Black Face, We Even Have A Name For It?

Verwoerd, the architect of Apartheid, is still winning Today! We are letting him continue to manipulate the minds of Black South Africans even today. By WE, I mean Black South Africans who get offended by just about anything white people do. It bothers me that we even have a name for white students who darken themselves as part of a theme to a party in order to look black. Blackface it is called, and I am not even sure if it is one word or two. After the University Of Pretoria drama, I see Stellenbosch University also had two students, who have now apologised, blackmarked for the Blackface. The students went viral on social media for portraying Venus and Serena Williams when the party theme was twins. They went as a famous set of twins, the two tennis stars, and to stick out chose to darken their skin. That has enraged a lot of black people!

Why do we react to such foolishness with such feelings of anger, feeling victimised? White people do behave differently to us in terms of being big on theme parties and costume parties. Drag is a concept I learnt from white people, and it has never been part of my culture growing up. While at at university, I was in a predominantly white residence, and for RAG, I could not find it within me to dress as a ferry, but I still went "outlandish" by my standars and got into costume, looking silly wearing top half in full tuxedo mode, and bottom half wearing shorts and basketball shoes. We were having fun, and a black friend of mine wore a dress, and he is as straight as they come, I dare say a schauvenist. Men dressed or disguised as women have featured in traditional customs and rituals for centuries. Why do I not hear feminists get up in arms about Drag Queens as we do about white people painting themselves Black?

Leon Schuster has created many a joke, dressed as an Indian, a Chines person, with accents and behaviour that stereotypes the race he is portraying. I don't hear Chinese and Indian people cry fowl on his behaviour, they simply disregard him as an ignorant comedian, or they laugh! They are not getting lost in all sorts of innuendos and interpretation, given their life experiences, and how Leon Schuster is portraying who they are.

I did not like the pictures of the University Of Pretoria students who dressed up as maids. It hit a nerve. My grandmother "worked in the kitchens", and a few other gogos in my family I might add, but that picture those two kids portrayed, does not in any way represent where I come from. It angered me seeing the picture, but I dismissed it as stupid kids who don't know better. Why should their ignorance cause me pain? 

I have no clue what these two Maties students were thinking, but I can't see malicious intent, given they went for high profile stars rather than mockery. So if we are going to start getting upset about white people darkening their skins, why stop there, let's start giving them grief for being obsessed with sun tanning. Watch a local soccer match and you will see that the getting into costume has different levels of ridiculous for black and white people. While most blacks will happily don a "Makarapa", there are outlier black fanatics like Goodenough Sithole, but white Orlando Pirates fans will be as outlandish (by my standards) as these young boys in picture. The two sets of Orlando Pirates fans are in costume, expressing themselves boldly and wanting to stick out, not offend!

I can't change how you feel about Blackface, and I can't tell you what the kids were thinking when they painted themselves and chose to portray the characters they did. However, I am not going to give away my power, and become a victim of my emotions every time a white person chooses to act in a way that is not making sense to my own emotional intelligence.