Dear South Africa,

Actually, dear white South Africans. My peeps. I love you but we can’t have another year like 2017.

Seriously.

I’ve taken the liberty of writing a few New Year’s Resolutions for us.

I reckon we can do it.

  1. Learn an African language.
  2. Pay your domestic worker a living wage and stop calling her “Irene”. Her name is Thobeka.
  3. Only read novels written by African authors.
  4. Get on Black Twitter.
  5. Look at black people. Really look at them. Like, examine their facial features so you can recognise them if you see them again. In a crowd.
  6. When you’re washing dishes in a caravan park, watching a bunch of black kids swimming in the pool, and a white tannie asks you if this pool is for everyone, tell her she’s a racist, cause she is.
  7. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT, forward Whatsapp messages with prophecies about Cyril.
  8. Just listen. Listen to a different radio station, or TV show, or podcast by black South Africans. Read the comments section and don’t respond. Just listen. Especially white men – okes are not good at this one, hey.

Can you just try? Pick one and do it for a year and see what happens. 

I’ve done a few and it is WORTH IT. Doable and worth it.

This year, I’m going to do number 1 (again…cos I was useless the first time I did this) and 4 (because I don’t like Twitter but relevance, hey) and keep trying with number 8 cos it’s hard when you think you know everything.

We can do this, folks.

Love, Jess

[For more Dear South Africa letters, click here]