i hear that so often in conversations of race. But what am i meant to do? It sounds like an honest question and a healthy cry for help. But as a matter of fact i am starting to realise that it is incredibly lazy. You are asking me to give you the answers [which is at least one step up from the oppressors asking the oppressed for answers] so that you don’t have to do any work. You are basically asking to be spoonfed. And you need to STOPPIT!

bart

Someone posted an article the other day saying that Leslie Nielsen [the beloved bumbling police cop from the Naked Gun spoof movies and many others] had died. Which seemed like a typical piece of ‘let’s inform the world about important things we found out first’ information until someone pointed out that the article was written in 2010 and he had been dead for SIX YEARS.

There are fake death messages that go around on the internet all the time and perhaps one of the worst of those was that of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman that circulated just days before he actually did die. Which is maybe not a big deal for us but imagine you are friends or family and you read an article saying your loved one is dead and then find out later that it was a hoax and he is very much alive. Well, just imagine your response three days later when you get the message that he has died [for real this time]. “No, no, it was just a hoax, Philip is fine.” And then the moment when you actually realise that this time it is true.

All of which can be avoided by jumping on to Google and typing in the words of the news you are checking and the word “hoax” or “scam” and then there are actual sites like Snopes.com and others that can help you even more quickly. This also works for messages telling you Richard Branson is about to give you a big pile of money or that you will get a free phone or computer by sharing or liking this picture. All designed to make you spread their advertising or at times their virus-laden messages or sites. When in doubt, check the message out before forwarding [especially when it is something huge like someone dying or some or other crisis] To not do so is incredibly lazy and can cause a lot of panic/miscommunication and confusion.

spoon

Bringing us back to Race conversations in South Africa. But first let me stop off in Americaland.

tbV and i lived in the States for three years – 18 of those was in an inner city low economy area of Philadelphia called Kensington that always got eyebrows raised and ‘Why would you live there?’ questions when we told people where we were living. Think Hillbrow, Manenberg, Khayelitsha – it was not a place a lot of people chose to move into. Then we moved to a place called Oakland near San Francisco which was not quite Kensington, but still got some eyebrows raised. Typical features most nights were gun shots and police sirens with stuff happening out on the streets on a regular basis. At least two people were killed on our street while we lived in Kensington. i imagine that for a lot of you reading this, no one has died on your street ever your whole lives, except maybe of natural causes. That is the reality that a lot of people face daily and we learnt a lot from just being in that space and trying to love our neighbours well. [One very clear aspect of privilege we learned there is the ability we had to choose to live in a place so many people were trying to get out of. That’s privilege right there. ]

During the time we were over there a young African American guy called Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by a neighbourhood watch volunteer in Florida. It was just one of a huge number of race incidents that would flare up including the shooting of unarmed Michael Brown that took place in the town of Ferguson in August 9, 2014.

What happened after that was quite unusual for me. i am quite a lazy non-researchy kind of guy and so if something interests me i may read one blog post on it and probably skim the post. But when the backlash to the Ferguson incident happened and the Black Lives Movement started gaining momentum, i found myself interested and reading a blog post on it and then clicking on two links from that post. Before i knew it was happening i had read twenty plus articles and posts on this stuff and felt a growing passion for the story unfolding in Americaland. Which i followed [and still do] with much interest, because although i believe our two stories are so radically different in some ways, in other ways there is huge overlap and similarity.

ENTER SOUTH AFRICA

We were about to return to South Africa after three years of working with non-profits overseas and i felt this passion rising in me. When i look back i feel like for some reason i had to be removed from our situation and experience a different but similar situation in a foreign country for the passion for my own country to be birthed as deeply as it was.

Soon after we returned home we were given an amazing opportunity to spend a weekend at Robben Island with a diverse group of mostly young people, but also including Former Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane [a former prisoner on Robben Island] and a girl whose dad had been a prisoner on the island among others. We were given an in depth tour and slept in the hostel styled rooms that had formerly housed prisoners. We heard some profoundly moving stories and i realised more and more that i didn’t have a good enough understanding of the history of our country.

i bought a copy of the Robert Sobukwe book, ‘How Can Man Die Better?’ at the Island store and dived into it when i returned home and later got hold of the Steve Biko, ‘I Write What I Like’ as well as reading ‘Better to be Black’ by Antjie Krog and other books by Tutu and Frank Chikane.

i started hanging out with my friend Nkosi [although not enough!] and met his friend Mondi who is at UWC and we had a few conversations with them and others in our home about race related things. i invited a number of black friends [some who i just met online, like the incredibly wise Sindile and Linde, Felicity and more] to write some pieces for my blog so that we could hear some of the issues from their perspectives. One of the series was titled ‘What I would love my white friends to hear’ and was really helpful.

i started reading a LOT of articles about white privilege and race-related issues and reconciliation and restitution. i started collecting a a number of helpful pieces on privilege which you can find here and a whole lot over here.

WHAT IS THE POINT?

The point that i am making and really want a lot of people who are starting to get woke, as the saying goes [have eyes opened more to things of race/inequality/privilege/systemic racism], to really hear is that we need to stop being lazy.  

This is the biggest question that our country faces at the moment and i would argue the church as well. If it is so important then we really need to commit some time and energy and effort and resources to making sure we do it well. For many of us that means catching up [in terms of reading, in terms of trying to learn and understand the history as it happened and not as we were fed and in terms of building friendships and listening to stories and stepping towards – some of us have a long way to go still and we need to get our skin in the game and quick!] and putting in some effort.

One of the series i ran was on ‘How to be a Better Ally’ to our friends of colour and the temptation was [and often is, for many of us] to go to our black friends and get them to tell us how to do it. Which seems reasonable as we are wanting to get it right and not wanting to make even more mistakes and so on – it comes from a good place. BUT, at the same time, and please really try and hear this, it is the Oppressor asking the Oppressed to do all the work. “Tell us what to do and then we will do it!” NO, THAT IS NOT HOW THIS WORKS! We need to be figuring this stuff out – not in isolation, hopefully by now we have built up some friendships with people who feel safe enough to let us know when we’re getting it wrong. But it’s time for those of us who were on the side of those who did the bad thing to figure out how to undo the bad thing.

So for the Ally series, i wrote it myself and asked some friends to help out. I did some research and read a lot of race stuff from Americaland and here to try and figure out what would help make us better allies. And then i tagged my friends of colour in when i published them and asked if i was right and what was and wasn’t helpful and so on. It is an ongoing work in progress and it happens in community but it requires that me, as the white guy, takes on the responsibility and does the work.

The point is, STOP EXPECTING TO BE SPOONFED ON THIS! Person up. Do some work!

WHY CAN’T WE BE COLOURBLIND?

Which is why i have an issue with the new #Colourblind movement that has started up in South Africa in a well-intentioned way of bringing people together. But i feel like it is completely lazy. i chatted to two of the organisers of the Facebook group [and then got booted out when i continued to disagree with them in a calm and informative way] promoting the #Colourblind and tried to get them to see that we all lose out if we truly become colourblind. Each of us brings an incredibly diversity when we come with our colour and culture and life story to the table and if we try and pretend we don’t see that we become this big blob of grey which is thoroughly uninteresting. Also, if you are ‘colourblind’ then you cannot be aware of white privilege and how that needs to be addressed and leveraged to bring about change in the country. If you are ‘colourblind’ then you won’t be able to see that the systems and structures we have in place in our country are still disadvantaging certain people in different ways. It is kind of like a ‘Get out of Jail Free’ card that allows you to not have to be bothered by racial things any more cos can’t we all just be friends.

So, if you are genuinely asking what you can do, here is my response: 

# Get busy learning the history of the country. Read black and coloured and indian authors and try and broaden the history story you have of South Africa.

# Grow friendships – spend more time intentionally with your friends of colour and share your stories – share your parents stories – let’s not shy away from talking about painful racial histories but rather listen to them to hear what other people have gone through and might still be facing. Ask your friends to hold you accountable if you say something on social media or live that creates racial offence without you realising it

# Stop policing black pain. We desperately need to listen so much more before responding. When students are burning paintings or when protesters are invading rugby fields, before branding them as hooligans and writing them off, first try and listen and understand and ask why? Is there a bigger violence [that may be a systemic or structural one and largely unseen] that we might be missing. There may be a time where we also say that burning paintings and invading rugby fields is not okay… but let’s begin at a place of trying to understand the actions before judging them from afar.

# Have a Deep Dive Conversation with your friends – tbV and i want to help create some resources for these at some time but gather together friends of different races and have a meal together and have one question that you sit and wrestle with for a couple of hours together – if you want some ideas as to how to shape such an evening let me know or figure it out yourselves – but create spaces for stories and while those are safe spaces let them also be spaces where it’s okay to be angry, or disappointed, or hopeless,or afraid and to say so. Listen listen listen to each other

# If you’re in Cape Town then join us Wed 2 March in Manenberg in the evening at Jou Ma Se Kombuis for the watching of a Robert Sobukwe film and some conversation afterwards that i am hoping will be deeply significant. There is a Facebook event so let us know if you’re coming. Bring a carload of people.

# Next time you move house choose to live in an area where everyone doesn’t look like you – that is one of the top things on our priority list as we are currently seeking a place to stay in Cape Town. i am currently in an email conversation with a couple in Durban who are doing just that which i will post shortly on here.

# MOST IMPORTANTLY, just please stop being so         lazy and put some effort in. The time for expecting others to spoonfeed you is over. Make this a top priority because it is of vital importance to South Africa as a country and for those of you who are Jesus followers i believe it is absolutely vital for the kingdom of God which is a kingdom all about reaching out to the poor and the marginalised and those considered as the least of these.