artist.
black, craft-worker/handwork practitioner
whites are doctors & professors
blacks, ‘organic-intellectuals’, witch-doctors and sorcerers.
whites have language.
blacks, dialects
whites have science
we have magic
The power to name
designates to White, Religion
and to Black, superstition
Literature vs fables
&
by same logic Whites have Poetry
and we have praise-singing
whites are families
blacks are ‘support structures’
whites have ideology
we have a hunch
& myths
Oh especially our myths
whites have estates
we have plots
whites have festive season
(Holidays of bottomless Chenin Blanc & Chardonnay flowing all day
where we come to pick up a piece-job and cap expression to two phrases: “im sorry madam”
“thank you for tipping sir”
...till end of Feb)
Blacks have big days
(16, 24,25,26, 31, & 1st)
Oh, I forget Black Friday
today ends that big-day minstrelsy
whites have theme parks & casinos
we have mzoli & groover lounge
This is the logic of Malls vs shopping-centres
The reason Whites are greeted with “have a wonderful day sir”
(by a cashier) vs 'NEXT!' &
‘PLASTIC?’ when you are next in line
whites have houses& communities
we have cribs,
backyarders
& the ghetto-fabulous hood
It’s no wonder they have Spaghetti Bolognese (a specific dish)
and we have ‘ukutya kwecephe’
(which is in reality anything on a plate, so long as it’s not poison)
we are guilty of prejudice and strong feelings of hate
Whites take it a step further, & turn that hate into a social safety-net: racism
whites are trust-fund babies, and heirs to land they put Apart-Heid (separating fence) around
And this is why #decolonization
Happy New Year

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