Most days i wake up and am excited to try and do my little bit to hopefully help make things better in South Africa.

i write blogs, i engage with people in conversation online and offline, i use the platforms i have to create spaces for other voices to speak boldly about important and significant things. tbV and i try to use our time and money and energy and work to help make things better in the ways we know how.

Often it is really easy and fun and challenging and exciting and the possibilities of where South Africa can and hopefully will end up draw us to continue and make the decision to do so an easy one.

But there is also push-back and challenge and misunderstanding and accusation and one more person not understanding white privilege and arguing against something that is not being said and so we breathe deeply and start again. There are hurtful and hateful and at times abusive comments on the blog and most of the time it is easy to just shake it off and realise where it is coming from and head on to the next one.

Every now and then someone really gets to me. Like this plonker on Facebook the other day – he may not actually be a plonker, but his words were certainly plonkerlike and after appearing like someone who was wanting to understand and after i spent a bunch of time explaining some things to him, he totally just arroganted me in his response, brushing away everything i’d said, not even taking a moment to see the humble ‘you look like you are looking for ideas – here are some ideas we have learnt from’ stance i was attempting to take. i responded to his response quite angrily [as a few people had done before me] cos COME ON MAN, I’M JUST TRYING MY BEST HERE!!!

The next day i wake up and i feel that little bit less inclined to get involved…

And then i remember, when it comes to things of race and privilege and reconciliation and restitution and the betterment of South Africa, that one of the BIGGEST FORMS OF PRIVILEGE that is open to me, is the choice of whether to get involved or not.

People of colour don’t get to choose whether they think about race issues today or not. It is their reality. That is the difference. And for that reason alone, i have to choose again today to dust myself off and climb back in the ring and start all over again – No, no, no, white privilege is not just about having more money and the purpose is not for you to feel ‘white guilt’ – we are all working towards [or hopefully enough of us are] a country where it can be as balanced as possible for everyone and where millions do not continue to live in the unfair broken-down evil residue left over from apartheid, due to the fact that there are many structures and systems that still need to be torn down and rebuilt.

My privilege is that i get to choose whether i stay involved in this conversation. One of the ways i can begin to step towards my friends of colour [as well as those i don’t know yet] is by continually choosing to stay active and involved and listening and learning and refusing to let racism happen in front of me unchallenged.

This doesn’t make me a better person. This is not an act worthy of praise or applause or high-fiving. This is the absolute least i can do. It is necessity. It is the beginnings of justice.

We have such a long way to go still and i am privileged to know some really incredible people who are helping me navigate the little that i do to hopefully keep this on peoples’ radars and keep people invited and involved and uncomfortable and mobilised.

But i cannot afford not to choose this day, something that so many people have absolutely no choice over.