Here's my two cents' worth, Penny

05 January 2016 - 02:32 By Pearl Boshomane

This is not a column about Penny Sparrow. This isn't an exercise in singling out white South Africans who have in just the first few days of 2016 upset a lot of people with their ignorance and outright hate.So, Chris Hart, Penny and Justin van Vuuren you can relax: this is not about you. At least not specifically.When our parents and grandparents - and even some of you reading this - stood in snaking queues to vote for the first time in 1994, we were sold a dream. A dream of reconciliation, of justice, of the Rainbow Nation.And for the longest time we tried to buy into it. We partook in the farcical theatre of grief and "justice" that was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission; we let apartheid killers wash our feet as a token of their remorse; we showed that Ubuntu we're so famous for and forgave those who had wronged us for decades.All the while we remained on the back foot economically and socially, as our mothers cleaned people's toilets and our fathers toiled in people's gardens. They left our homes in the pitch darkness and sometimes the biting cold of winter to work for next to nothing, returning home in the same darkness they'd left.The Rainbow Nation was shoved down our throats as we were stripped of our mother tongues at model C schools (if we were lucky enough to attend), stripped of our names ("Can I call you X, instead?"), told to modify our behaviour and lower our voices in public spaces because we're disturbing the peace.We were supposed to buy into the Rainbow Nation even when our parents were forced to sit next to apartheid spies during parents' evenings, men (and women) who continue to live their lives carefree post-1994 as though nothing had happened.The big selling point in this Rainbow Nation dream was "hard work": that's all it takes to make it, live debt-free, have food, a roof over your head and an education.But we know that if "hard work" was the magic carpet to comfortable living that everyone says it is, people's helpers would have houses in the very neighbourhoods where they work.This is the reality many young black South Africans have woken up to, giving birth to movements like #RhodesMustFall, #OpenStellenbosch and #FeesMustFall.Last year was a watershed year in South Africa's young history, and it's only just the beginning.Social media has been an empowerment tool, a space where people can share their experiences, thoughts and feelings of being disenfranchised in varying degrees and circumstances. The main topic? Racism, be it systemic or otherwise. This past Saturday the hashtag #TheYearWeMispronounceBack was trending on Twitter. What is it about? Black people giving white people who have never bothered to learn our names a taste of their medicine by mispronouncing English names and pretending we can never remember these "complicated" non-African names.It might seem trivial, but it's not. There are many things that haven't been addressed since 1994, from why apartheid's final president is being treated like a hero to why our education system is in such a shambles.But do you know what else is also important? Basic levels of respect and treating us like the human beings we are. Because black people have been conditioned to automatically respect our white counterparts, but often we don't get the same respect shown back to us.Don't call us monkeys and act like we have no right to be in public spaces in the land of our forefathers. Don't spew hate and say we're playing victim and pretend that it's about litter on beaches in "your" back yards.This is beyond #TheYearWeMispronounceBack: this is the year we let it be known that we're tired of quips about the alleged lack of reading culture in black communities, jokes about black people not being able to swim, or remarks about how "well" we speak English.On the other hand, it also seems to be the year that the racists who have been sitting next to us and smiling to our faces let their true selves be known...

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