tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-92113787379159486792024-02-20T12:15:14.011-08:00Conrad KochConrad Kochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13341285929993358905noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9211378737915948679.post-18352100716018330752016-05-06T04:39:00.000-07:002016-05-06T04:39:52.326-07:00Gareth Cliff, racism salesperson.<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;">I tweeted about this waitress silliness and next thing I know Gareth Cliff is hating at me. So I reckoned if we saying our opinions...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The great thing about Gareth Cliff is that his ego acts like
a massive force field stopping all empathy and reason from reaching him. Anyone
who suggests even the slightest degree of cultural sensitivity or tactical
logic is immediately branded a crazy ass social justice Marxist racial
nationalist, because God forbid that in post-apartheid South Africa it be
suggested white people uses a bit of fucking tact.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The Cliffster and his sycophants (he really is the only guy
I know with his own lapdoctor – like a lapdog, but with an alleged medical
degree), believe they are the walking truth of SA social discourse. Starting
with freedom of speech. You see, none of us have a clue, just Gareth. Penny
Sparrow should be allowed to call black people monkeys, duh. For Gareth being
civilized isn’t a more inclusive politically nuanced society, it’s just white
people saying what the fuck they like.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Or remember when Gareth Cliff backed up Rhodes, a dude who
happily stole a million square miles of Africa and forced its occupants into
servitude? Or when he stereotypes black accents on TV and radio? Gareth just
always seems to land on a certain side of history, doesn’t he? And then we
wonder where the likes of Matt Theunissen gets the idea it’s ok to be a racist doucehbag?
It can’t be in some small way connected to a segment of our politically
conservative white settler community’s prejudices being reinforced by arrogant
wannabe intellectual celebs sneering in the face of black pain can it? “No,
never, not Gareth boet, I’ve seen him hug Unathi, he’s not a racialist.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">On the other hand, in the world of Cliff, if a black person
doesn’t tip a white waitress, suddenly “enough is enough”? So if a white person
goes ‘black people are monkeys’, let’s be tolerant. But if a black person snarkily
tells a white person to give back the land, all hell breaks lose at your radio
station? Double standards are double standards.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But fair enough, let’s assume the emotionally crippled zoo
animals he is getting advice from are shielding cross-racial kind thoughts from
entering his brain. Surely he would intellectually engage with the great points
by his fellow atheist, and actual academic, Jacques Rousseau, who in a balanced
way points out various counterarguments of #tipgate: </span><a href="http://synapses.co.za/boys-with-tips-and-girl-with-cake/"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">http://synapses.co.za/boys-with-tips-and-girl-with-cake/</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">? Qwabe
was being a complete douche by taking out all of history on some woman just
trying to get by. There is room for a more complex reply to a black nationalist
being a chop than white nationalism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The Cliff team/circus troupe seems to have framed this thing
simplistically as a reply to RMF’s belligerence. And, yes, the Rhodes Must Fall
/ Fee Must Fall comrades can be very belligerent. In fact this situation was an
amazing opportunity because a prominent RMF activist did something which most
people would define as being cruel – you can’t be a feminist and be mean to a
women working for you. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">They could have instigated a nuanced cross-racial discussion
re how we treat each other in South Africa (I saw some well meaning white
people online imagining this in that frame, but oblivious to the Cliff Central
discourse). They could have opened up a white discussion about how we respond
to often very justifiable black anger. Basic tact and thoughtfulness, really.
Instead the assholes at Cliff Central decided for a culturally oblivious
anti-RMF stance and positioned this in terms of saving the white maiden in
distress.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">You realize RMF is black nationalist in tone (and make extremely
relevant points re how Eurocentric SA in many ways still is)? You realize the
opposite of black nationalism is white nationalism? White nationalism is
apartheid, Nazis and Steve Hofmeyr. Chester Missing tweeted a couple of tweets
taking the piss out of both Qwabe and the fundraising and he started getting
white hate for days, including from international right wing groups. Because,
as Gareth and clowns would know if they made even the slightest attempt to
listen, you can’t dip into the white nationalist pool and not invoke racism.
And before you buy their ‘we’re being bullied’ pitch, they don’t listen to
reason on any platform, and only interact civilly with social media that
validates them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Of course they hid behind some black people. “But it was a
black ou who started it. Why have you got to make everything about race?”, gets
asked on Twitter. That’s exactly the point. This was a great place to do actual
nation building, and instead their politically oblivious posturing just handed
it to the bigotry brigade. Proof? There are countless examples of black people
(over and above the monolith that is apartheid’s legacy) who get treated like
shit in SA, people being peed on, beaten up and fired without pay – they have
no fundraisers because, as Rebecca Davis points out in her Mail and Guardian
piece, it takes social capital to get that kind of online mobilization by people
with money. In the words of Louis CK: “If you are white and don’t admit it’s
great, you’re an asshole”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This week Gareth went on another radio rant about what he
calls political correctness. Gareth thinks we should tell it like it is.
Coincidentally Nick Mulgrew wrote this for the M&G online re Matt
Theunissen, the K-word dude: </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">“…Maybe
he wouldn’t have empowered groups of white bigots, who now celebrate him for
“telling it like it is”.” I wonder who gave Matt that idea, Gareth? Surely not
a DJ whose been spouting this bullshit for over a decade?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Finally, please
don’t take these opinions as final. I know I’m a douchebag, and my puppet even
more so. My whole game plan (as bad as I am at it) is to discuss and build
nuance… let’s be more kind. However, if I seemed a bit mean or insulting here
re Gareth and the vegetable patch he calls friends, go listen to his podcast
about saying what you want.<span style="color: #443e3e;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Conrad Kochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13341285929993358905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9211378737915948679.post-85075323668205759652015-09-02T01:16:00.000-07:002015-09-02T01:17:01.356-07:00We are all Clive Naidoo: class, language, race and prejudice<div class="MsoNormal">
I was going the post this, then I wasn’t going to, then…
whatever. These are thoughts in progress.</div>
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Why are 62% of Stellenbosch’s students still white, 21 years
after the fall of apartheid? Who the hell allowed that to stay so unchanged? We
did, that’s who, from our homes in Bloubosrand and co.</div>
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Look at Clive Naidoo’s arrogance at the personable black
cop. SA’s economic story is a cross racial class alliance that has cultural,
racial and gendered intersections that we just don’t talk about.</div>
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Comedy being my area, allegedly, let’s go there. The reason stereotypical,
working class black accents are funny for corporate office type people, at
least most of them, is that that is not the language of the middle class (yeah,
I know there are some who think that was Chester’s vibe… it wasn’t, in fact
quite the opposite, but nationalists will be nationalists. See my next show, Missing, for the next step). </div>
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Middle class Indian, black, coloured and white people lurve
laughing at the accented other. Working class Afrikaners and working class
Zulus alike. The difference of course being that working class Afrikaners had
apartheid on their side, which is all the difference. That was one major driver
of Afrikaner nationalism and eventually apartheid, to uplift white working
class from cross-racial class alliances and competition. English people love
laughing at working class Afrikaans accents and tropes, because we think we are
more evolved, and middle class black people in Joburg love laughing at people
from Limpopo, for very similar reasons.</div>
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Our power is in our gaze. Those who give us the right social
cues get access, respect and trust. Those who don’t get ignored, sidelined and
laughed at. Of course, with white people being 5 times wealthier than black
people (Census 2011), and with 70% senior management positions, the power of
enculturation and assimilation is still very biased towards white tastes. You have
to talk and act more like the people with power, not the other way round, which
is where white people culturally still have power, as has been so brilliantly
explained by better writers than me. This doesn’t mean that white people are
somehow bad– no, we do have economic clout because of an unjust history. What’s
bad is when we pretend that isn’t the case and don’t try to fix it.</div>
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This class-race intersectionality means all sorts of things
get ignored by all sorts of people.</div>
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For example:</div>
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1) An inspiring conversation that seems to be happening is of
the actual experience of black people in white dominated schools, universities
and workplaces. It brings out human, tangible micro-political truths of the
brutality of subtle and not-so-subtle racism and the dominance of cultural
assimilation. For e.g. that generation of black kids being the first in
previously white schools have stories of alienation that gives humanity and
texture to more generalized statements about racism. Those stories make the problem
understandable to white ignorance… if that were an aspiration. I think that’s
what made Luister so powerful.</div>
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2) There is a conversation among some middle class black people
about rejecting whiteness – they haven’t been tamed vibes. Great! How far is
this conversation going? My life is full of middle class black (of all
apartheid race types) audiences who happily laugh at working class / Other
accents and stereotypes, and who support proudly comedians who give them that
fix. It’s like a reverse of the DA problem. Ignoring class and culture hides
the white supremacy in our midst, black. It’s all very well to reject
whiteness. That’s not a conversation for this white guy, however, I would like
to see more writing from the opinionati about the actual micro-political ways
people are Otherised in our environment. Because I think that’s where the
battle actually lies.</div>
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3) I have stopped making Mmusi Maimane sounds white jokes,
because in my opinion black people sound how black people sound. To tell Pabi Moloi
she sounds white is to pretend that there is an essentialised black truth. My
theory of jokes is to reject that as prejudiced, but balance it with an
acknowledgment of how power affects how people are expected to sound,
whiteness, class, access to education, etc.</div>
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4) I imagine some readers have their backs up at this white
dude making comments about blackness. The problem is that in the real world
audiences are not split, the lines of prejudice don’t happen in neat little
boxes. To pretend they do is the domain of armchair critics who never have to
actually face the actual prejudices, and cross-gender-sexuality-race-class-ethnic
intersectionality of real SA. That’s my beef with bloggers and writers.
Comedians have to face real world audiences, not just post and wait for approval
on Facebook. However it also means we can be far more prejudiced. </div>
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5) For example, I went on stage at a corporate event a while
back after a black comic told the mixed, but mainly white audience he’s likely
to stab them. If my comedy should question these norms, how does splitting this
conversation into neat little camps of black and white stuff help? My angle is
deal with my privilege and then game on.</div>
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6) In that line I think we need more of a conversation on what
makes an environment Afrocentric, because just having black people present doesn’t
mean it’s accessible to all black people. Just because there are women there
doesn’t mean its feminist. It’s just a vital start.</div>
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In the end I am saying we need more Luister and less Clive
Naidoo. Or perhaps we should all be Clive Naidoos and film our intersectional
race-class-ethnic prejudice for the world to see?</div>
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Conrad Kochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13341285929993358905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9211378737915948679.post-37643088193945097872015-04-01T09:10:00.001-07:002015-04-01T09:15:12.355-07:00Dear America, let's talk about Trevor...<div class="MsoNormal">
Dear America,</div>
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This week I did loads of interviews, weirdly, about another comedian. Here's what I would say to you about it:<br />
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So some of your citizens, America, are going nuts at a few dodgy
tweets from Trevor Noah, understandably, but not without irony. Bear in mind,
they are from the same country that produces Achmed the dead Muslim guy puppet
and the homophobia and sexism conventions that are comedy roasts. Of course the
host of the Daily Show needs to be held to higher standards, but can we get
some perspective please?</div>
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Trevor’s success is reason to celebrate. He is the product
of 21 years of cultural adjustment in our country, and by the sounds of it huge
shifts in the US. As Chris Rock tweeted “thank you Barak Obama”.</div>
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Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying don’t criticize. In fact
the annoying thing about the U.S. Trevor crits is that they are so useless.
Trevor’s hugely popular comedy here frequently relies on stereotypical
depictions of black and ‘coloured’ (local term for mixed race, which he
identifies with and then doesn’t as suits him) identity, and hyping up accents
to make middle class people laugh, although this is interspersed between
self-reflexive culturally aware brilliance. From what I can see what he does
for you focuses more on the brilliance part. The fact is that he has jumped
massive cultural hurdles to bring an international, Africanist view to
mainstream US platform, and in so doing is breaking barriers we would never
have imagined possible. Be honest, his Daily Show stuff so far has been
brilliant and the genre has had plenty of white men.</div>
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You need to understand what a massive shift this is. Before
1994 doing stand up comedy in South Africa was the reserve of white men,
because we had this little problem you may have heard of called ‘apartheid’. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words Trevor could not have
existed before 21 years ago, or a while after for that matter, because black
people were being given shovels, not mics. Many of them still are.</div>
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It also meant that until 21 years ago we had almost no
progressive comedy audiences, outside of a relatively small clique of liberals,
and then usually very white. There was basically no black stand up comedy,
because speaking truth meant jail. When our current top black stand ups were
starting out post-apartheid (e.g Marc Lottering, David Kau, Kagiso Lediga, and
later Loyiso Gola) they played to almost exclusively white audiences, white
audiences who had for generations been fed apartheid’s version of blackness.</div>
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In comedy you need to position yourself in relation to your
audience. It gives you a stance to talk from, and a reason for them to laugh. The
problem with this is that they can only understand you in terms that they
relate to – it structures what options you have as a comedian. If you want to
middle class white (and nowadays black too to be honest) audiences to like you
with minimum effort then feed them the material full of simplistic ‘black’ (in
SA read working class here also) accents <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>/ stereotypes and they will scream and clap. To get them to
rethink their opinions takes cultural gymnastics, something we have gotten very
good at in my opinion.</div>
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For example back in the 2000s a top black comic called David
Kau started a comedy show called “Blacks Only”, ironically named after
apartheid signifiers. This roadshow now pulls in excess of 3500 people a time a
few times a year around the country with very little marketing. Comedians now
have space to build and develop acts, and to make a living out of telling jokes
without needing to bend over backwards to deal with oblivious audiences. So,
Comrade America, you had a bit of a head start, for the most part.</div>
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Our comedians are making enough money to travel overseas to
spend enough time there to translate over insanely complex cultural gaps. Some
here would ask why? They believe we should be more Africanist, which is a good
point. In SA have 11 official languages, and extremely complex racial dynamics,
so developing material you, America, will understand is extraordinarily
difficult. Bear in mind, when your comics come here your world view has been
explained to us over decades. You, on the other hand, have only just got a
glimpse of us.</div>
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Trevor is a product of his own hard work and a collective
effort that has spanned two decades of democracy. Think about that before you
try tear him down please. </div>
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Conrad Kochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13341285929993358905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9211378737915948679.post-34615208119587827102015-03-25T00:14:00.000-07:002015-03-25T00:53:25.729-07:00Another privileged white guy commenting on Rhodes statue.<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">I know, </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">another</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> white guy talking about Rhodes, just what we all really needed. However, there are a few small culture points, and a blog by the Cliffster that I though worth commenting on, so here I go.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Uncle Gareth Cliff’s blog on this Rhodes statue business
points out that “</span></span><span style="color: #1a1919; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It is a hollow
victory to defeat those already dead”. Of course, if the fight is only with the
dead then why write a blog? He made it with the living the moment he commented.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1919; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">My own view is that UCT student Chumani Maxwele is winning a cultural
battle, and he’s winning because he played smart. Transforming an entire
university in one fell swoop is such a huge task that taking it on at once in
totality effectively drowns your objective. The powers that be will be able to
throw a million grinding excuses, and the arguments will take so long to carry
through that eventually the media, and the mobilized public will lose interest,
concentration and understanding.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">What Chumani did was attack the symbolic heart of the
university, or to be more precise, he endowed a statue with this status, and
then proceeded to do the completely unreasonable. He threw poo at it. Throwing
poo breaks all the rules. It defines his arguments as outside of common good
taste and acceptable debate. Simplistic understandings will see this purely as
populist grandstanding, which it is, but to do so ignores the actual cultural
power structures at play. That’s why it creates so much upset, and in turn
media attention. That is exactly how you create pressure for change.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">UCT has been faced with pressure for change for years now.
In fact it’s part of the mechanisms of UCT’s power structure that people loudly
protest about lack of change, then some white liberals who always seem to be in
charge wring their hands, and then nothing changes. The trouble with
subscribing to normal strategies in this is that they all almost always get
subsumed by the Foucaultian logic of the situation: “yes, we all agree, change
should happen faster, sad face, sad face”. The domain of Truth remains
unscathed, or changing with glacial slowness. At least that's how it looks from the outside.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Chester Missing interviewed Chumani for this week’s LNN,
expecting to tease him about throwing poo, as he had done with Ses’Khona’s
Loyiso Nkohla in the past. Chumani’s devastatingly direct answer showed the
genius, intended or unintended, behind the poo. He said it is a reminder of the
truth, the bucket, portaloo and unsafe public toilets the poorest students and Cape Townians face, that their wealthier, and often whiter fellows do not. This symbol,
thrown against the statuesque symbol of white liberal apathy re inequality, and
inherited wealth (in social capital and actual) brings one to the simple brutal
truth of unequal experiences of education in the Western Cape. If you grew up
at the feet of this statue, you are very unlikely to have faced what Chumani
was referencing, which he well knows. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Of course, the cynics will argue that the statue doesn’t
represent anything and that the students are just looking for attention. The thing is that maybe the statue didn't represent anything until a few weeks ago (I think it did), but it definitely does now. That's why this is clever.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">This is why Gareth Cliff’s blog post so ‘monumentally’
misses the point. I have had my run ins with Gareth in the past, so I would
rather be less of an insult-troll now, and I like the guy, chronic cultural </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">obliviousness notwithstanding.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> The problem with cultural obliviousness is that it </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">perpetuates</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">privilege</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">, and eventually racism.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Gareth argues, as many white types seem to be doing, that if we start tearing down
symbols then we should tear down the new statue of King Shaka as well. While
Shaka was his own kind of bastard this argument is ridiculous. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">To put it simply, if Shaka had colonized Europe and we were
debating taking his statue down in Leicester Square, while his descendents
still earned on average 6 times the native British people, and their children
were being educated in the language of the conquerors, then we can start comparing. To pretend otherwise is effectively </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">historical</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> denial.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Gareth also argues that many of American historical cultural
icons and first presidents were slave owners. Yes, David Chappelle has a whole
routine about his discomfort with that. We are, and I know this will come as a
surprise to some, living in Africa. Why should Africans accept the cultural
icons of their colonizers? And why should us colonizers expect them to? Cecil John
Rhodes entire concept was about forcing his culture on people. He would quite
happily have pulled down a statue of Shaka, if such statues had been Zulu
culture at the time. Europeans did all they could to separate Africans from
their culture, so let’s get off our high horses. In Rhodes’ case literally.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Another dominant discourse, as seen in newspaper letters
columns from disgruntled UCT alumni, snootily says that these students should
be studying and not moaning about statues. Yup, that’s what you say when it’s
your guy’s statue that’s there. How that isn’t obvious is utterly beyond me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Of course, if we were the ones whose lives had been
disadvantage by this we would be screaming blue murder. If AfriForum and Steve
H are even remotely a measure of how white people behave when they feel
slightly oppressed, can you imagine how we would have treated a statue of
people who gave us passbooks, a Land Act and Umlungustans?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Another silly example people give is that of the UK being
scattered with statues of William the Conqueror, and they’re not tearing them
down. Before I slam my head into a wall, can we just agree that modern Britain
is not at all, even slightly like South Africa? The 5 million or so white descendents
of William the Conqueror and henchman don’t still own most of that country’s
wealth, like we do here. The conquered are not still living in their millions
in shacks on sand dunes on the edge of the city. Really man. How stupid can
people get? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">(Yes, I know the statue isn’t changing that, but if even
transforming a statue is resisted, how long will wealth take?)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Another issue is the idea that taking away the statue will
take away history. That’s just plain offensive. Poor South Africans don’t have
to be reminded of Rhodes’ legacy. They feel it every time they catch trains,
taxis and buses to homes miles from where they work, to live on land that was
taken from them by people like or directly connected to the guy in the statue.
Only a privileged twat would think they need a lump of metal to remind them of
Rhodes’ legacy. Besides, put the statue in a museum. Problem solved. As far as I am concerned the statue itself </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">doesn't</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> remind us of history, it hides it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Finally, yes, we know there are bigger issues than this.
Yes, we know removing the statue does very little in real terms. The point is
that a cultural shift needs to happen and it needs to start somewhere. Let it
be here. Of course some would argue that this statue thing subverts real
change. What change? Apparently 4% of full professors in SA are black South
Africans. Even that frikking statue is resisting transformation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Many white people time and time again seem to overlook the
impact of language, social and cultural skills in education, because in cultural
terms higher education in South Africa is calibrated towards our comfort.
Imagine all universities were first language isiXhosa or SiPedi? I am not
saying we are to blame for all education screw-ups in the last 21 years (let’s
not even start on before that), just that it would really help if we stopped
being dicks about it. Yes, I know, not all white people are. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Gareth also suggests that this is a sort of getting even,
revenge type thing a la Stalin, Saddam, etc. That’s plain cultural ignorance. The
extreme poo-throwing lengths, as far as I am concerned, were that of a group of
Black student/s drawing a line in the sand re cultural arrogance and saying ‘up
to here and no further’. Nobody is talking about getting even with Rhodes. That
would be ridiculous. Chumani and friends are trying to send a message to the
people running the Establishment NOW. Agree with his acts or not we need to see
them as a well thought out strategic attack. Sometimes being reasonable and
being controllable are dangerously aligned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I think they should take the statue down and
then debate what to do with that space, because the great thing about being on
the couch is that when we debate who should be on the couch you have already
won.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In conclusion, this is not “</span><span style="color: #1a1919; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">like a child putting a plaster on his wound”, as Gareth calls
it. It’s about a cultural battle, where people are fighting to change 350 years
of enforced cultural assimilation, where Other languages, norms, traditions and
icons were treated as less than next to consciously and strategically planned Western
cultural domination. To be honest, with the bullshit we pulled in this country maybe
the only credible thing white South Africans can do when black South Africans
provoke for cultural changes such as this statue is say: “can we organize the
removal crane?”</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The missing part of the conversation, or at least one that
needs more exploration is complexity in Black voices regarding the conversation
on symbolism and change at SA universities. Chumani and friends can’t at all claim
to speak for all Black students, and it would be wrong to assume that he does.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px;">That's what this white guy thinks.</span></span></div>
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Conrad Kochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13341285929993358905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9211378737915948679.post-31980142394559859452015-02-10T01:46:00.005-08:002015-02-10T02:17:30.981-08:00Apartheid and Eskom for white people.<div class="MsoNormal">
Here’s why I think we need to talk about Eskom and
apartheid. Firstly, let’s agree that our opinions matter: every article that
deals with apartheid does, slowly but surely, create a Foucaultian style Truth
of what actually happened, which defines how we understand what is happening
now. A narrative about our past, and in turn present, that becomes accepted
fact.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I was there when Jacob Zuma, that gregarious geriatric
hustler who hasn’t paid back the money, told us that Eskom’s kak is apartheid’s
fault. Chester Missing tweeted at the time how ridiculous this was. Because,
after we have bought submarines instead of power stations, it is patently
stupid.</div>
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But that, my friend, is only half the picture. Take today’s
Cape Times piece by David Lipshitz. David blazingly details exactly how our
power problems are not apartheid’s fault. It’s a great piece titled “Don’t
blame power crisis on apartheid”, where there is absolutely zero acknowledgment
of what apartheid DID do. It’s a brilliant breakdown of how useless the ANC
Eskom strategy has been. And it has been useless (as far as my ignorant little
brain can tell). However, like with Zelda, time and time again the question of
what apartheid DID do gets misunderstood or ignored. This undermines the
potency of how we can hold government to account, because when they say we are
being biased, it’s true.</div>
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<br /></div>
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A problem is that the memory conversation has been polarized,
so when many white political commentators write, they often seem to assume we
are all in agreement on what apartheid DID do. We are not. Not at all. The
apartheid conversation never really happened in SA. In my view most South
Africans, black and white are clueless about the machinery that apartheid
engaged to extract black labour and wealth that left millions destitute. And
the fact is no significant white leader post apartheid has turned to their
followers and in no uncertain terms explained that their privilege and wealth
(in this, if you are not in a shack, you are wealthy) are a direct product of
apartheid. The argument that ‘I am wealthier just because I work hard’ means
you believe that the millions of black people out there stuck in poverty are
lazy. Kinda racist, eh? It means denial of unequal access to resources, education,
business language skills and cultural capital, etc.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I had one guy on twitter in relation to this saying “I’m not
denying apartheid was wrong”. But if that were the case then you would want an
article on energy, the ANC and apartheid to nail, at least in passing, what apartheid
DID do re energy. Its not so much this one article that gets my beef, but
rather the larger conversation that repeats itself. The facts of historical
inequality are time and time again overlooked. And, ironically, it helps the
ANC get off the hook because it validates accusations of bias.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Black people were for the most part denied any access to
such resources whatsoever. The fact is we have had to pour huge effort into
building infrastructure that wasn’t there before. Online I get tweet after
tweet by white people <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(not all,
just some) arrogantly claiming that apartheid built infrastructure… the racist
ones insanely try use this as proof of cultural supremacy. Firstly, black
people did the work, at the end of gun, secondly, that work was funded by evil
apartheid employment practices, thirdly, that infrastructure was built to buff
up the cushy, privileged lives of 10% of the population, fourthly, it
bankrupted us, and fifthly, it was also hugely corrupt. </div>
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<br /></div>
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If the conversation about apartheid is to move forward it
needs to actively explain what apartheid did do, so we can really get into what
it did not. This both takes away dodgy politicians’ historical excuses, and
also, as importantly, disrupts the gradual apartheid denial that happens when
we leave apartheid’s impact out of the conversation. </div>
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Ps, before the usual right wing nutjobs accuse me of white
guilt and political correctness. 1) Its not about guilt. It’s about putting the
facts on the table so we can move forward. 2) Politically correct is where you
play it safe. I am saying, stop playing it safe. Being brutally honest about
apartheid, white privilege AND ANC mistakes/corruption means pissing off some
very wealthy people.</div>
Conrad Kochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13341285929993358905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9211378737915948679.post-78592980605303739502014-11-01T00:00:00.002-07:002014-11-01T00:01:11.144-07:00Why it's racist to blame black people for apartheid, duh.<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Steve Hofmeyr, that asinine blonde amoeba, is using the
world’s most simplistic rhetoric device to avoid culpability for his bigotry:
he’s going ‘prove it’. It’s an old, hack trick that has its strength in the
idea of incommensurability. We don’t share a common set of agreements over what
constitutes prejudice, so in Stevevillefontein just about nothing is racist,
unless that exact same thing happens to a particular type of right wing white
person *, then it’s nuclear meltdown stage 9. How do they pull off being a
victim and oppressor at the same time? Being a dominatrix in AfriForum (Steve’s
official fan club) must be very confusing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">As you may or may not have heard, depending on whether you
care for the intellectual Jurassic Park that is Stevo’s twitter feed, Steve
believes that “Blacks were the architects of apartheid”. So then now, I know in
the common sense world the rest of us live in it’s patently obvious that this
is racist, but nope, not for The Steve and his merry band of morons. So now,
painfully, I will explain why it’s fuggen racist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Just to be clear, I am not explaining this for Steve. His
head is too far up his own ass to hear us anyway. I am explaining this so fence
sitters will stop sitting. The discourse that Steve is spewing is part of a cultural
narrative that maintains the insane inequality we face today. When a white
bigot with huge public presence starts telling black people apartheid was their
fault it’s time for us to block his access to socially accepted public
platforms. With the minimum of publicity we need to tell his umlungustan that
they have a right to a racist mindset, but it’s gonna cost them. Kyknet, I will
be asking your CEO for an LNN interview about what side of this line you are
choosing. Neutrality on this is not neutral.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Is “Blacks were the architects of apartheid. Go figure.”
racist?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Firstly, what’s racism? Simply put, racism isn’t the
consciousness of race as much as it’s the prejudice against people based on
race. As every B grade quasi intellectual white conservative type likes to whine,
yes, in South Africa we obsess on race when the problem is often both class and
race, but that move has been well explored as a white-guy-avoids-the-race-issue
move. If this is confusing Andile Mngxitama lays it down here: http://mg.co.za/article/2014-09-26-class-theory-finally-decolonised<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Next, what is apartheid? Apartheid was a system of laws that
did some wonderful things to black people, to name just a few: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It took away their land and wealth in the Land Act. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It totally deprived them of any effective vote – no
political rights.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It made black people live in ridiculously small rural
outbacks with no way to eek a living but to come hundreds of kilometers to work
on white owned mines, etc, for a pittance while their families scraped by in
poverty.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It gave black people substandard education for decades, and
even tried to force them to learn in Afrikaans, often a 3<sup>rd</sup>
language. How the F do you learn algebra in a 3<sup>rd</sup> language? Imagine
we made your kids learn in Shangaan Steve? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It blocked them from ever being able to advance in their
career. To this day 75% of SA CEOs are white. We also on average earn 6 times
more than black people, so our paranoia that we are under attacked is simply
untrue.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It bullied them into peripheral city outskirts where they
had to get back to by a certain time or face jail or deportation to homelands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It made people carry evil little books called passbooks,
which if you didn’t have meant jail.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So, for the sake of common human decency, let’s agree at
least that apartheid was itself racist. So now, “Blacks were the architects of
apartheid”. Obviously they didn’t vote for apartheid themselves? And obviously
they didn’t send the trucks that dragged people screaming from their homes?
Yup, this is that wonderful dynamic sexist pricks do when they blame the victim
instead of the rapist. Basically Steve is telling us it’s black people’s fault
because they were asking for it, in their tight pants and short skirts. If you
are a Steve fan right now and you do not feel the deepest sense of shame then you
should seek help because your soul has been expropriated without compensation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">However, Steve tried to build some credibility around this
claptrap on his Facebook page. First, he said ‘go figure’ at the end, which he
thinks means it’s our fault that we didn’t see it like he sees it. If Juju said
“All whites must die. Go figure”, Steve’s little brain would have exploded all
over his Pick n Pay sponsored face, so no.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Steve then tried to explain that if nobody wants to play
with you, then it's probably your fault. Ja, Steve, I am going to shove that
logic so far down your throat you gonna have to sing through your privileged
behind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Let’s go. Steve said: “</span><span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">If the world doesn’t buy into African systems, mentality and
reputation, it isn’t always their fault”. Let’s start with the awkward fact
that he stole his entire language from black people. Afrikaans was first
written in Arabic by an Iman translating the Koran. Salaam alaikum, Oom Steve. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">If you want
more info: http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2014-08-14-i-will-touch-you-on-your-language-rescuing-afrikaans-from-the-right-wing/</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Second, cultural assimilation in our country happened at the
end of a gun, a historical truth Steve and his team just love to ignore.
Secondly Afrikaans boer culture, as it went through SeSotho and SiPedi lands
took on a variety of African cultural features to survive. Damn that must annoy
him. However, what we really need to unpack is the incredible bigotry underlying
the cultural superiority he’s invoking, white supremacist that he is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Steve’s argument is older even than the language he’s saying
it in. Colonialists arrived here and needed to explain their place in the world
in terms of both their claimed decent Christian values (I know, hilarious),
their interaction with the newly discovered Darwinian science of evolution, and
their desire to exploit these ‘new’ lands to the absolute maximum. They saw
themselves as being at the peak of an evolutionary hierarchy: everyone else was
closer to being an animal. It’s much easier to brutally steal a country if the
people living there have been denigrated to animal status. Black people could
try and climb this hierarchy by adopting western cultural norms – we are just
so generous. We also did kindly stuff like force them to hut pay tax or go to
jail, so they had to involve themselves in our economy, an economy in which
they would never be given access or equal social status. Assimilation to
western norms was not a choice for black people. So saying that we didn’t assimilate
to African norms is both untrue, and severely assholish.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">However, the XXX strength racism Steve’s using here is that
he still buys into the black-people-are-closer-to-animals rhetoric. His entire
discourse is one that suggests that black people are less evolved.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">For e.g.: ‘</span><span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">If
women, toddlers and grannies complain about your contribution to the rape rate,
it isn’t always their fault’. Firstly, this statement is a bald faced
misrepresentation, as the people who work in gender rights can attest to. Secondly,
he is selling the old idea of black men’s sexual insatiability, which comes
directly from the animal-like narrative. Gender violence is a huge problem in
our country. Using it to serve a narrow right wing agenda is evil.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Regarding the
mythological cultural evolutionary hierarchy, apart from the fact that Africans
were building universities when Steve and my ancestors were still grunting
around in bear skins, western colonial domination and sciences were a result of
ideas they jacked from everywhere else and just being more vicious. If Steve
wants to apply his own logic to himself he will find that stuff like penicillin,
electricity, railways, etc, actually happened while his dudes were busy
voortrekking themselves so they could keep their slaves, so all they invented
really was biltong. Of course, I would never apply Steve’s bigoted logic, so I
completely reject that last sentence. Stop being such a self-hater, Steve. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">I hope the
millions of awesome, warm, hard working white Afrikaans people, including the
likes of Max Du Preez, Zelda la Grange, Antjie Krog, Pieter-Dirk Uys, etc, can
take the incredible contributions their culture has brought to the world away
from this schmuck of a bigot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">So, yes, we
have proved, that “Blacks were the architects of apartheid” was supremely
racist. Pick n Pay will realize this eventually, because if Steve had said,
“Jews were the architects of the Holocaust” he would be out on his ass by now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">Finally Steve
said in his excuse of a FB update that “If folk did not want to share a country
with you, why is it always their fault?” We will remind him of these words as
we remove his sponsors from him one by one. No bakkie, no cry, eh, Steve? Go
figure.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Conrad Kochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13341285929993358905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9211378737915948679.post-49819922764228640882014-10-29T03:25:00.001-07:002014-10-29T03:33:36.246-07:00Dear white supremacists,<div class="MsoNormal">
Dear white supremacists,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ok, I lied, this isn’t a letter to white supremacists, it’s
about them. Because to be frank, their entire game plan is to be the voice for
a privileged, self righteous community of bigots. So the less you listen to
them the less power they have. However, this doesn’t mean they should be left
in peace. In my opinion, here’s why.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The racism that counts in South Africa is structural racism,
the way in which after apartheid poor black people, who were disenfranchised as
a group, are being left to resolve a violently unfair status quo as
individuals. Don’t get me wrong, this is more complex than white to black. The
ANC has Lindiwe Sisulu saying under-40 year olds shouldn’t get houses, as if
the effects of apartheid just magically vanish. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, the fact is that in SA us white people have a
hugely skewed degree of economic clout, so our prejudices do have an impact.
Take Cape Town’s top chop, JP Smith, who was apparently cool with the R7mill spent on
toilets around the Greenpoint stadium area for the World Cup, while allegedly the budget for
new toilets in informal settlements this year for the entire city is R20mill.
If poor people want to not be raped on the way to poo they should move to
Greenpoint. Why can’t they pull their shit together man? The logic that it’s OK
to have millions spent on parks in one part of Cape Town, while other parts of
Cape Town are still stuck in the 1980s is classic structural racism. The logic
that the golf course in Greenpoint hasn’t been turned into low cost housing so
poor people can be near work is structural racism. The cultural battle in SA is
for us to expose this at every turn, to denormalize privilege.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The problem is that the idea of relative white wealth and
black poverty have become everyday, so we don’t see the insanity in front of
us. The trouble with this, in my view, is that the most outrageous prejudice
becomes acceptable, and asking for common sense to prevail starts sounding
radical. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Take talk radio. The overriding social agreement is that
everyone should have a say and we should all cumulatively take the outcome of
this ‘debate’ as reasonable. This is classic liberalism, the belief in
equality. Of course it’s very, very prejudiced, because it assumes that
everyone has the resources (time, airtime, access to public platforms, etc) and
therefore the same voice. We don’t, and pretending that we do allows the debate
to be severely skewed in favour of those with resources, which in South Africa
is violently problematic. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s how we can have someone SMSing 702/Cape Talk to
say shack dwellers should build their shacks further apart to avoid fires and
that they have no respect for people who don’t look after themselves (true
story). Because you know how much choice people in shacks have over where to
live. In this case Redi Tlhabi and a few callers came down heavily on this
imbecile. The trouble, however, is for the most part media platforms do not
reject such madness, because we want to seem open minded, and think everyone
should have a say. As a result the internal logic of SA’s middle class public
debate is often profoundly anti-poor and in turn structurally racist.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Enter white supremacists. As an example take Steve Hofmeyr,
a hugely successful wealthy white South African entertainer, who tweeted the
other day that “Sorry to offend but in my books Blacks were the architects of
apartheid. Go figure”. Of course we all went at him, giving him the exact
profile he needs in the conservative apartheid-missing community that pays his
bills. I even had one guy suggest I should give Steve a chance to explain
himself, because even bigots need a chance.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s look at the facts. Steve has consistently expressed
denial over his privilege and over apartheid. He has allegedly said he doesn’t
think Sharpeville was a human rights atrocity, he gives his white audiences
apartheid hard-ons by singing Die Stem at every available opportunity, he consistently
regurgitates untruths about white poverty and violent crime on farms
(Africacheck.org has blown his lies out of the water). His language, Afrikaans,
is one of the most spoken in SA, but he acts like it’s vanishing, partly
because the majority of Afrikaans speakers in SA are black. Steve Hofmeyr is
one amongst many cultural pillars in the architecture of how white South
Africans maintain the spoils apartheid gave us. This last one, “Blacks were the
architects of apartheid”, is full blown apartheid denial, no matter how you
spin it. He, of course, has the right to express his opinion, however if he is
maintaining a bigoted status quo this should come with social consequences,
severe ones. The normalization effects of this thinking are let off the hook by
our society getting enraged but effectively doing nothing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He can say what he wants, but companies and sponsors should
be taken to task for their tacit support. For example, in a few weeks Steve
will be appearing at the Afrikaans is Groot festival sponsored by Land Rover and Pick n Pay. Are
these brands cool with being associated with an apartheid denialist and white supremacist?
Would they be cool with paying for a Holocaust denialist to perform? Corporate
South Africa never had to explain their collusion with apartheid, so the very,
very least they can do is refuse a platform to its most prominent denialist. In
simple terms, the status quo is biased and changing that requires taking a
stand.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We cumulatively called on his bakkie sponsor, Williams Hunt,
to recall the car in the light of his bigotry, they did so. Of course, this
brings up the question of censorship. Steve should be free to say what he
likes, but we should be free to reject any degree of normalization within that.
On twitter his followers have this delightfully ignorant term “libtard”, which,
because combining “liberal” and “retard” is the limit of their wit. Ironically,
what I am suggesting is that we are too liberal (or perhaps not liberal enough),
and as a result prejudiced. His followers believe in power without conscience,
but want the liberal idea of balanced ‘debate’ accorded him. Debating Steve
Hofmeyr is pointless, he’s to stupid to know he’s stupid, and in social
discourse that is already anti-poor just skews towards more bigotry. I believe
the answer is ostracism. His supporters need to stop being such libtards.<br />
<br />
In a similar vein I believe the people running our various media platforms need to be far more assertive about how they handle the blatant racism that happens there (the white homeland that is Media24's comments section), and radio presenters should expose caller bigotry far more assertively, issues which would require more thought than I am aiming for here. Who calls the shots on what is sayable is always dangerous.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One other term in the arsenal of white supremacist language
is “politically correct”, the idea that one must curtail your opinions because
of social sanction. Ironically what I am saying is be less politically correct, be rude to the powerful. It’s much harder than
the crap that masquerades as non-PC, which in truth usually plays directly into
the hands of those with power. Of course this applies as much to my own work as
it does to Steve Hofmeyr, so if I ever say: “Blacks were the architects of
apartheid”, feel free to boycott me.</div>
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Conrad Kochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13341285929993358905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9211378737915948679.post-13683362637422180102014-10-02T06:26:00.001-07:002014-10-02T06:33:29.834-07:00An open letter to 'Diversity'.<div class="MsoNormal">
I hate the word ‘diversity’. It’s usually a lame attempt to
whitewash any actual dialogue, because if you have a problem with an unjust
status quo, and reject the ‘let’s all get along’ Cool Aid, then you have
defined yourself as being against diversity, unicorns and rainbows.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the last few weeks I have performed at Potchefstroom
University, Nelson Mandela Bay University and the University of Stellenbosch, and
do many corporate gigs, radio and TV interviews, and my own one man shows, all
relating to this painfully weird topic. The problem is I am not certain what
the way forward is.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I did comedy at Stellenbosch on the same day the university
decided to let off the blackface people. Yes, my career is explosively ironic.
I pointed out that us white South Africans seem to often opine that 20 years is
enough to fix apartheid, but for some reason we don’t all think its enough for
students to realize that we shouldn’t be putting shoe polish on our faces. Do
we need a blackface patrol: “Groenewald, step away from the nugget”? And yes,
Comrade Chester told me (I told myself, in case you haven’t gotten the hang of
this ventriloquism thing) that the reason he and I were there is because this
is the one place on earth where they let you off for blackface. I also said
that diversity is another way of saying “the black people are coming”, because
we all suspect where Stellenbosch University’s cultural normative setting is
calibrated to.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then again, the problem with this entire thing is simplistic
narratives, which include simplistic narratives of black victims and white
oppressors. I later found out that many of the people who initially chose the
seemingly all white comedy at Stellenbosch ‘Diversity’ Week this year were
Black (politically).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The problem with diversity discourse is that it usually
excludes any real discussion of power and history. What it does is force
through a socially acceptable solution that really just silences those without
power. Diversity is a product of the post-94 Rainbow Nation rhetoric, of the
discourse that Born Frees are becoming post-racial, and that us old (I am 37)
bigots all just need to get over it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The problem is that young people living in shacks with no
opportunity of work are Born Free in the same way free range chickens are free,
and the discourse that they are free is in many ways tantamount to apartheid
denial. Don’t get me wrong, there is loads of evidence that also places much
lack of progress strongly at the feet of the ruling party and their economic
schizophrenia, but that’s only part of the picture, and racism towards the ANC
is an old habit that’s easiest solved if acknowledged. My point though is that
for myself, a white apartheid beneficiary to even begin talking about diversity
requires us to look, with ruthless honesty, at why I am not the one living in a
shack.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That being said, there are loads of places where kids and
adults don’t have apartheid’s emotional baggage, but the truth is these
environments are often very middle class, and often require huge degrees of
obliviousness to real world dynamics. We can love each other in an historical
conscious way, but just because you live in Ubuntuland doesn’t mean at all that
you have really solved the problem.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Part of the problem is that normalized western culture, in
which white people have had by far the most powerful say, disguises itself as
‘normal’, when in fact it is extremely culturally specific. That’s why angry
activist types rant about whiteness hiding itself, because they are right.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To use a misogynist, but expressive phrase, the inability by
many white South Africans to acknowledge their/our own privilege and
footdragging about making it an essential part of the diversity discussion is
cockblocking getting anywhere in this debate. If you have been watching, this
is exactly what Helen Zille most needs to deal with in her denialist version of
non-racialism.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In real terms this means that when I stand there in front of
students of all races at one of these ‘diversity’ events I have to be hard on
my own white privilege, and that of the audience, so that the discussion can
continue. This gets awkward, because, while I would really, really like to have
more chilled, relaxed fun humour about ‘diversity’, what I would effectively be
doing is letting our whiteness off its sneaky hook. I, being a part of that
system, cant afford to do that. A black comedian could, perhaps. However, I
being a white guy saying this, with his puppet as a dramatic device (see last
post for THAT discussion), do have a certain impact, because it can, maybe,
create social pressure for other white people to be more reflexive… oh the halo
that I bear.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So here’s my problem. At the one event a white lady with her
“coloured” friend felt I had been too strong in dealing with the students’
white privilege. She said “I had my friend to help me understand that I
benefitted [and am benefitting] from apartheid” (again see last post if you
think this is at all in question. It isn’t.). In other words, we must be
gentler on white people because then they are more likely to get it, as though
black people haven’t been insanely tolerant enough already. And I am not
condoning mindless abuse (trust me, I have had my fair share), or any sort of
generalized idea that you can say anything about white people apart from the
simple fact of privilege.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The trouble is, that’s exactly where this whole rainbow
nation screw up started, people not being frank with white people that yes,
political power has been opened up, but the conversation is far, far from over.
The problem, as always, is that the more I say what white people are
uncomfortable to hear the less they will want to listen, and the more I cushion
it the less honest the conversation becomes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Don’t get me wrong, there are loads of white people who
completely get it right, in my head-up-my-own-ass-anthropological-opinion, but
then again there are many who do not. In fact there are many black people who
are also oblivious to how apartheid affected their lives, and who have mastered
our prejudices well, ahem, Jimmy Manyi. And, no I do not feel guilty about apartheid, because it really wasn't my choice. How I respond to it, however, is. So, how do we drive a way forward that
builds consciousness, but also builds reconciliation?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I had a senior DA politician tell me he agrees with my main
drive, but that part of the problem is that white people are scared. Let’s call
it the Oscar Pistorius Syndrome. The evidence is overwhelming that they don’t
need to be scared, and to be honest how much time should we be spending
reassuring a section of our population who has been getting special treatment
for 350 years? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, I still don’t know how to create reconciliation. I
suspect it has something to do with ‘nation building’, but this is now way
above my paygrade. Maybe I should become a veejay, because they seem to know
fucking everything.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="text-indent: -18pt;">* As a footnote, I know Andile Mngxitama would
say, its simple, reconciliation can only happen when we return what was stolen.
I respect and in many ways buy that argument, if not the strategy, but with 6%
the EFF can’t expropriate farms, they can just do timeshare.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="text-indent: -18pt;">* For those of you wanting to go on about ‘reverse
racism’, watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw_mRaIHb-M</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><br /></span></div>
Conrad Kochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13341285929993358905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9211378737915948679.post-77630056632597975152014-08-14T04:27:00.002-07:002014-08-14T04:27:27.566-07:00Some thoughts on race, SA comedy, blackface and Chester Missing.<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I want to talk about race in SA humour, because as an anthropologist
and political comedian I am in a unique position, and also, most importantly, I
want to open up my thinking on Chester Missing, the brown puppet of this white
man. This piece is long. What I want to say is not simple.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Let’s start with a crash course in the politics of race comedy. Race
is a construct, first mobilized by white people during colonialism to create an
imaginary evolutionary hierarchy between them and everyone else. However, now
that people have been oppressed because of race deciding we must all randomly
stop talking about race (a naive kind of non-racialism that is popular in some
SA middle class) is tantamount to telling people to stop talking about
colonialism, apartheid and why the millions of South Africans who live in
shacks today generally don’t look like me (I am a white South African).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Many white South Africans are oblivious to the extreme structural
and life injustices racialism/apartheid dealt most black people. It’s the small
burdens, e.g. the parents who struggled during the 70s and 80s, and who you now
have to support, that really hold apartheid’s economic legacy (just one of
millions of examples). The simple fact is that if you are born white in SA your
life is almost undoubtedly easier than if you had been born black. The idea
that affirmative action has significantly made things harder for us white
people is just plain false. We are more employed, and have more access to
business leadership than any other race group. This historically skewed status
quo filters into how our comedy industry works and what South Africans laugh
at.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">White people often believe they have no race, because their norms
are the norms we see in most Western movies, news, print, etc, and are
invisible. We tend to see ourselves as ‘normal’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">For example, tagged onto race are of course a whole range of
cultural and physical attributes, that in truth we still give credibility to
because apartheid indoctrinated all of us. These are perceptions: like all
Indian people sound the same, black people arrive late, and a myriad of more
subtle biases. The trouble is that we then make assumptions about people’s
competence, trustworthiness, and ability to do a job based on these prejudices.
Of course we would swear blind that we don’t, but we do. For example a problem
with subtle unconscious social bias is that, surprise, surprise, us white
people kept all the positive stereotypes for ourselves. How many positive
perceptions are there around the rubric ‘coloured’, really? Some of the world’s
most inspiring people are mixed race, but for some reason the stereotype
doesn’t allow for that. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We believe that reinforced idea about race, stereotypes, are just a joke,
but really they aren’t. Beliefs are the products of recurrently reinforced
perceptions / opinions. For example, if your white / middle class manager has
to make a decision about whether to employ you or someone else he/she will be
influenced by how well they relate to you and how they interpret your cultural
behaviours, based on unconscious perceptions. It’s a well researched, and
blatantly obvious fact that the closer you are to your boss culturally the more
likely you will be to get the job. That’s why many black people (Indian, mixed,
African, or whatever) change their manner and tone when they arrive in the
workplace, because they need to fit in with the dominant status quo. If 70% of
our senior management in corporate SA are still white no prizes for guessing
what status quo that is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Of course race is not culture, but the two are connected. In general
being middle class in South Africa means being skilled in western norms. This
is why we have black people accusing other black people of acting white. Of
course this is itself bigotry because Black is a political position inherited
from our history, not how you sound. Assuming all people of a race must sound
the same is racism. Dankie Verwoerd. However, it’s also fair comment because
the more middle class/white a black person sounds the more social capital they
will have in corridors of economic power. Our problem is that because of our
sordid history sounding like a second language English speaker (i.e. usually having
an accent) has become associated with the lesser, and with often with being
working class. We conflate class and race so we don’t acknowledge that when we
laugh at accents it is often not just racism, it’s classism: laughing at poor
people. Nice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">You see western culture has had a 500 year marketing campaign trying
to make itself seem normalized and more evolved, to justify how they exploited
everyone else. This is the problem in South African comedy. Most of our
audiences are middle class, because comedy costs money to get to and get into,
so we often trade in mocking people’s accents, or black comedians will
exaggerate their accents for middle class audiences. Just because the audience
is black doesn’t mean they cant be classist / Afropessimist. Or we make easy
associations of race (white people do this, black people do that) which audiences,
well trained by the apartheid government, buy into. If you do a working class
accent for a working class audience it isn’t as funny, because it’s normal. If
you listen closely you will see our comedians often exaggerate their accents on
the punchline to drive the laughter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Socially humor is a primary way of denigrating and issuing social
sanction against threats to group norms. This is why the comedy that mocks
white / western accents and culture is so much less searing, because it hasn’t
had centuries of prejudice to build on, and because the audiences and the
normative media culture in SA makes how I sound more normal and credible, not
funny and strange.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The problem isn’t just an individual comedian being prejudiced at
one gig, it’s that culturally this happening again and again is how racism,
classism, sexism, homophobia and normalized bigotry such as what happened at
the TUKS campus become enabled. This is why it’s so offensive that people even
proposed debating the racism of the event. Only in a status quo that is
normalized to some level of racism is that debate acceptable. On the other hand
that people are surprised that this racism exists in SA seems outrageously
naïve. It’s racism central out there people. I know. I am doing comedy there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This is why, in my view, the only ethical thing a comedian can do is
speak back to this status quo, the more so the more privileged you are. There
is an irritating habit in some media to think that speaking back to power means
only Zuma jokes. White people have the money. Zuma is only half the picture. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Also, there isn’t an “I’m-not-a-political-comedian” option. If you
crack jokes you are normalizing something, because your jokes rely on culture
to be funny. Always. There are no exceptions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So, as a white comedian speaking back to power and dealing with
culture in SA, the only place for race in my work needs to be to 1) break down
the idea of race as a credible construct – how black people can swim, and white
people can dance, 2) point out the fact that even though race is fictitious
there are huge inequalities people bear because of race (pointing out white
privilege), 3) dealing with how culture comes into this, speaking back to
western norms. For a black comedian this is about Black Consciousness and comedy
/ culturally sensitive identity work a la Marc Lottering. For a white comedian
this is about dealing with white privilege.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">For example, Jacob Zuma must be taken to task for Nkandla. However,
there are also dynamics around laughing at an elderly Zulu man who went to jail
during apartheid. So continuously joking about how many wives he has is
enforcing western cultural norms. If the audience is themselves Black/Zulu I
have more leeway because I know they probably will laugh for the right reasons,
but primarily my comedy needs to be at how Jacob Zuma has 4 wives, but Larry
King had 8, many of them at the same time, to destabilize this idea that Jacob
Zuma’s lifestyle is exotic and strange.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This does not mean comedians can’t make any cultural referenced
accents, but that it needs to be done consciously. There is a sort of imagined
community we create, where we build positive identity with accent and
character. Marc Lottering, for example, has been the leader in this, with his
usually nuanced, culturally specific characters. I am not talking about this
here though. It’s very dangerous in the wrong hands, and can lead to racial
essentialism (i.e. idea that all black/whatever people are the same).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Enter Chester Missing, blackface problem that he is:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Chester Missing as we now know him was a product of my MA in social
anthropology and working with a director to speak back to myself and to deal
with race and current affairs in a more politically conscious, but accessible
way. He was designed to be current, modern looking and racially ambiguous (his
design is inspired by vinyl toys), but would sound like he might be ‘coloured’,
deliberately diffuse and not exaggerated. An earlier version of him was more
clearly ‘coloured’, i.e.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>engaging
cultural references like ‘hoe lyk it’, but that dropped as I became more aware
of what I was doing, as well as a more ‘neutral’ accent (yes, my neutral isn’t
neutral). The only reason to reference race is of course because we live in a
country where most people are black, and a white man speaking back to himself
about SA politics and race via a Black puppet has cultural traction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Of course, as we developed Chester his character became hinged more
and more on his real problem, which surprisingly is not being Black / black
(Black: political position, black: assumed cultural attributes). Chester’s problem
is that he is a puppet. The reality is that Chester didn’t experience
apartheid, other than through my own privileged little life. Chester did
experience living in a suitcase, and does have to deal with the burden that he
can never do anything other than with me. His puppet problems became a useful
metaphor for SA race relations and politics. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In my mind, as I was building, he could create an explosive
satirical way of portraying SA society, and at the same time undermining
stereotypes of Blackness, and speak back to privilege, me playing the role of
the racially oblivious white liberal, and him the intelligent, socially
conscious agent of change. It’s a debate with two people that are actually one
person.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Of course I understand how dangerous this is – a white guy with a
black puppet has a violently sordid history. Even now the world's most famous
ventriloquist act is blackface: Jeff Dunham's Achmed the dead terrorist, an
American laughing at a dead Muslim. That's just hilarious.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">At the time I never saw myself like that at all, because those were
not my cultural references. I read post structuralist feminist, subaltern and
post-colonial social anthropology and then wrote jokes with it. When you do
material on stage you can immediately see what the audience laughs at. They
laugh at what Chester says, his material, not how he speaks. He specifically
does not do the things people do to make people laugh at coloured / black
voices (Aweh, eish, naai my bru, etc). This is not to say how he speaks is not
in question, merely that it’s not simplistic, and I am very aware of the
dynamics. Feel free to let me know when I get it wrong.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">With the advent of LNN Kagiso and Loy needed someone with
progressive political content, and we built from there. Him being on screen
alone without me was a last minute thing, because doing ventriloquism written on
the same day as its performed is restrictively hard, and it was fun giving the
puppet guy a life of his own, kind of an interesting twist in his revolution
against me. We never expected him to get so big, that I can assure you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Of course, as Chester himself got more public acclaim the question
of my whiteness became more and more contentious, for good reason, because with
fame comes normalizing power. For some the shock at my whiteness was just naivety
– it’s not like I have been hiding under a rock in my live work, and trust me,
when Blade Nzimande, Bantu Holomisa, Zwelinzima Vavi, Mosiuoa Lekota, Trevor
Manuel, etc, see me arrive for the interview they know I am white… duh. Some
people thought I was hiding. They didn’t think that through. The reason these
senior politicians were playing along is that if you actually engage with my
work, instead of an imaginary idea of it, I am quite clearly not trying to use the
puppet to mock and undermine black people, just power. We did find it
entertaining that people were fine with Chester saying these progressive things
until they found out that I am white.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Bear in mind, the main people guiding me re Chester were Kagiso
Lediga, and the LNN crew, and the people coming up with the questions are black
(for some reason people always assume the guy in charge of the posse of black
satirists is the one white guy. It’s hilarious). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This isn’t a let-the-white-guy-off card, merely that in our actual
LNN world this race thing is not one-dimensional. I once had Thuli Madonsela
wait an extra ten minutes after a radio interview to get another photo with
Chester, so really, come now. Most of my income comes from corporate work where
I talk about apartheid, Eurocentrsim, etc, as well as more mundane politics, directly
to the people who most need to hear it, not on some blog read only by people
who already agree.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">However, this does not mean that the status quo is not problematic. In
spite of my certainty above, I do question my work all the time, because I am
under absolutely no delusion about the completely unjust status quo I have and
am benefitting from (in terms of SA history) and that with a ‘blackhand’ (as
Kags calls it) puppet I could be very close to the point where I could be
confirming the injustice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">My thinking re Chester Missing referencing black identity is as
follows:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">He is designed to
look racially ambivalent, so he could be painted another colour, and of course
still be him. Maybe paper white? Maybe Chester the light purple guy, to remind
us all that he is just a puppet, and take him out of the human template?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Right now I am
working more on him taking exactly my accent, but in his register. The only
reason he has any accent at all is because I just haven’t spent the rehearsal
time getting the ventriloquism right.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Should Chester
end? I know it sounds sad, but if he might be affirming a bigoted status quo then
what am I doing this for? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">On the one hand I ask myself ‘Why should a white person not use a Black
character if that character is used as a foil for his own whiteness?’ Bear in
mind, my public audiences are more and more completely black, and when they are
white I do deal with my whiteness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Surely being Afrocentric involves making work that is accessible to
Africans? As an artist it is my job to create work relevant to my world. My
puppet has 130000 twitter followers, most of whom are black. But then again,
apparently black people also love Leon Schuster #thatawkwardmoment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Why blackface IS a concern. The main problem for me is that it sometimes
makes my comedy feel a bit brutal. Because I need to expose some very
uncomfortable truths if I am going to have a Black character and not fall into
naturalized racial assumptions. I have to smack white people hard every time,
to the point that some of my Black comedian friends think I should chill. It doesn't
help to question race if I am scaring people away, and the truth is the SA situation
is about more than just race. It could be better if Chester were not painted
brown / black.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Part of the problem is people seem to really, really like Chester as
he is. I once had a few thousand EFF supporters chanting “Chester, Chester,
Chester” of their own accord. Chester is asking questions most people can't,
and the leaders of all political parties are getting in on it. With the
questions around satire in SA do we really want to get rid of / change a satirical
object most politicians will talk to? A dynamic is that (because we are SA) some
people assume that he can ask these questions because he's black. This borders
on imbecilic. As I have pointed out, how would some of SA brightest political
minds be fooled into thinking I am black? So if Uncle Gweezy is fine with me,
what's the problem?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">There are political apparatchiks who question why a white guy is
asking these questions of black leaders at all. I disregard them, because the
truth is I am extremely vigilant about driving a historically conscious
neutrality and have a great team guiding that. To expect us not to ask
questions at all is just plain unreasonable. Cosatu themselves regularly
reference Chester as the kind of freedom of expression that they fought for
(that could be good and bad, hehehe).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But I am still stuck, particularly in my live work away from the
Blackness of LNN, with the problem of Chester’s blackness. I have learned the
hard way that for the most part our society is too culturally unaware to tell
the difference between comedy that laughs at identity and comedy that does not.
Hence Leon Schuster’s Mama Jack is somehow OK. That is exactly the problem.
There could be a degree to which, by invoking any racial signifiers via Chester
I am enabling Leon Schuster and the mindset that leads to these TUKS students
(to be fair to Leon Schuster, he had a few candid camera pieces where he did
seriously take the piss out of white hegemony, but that’s another conversation)?
I think it’s far fetched in that I attack those exact power dynamics
incessantly, but we have a history on blackface racism in SA.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">More importantly, if Chester Missing truly is speaking back to power
then we must ask how a white guy performing a black character can really ever
liberate? It is true that the tools of the oppressor can never be used to liberate
the oppressed, although they can be used as a Trojan horse to get the idea
across. Are you going into corporate boardrooms and talking about apartheid? I
am. I’d like to be a bit less intense about it though.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">My problem with this ‘white people can’t liberate’ is that the same
could be said for white people in general, leading to the Black Consciousnessish
idea that white people should stick to white people stuff. It’s 2014, so that’s
not really feasible. But it is true that with Chester having black cultural signifiers
(skin tone and accent, and very occasionally self claims of Black) I am
confirming something of the status quo merely by existing, and I really do
struggle with that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Our last one man show The Chester Missing Roadshow (it’s doing one
more tour, see it if you can) dealt with this head one – he rejected race and
then claimed it as a political position to expose me, because I am exploiting
him, and accused me in front of 3000 people at Blacks Only of doing blackface. They
gave us a standing ovation #justsaying. However, there are only so many times I
can have that particular conversation so maybe now my character and I need to
move forward?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The solution I prefer currently is to make him purple and work on
his voice. The advantage would be that he could exist as what he is, the
oppressed puppet-in-a-suitcase of a white man, not as this dude who has to
continuously counter the prejudice his blackface-like signifiers (voice and paint
colour) this might invoke. What will I do? What balance is right? Fuck knows.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Comedy is am amazing way for South Africans to re-imagine themselves
in a historically conscious, inclusive way. I am very grateful to everyone who
has helped me in my part so far. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Thanks for reading this very long piece of navel gazing. I don’t do
online debates because they tend to just be bullying with spelling mistakes, which is why I </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">haven't left the comments section open, but</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> you are welcome to email me: </span></span><a href="mailto:conradkoch@mweb.co.za" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">conradkoch@mweb.co.za</a><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">,
or harass me on Facebook or Twitter. I might answer, or I might not. Sharp.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Conrad Kochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13341285929993358905noreply@blogger.com