The moral of the story of an average black child is to escape from reality. The reality of most black children is that of hardship and poverty. Those in middle class families under the illusion of comfort and semi-indulges in luxuries that were only reserved for white people in the past. But even in the skin of these black children, inside of them yearns the desire to escape reality.
What is this reality? This reality is the silent feeling of feeling you are less than average. For the black child who grew up in the townships, the environment confirms your status in society. The consistency of lack of basic services, the smell of dumping sites never excavated, the constant threat of violence facing you when roaming the night, all these challenges are part of your daily existence as the black child. For the suburban child, we are trapped within the love of our families. Our parents having lived in the townships and were fortunate to escape to previously white only neighbourhoods do all they can to prevent their child having to grow up the way they did. They limit the movement of the child to townships as an attempt to limit he’s expose to that rough life.
What most parents do not know is that in the eyes of their suburban child, they see the township child and what they see is freedom. In the eyes of the child who grew under this prison of immense love, they see freedom in their counterparts who live in the townships. They admire how most of them at young ages already have they own rooms they live in. How they can bring in girls when they want to their rooms. How these kids are usually the cool and confident kids at school and in town. The suburban kid most of the time is saturated by the façade of suburban living. In his heart he yearns for that freedom. Hence it isn’t a rare case to find many black children from suburbs going to townships to have fun and party. The kids who experience an extreme case of this highly protective love, especially seen with boys, their masculinity withers away. These young boys become so clueless as to how the world works. To them, having a gaming console and a laptop of their own is all they need to survive. They turn into geeks and they are the boys that girls love because they provide material goods for them. Most cases, these boys are the laughing stocks of the class and their weaknesses is seen in their insecurities. When they mingle with other boys, they try to win their approval by flaunting their latest gadget or latest shoes. In doing so, they think they winning the respect of the other boys. When in reality, they really just displaying the meat they have to offer as prey to the lions in the den.
A friend of mine taught me the flip side to the coin. He told me that even though from a young age he had the very same freedom I speak that the suburban child yearns, that freedom comes with a heavy price. He told me that in most cases, having your own room is a way to escape the abusive alcoholic parent who owns the main house. The room becomes a safe haven from the poverty that exists in the main house. By poverty, I mean both that of the mind and body. He told me that it is cool to be able to bring your girl over to your room but that girl too is escaping the same nature from her home. So, he adds to say that from the eyes of the black child who grows up in the township, he envies the life of the black child who grows up in the suburb. How that kid doesn’t have to worry about not having lunch at school because his mother prepared one for him. What shocked me is when he said his mother. Not the mother of the suburban child, but his own mother who comes home on weekends to drink all her weekly wage. He envies how the suburban child never has to worry about not having shoes to wear to school. Each year he gets a new pair as opposed to the hand me down he received from his drop-out brother. My friend further explained to me that the freedom that I speak of is really just a façade hiding the true pain that lurks within the township child. He has no choice but to be confident because any display of weakness is enough to get him beat down. My friend at the tender age of 13 told me he was working for R20 a day at a local store just so that he can support himself. The price of his freedom in his eyes was nothing compared to the imprisonment through my eyes as a child who grew up in the suburb.
It leads one to think that the challenges we face as black people seem to be different. I will focus mostly on the black male as I speak from the view of being a black South African male. Growing up, I was one of those nerds who was the laughing stock among my friends. What saved me from total humiliation was the fact my friends, most of them, came from the township therefore they would protect me. They would teach me basic skills to survive on the street. The love I got from home obviously did not approve of this teaching and to some degree prevented me from fully grasping it. But there are those who learnt nothing about the streets. There was a case in which some boy was called gay in high school and his mother went to every single one of his classmates’ home and told the parents about the incident. This one single act totally destroyed any hope of any social status the child who was called gay ever hoped to attain. To this day, that poor child is seen to be the weakest living male on Earth in the eyes of the classmates whose mother paid a visit to their homes. And the child himself sees himself as the weakest male ever to walk the Earth and not because he was called gay, but because his mother was fighting a battle which he was not man enough to fight for himself.
It makes one wonder then what exactly is that we as the modern Black youth of South Africa are facing if on a deeper level our challenges are different? Yes, on the surface our challenges are universal. Whether I, the suburban child, or my friend, the township child, passes a car driven by a white lady; that lady will, without hesitation, roll up her window and lock her doors. On the surface level, the likelihood of getting a job as a black person is close to none. What’s interesting though is that once one has the job, the white owners expect you from the suburb to be more docile and accommodating then the black employee from the township who seen to be the raw and crude form of Black. My former employer even had the audacity to call me “A White Black Person”. Yet on a daily I’d be preaching the power of economical freedom and the power of unity to the other employees. That single expression, White Black Person, made me think as to what made me the suburban black child all of a sudden white and kept the black child from the township, black? How is it that in an environment such as the workplace, the level of blackness can be differentiated and be scaled from being Black black to White black?
What are the underlying challenges that we are facing as the modern black people that need to be addressed? We are eager to escape the realities we face but only to be met with new ones that do not promise any emancipation from the chains that already enslave us. I cannot speak for the super-rich black people of South Africa. But reading their articles and listening in into their interviews with magazines and so forth, one learns that it seems harder at the top than it does here at the bottom. It is like once a Black man reaches those higher echelons in society, it is expected of him to give back. The wealth he created all of a sudden isn’t his but that of the people. This is only but one of the challenges I have seen that the super-rich black people face. However, in the eyes of most black people, we rather have rich man problems than poor man problems. But what is the cost that the Black man has to pay in order to be rich? To be economically free?
This question derives from the fact that I was merely at entry position at my previous employment and at that level white people called me a White Black man. They expected I act White and behave White and I believe that if I did, I would be holding a much higher position there if I had stayed. But I refused to saturate my blackness in order to earn more rewards. Even though those rewards I loved them for they were giving me the keys to my independence, but they simply weren’t worth it. Using this logic, the higher the black person goes up the corporate ladder, is it expected he starts behaving more White and yet say he is a Black man? Are the wealthy Black people who will yell “Ubuntu” and “power to the people” only mere puppets to the puppet masters behind the scenes? We cannot deny the fact that most of the economical wealth of South Africa is not in the hands of Black people. Wealth being power, that economical wealth will not in any time soon be transferred to the Black people. So, what was the cost that the Black man, who was able to crack into that wealth, had to pay to earn it? And seeing how we differ in the eyes of white people, just how do they see how Blackness? Even within that token, seeing how we as black people envy each other secretly, how do we value ourselves in order to determine the price to pay to be economically free?
As Black people we only want to escape the realities we live in. To some degree this is a universal desire shared by all groups of people. That young white boy who wants to run away from his father who calls the boy’s black friends monkeys. The young white gal who likes Thabo in her class yet her mother tells her about how Thabos are violent and will make her pregnant and leave her. I believe each person regardless of race has a greater desire that motivates them to escape their current realities to a greater one that they believe is paradise. But being Black, seeing how we as Black people are running around in circles seeking our escape, I simply cannot speak for other racial groups. I only have a glimpse of their struggles, I do not know how deep their struggles are.
Escape into the promise land but the crucial question to ask is where is it? What is it? Is it the promise land of milk and honey for I the child who grew in town, or is it the promise land of giants for you who grew up in the township? Or is the other way around? It seems we living in the same reality as Black people but we are experiencing it differently. The different class levels we dwell in changing the perception of the reality we living in. For us Black people to truly free ourselves, the perception of our realities must change: they must be in unison. The grander picture of our escape from continual enslavement must be sung under one accord. This only can be done if we Black people look past our social standing and level of education and work together in finding concrete solutions to break free the bars that trap us in this systematic programming we call life. This systematic programming that continues to divide and conquer. This systematic programming that continues to destroy us. In the true spirit of Ubuntu can we only then, escape this cold and brutal reality we live in as Black people.