Burn the platform of indifference

I watched the Gareth Cliff interview on The Burning Platform with Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen, as well as activist Mudzuli Rakhivhane, in which Cliff insinuated that racism was not as big an issue as poor service delivery.

He also went on to say that nobody cared about Rakhivhane’s lived experiences of racism.

What must be understood is that experiences are exactly that, they are lived.

They cannot be erased and they are etched so deep within who we become that it becomes almost difficult to separate them from who we were birthed as and who we have had to become in order to survive our environment.

What made me see red was the comment about not caring for ones lived experiences… as angry as I was, I remembered, this is actually more common than we would like to admit.

It is in boardrooms when a face of colour has physical presence but looked over and considered more deserving to occupy a seat because theirs is a position filled on quota more than it is on merit.

At some point, I remember wanting DA federal council chair Helen Zille to ascend to the seat of power within the Republic, this because I was for the advancement of women… seven years later, my views have changed so much that I now understand that her ascension for the female may not translate to an ascension for the woman of colour.

In 2021, we should be disgusted that someone wants to prioritise service delivery and claim that it should be separated from the issue of race.

When townships and villages are the bottom of the barrel because they are areas of a history of inequality and the struggle to bring it on par with their urban areas, who have history as their “Big Brother of Grace”.

What good will these well-run metros be when the citizens of this country cannot enjoy the right to live in a country of equal political rights.

Sadly, this is where one feels that the colour of their skin is the determining factor to their success in life.

What good are running toilets when the citizens feel that they are unwelcome in certain spaces because of a greater melanin composition within their genes?