DANCING TO STEROTYPE

Oh dear! Me thinks the blacks and now tired of the 'black' culture of blaming everything on the whites and apartheid - interesting indeed.

Dancing to stereotype
Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya:
THE F WORD
06 January 2008 11:59

"The problem with blacks," my new friend says, in condemnatory tone, to the rest of the company, “is that we are too harsh on other blacks. You would think they are the only ones who do bad things.” All of us around the table are black. Some dare to suggest that there are a few things darkies need to sort out themselves before blaming the “system” for our sorry plight.

In keeping with that conversation, I will just have to be “too harsh” on blacks again. This time it is about the matric results. It would be naïve to ignore the reality that hungry children, pondering where their next meal will come from while in class, and those who lack the support of parents — who have to wake up too early, or arrive too late from work or are absent for the better part of the year — will always be at a distinct disadvantage. It is difficult to motivate someone who has seen older siblings trapped in ghetto life despite passing matric very well, because there are no funds to further their education.

Similarly it would be too harsh to ignore the reality of teaching quality and sufficient materials that would make learning easier for our kids in the final year of their schooling. But we can control the controllable. We can inculcate in our children respect for academic achievement and enterprise rather than the false glamour of social butterflies.

Perhaps it is my misfortune, but each time I try to watch Soweto TV it is about the new street talk or the latest music videos. Surely that is not all there is to urban black people. What is wrong with profiles of people who have, under the same pressures (often worse given the rampancy of apartheid) as today’s youth, made a name for themselves in areas such as education, business and the arts?

Black parents should question the SABC’s decision to broadcast a show such as Jika Majika (a youth dance competition on Wednesdays at 7pm) as part of prime time viewing, especially when children should be studying. Of course one cannot blame the failure of learners on one TV show. But when a show and its timing reveal what is important in the lives of our young people it is time to question why the show isn’t screened when kids are at leisure. For as long as we perpetuate the caricature of blacks singing (and dancing) when they are both happy and sad, we may as well accept the view that black people are there for the amusement and labour of their compatriots.

It is worse now that President Thabo Mbeki and his perceived haughtiness have brought intellectualism into disrepute and, in its wake, created the impression that what is needed in a leader is the ability to burst into song at the drop of a kanga. It does not help either that the place of intellectual rigour and academic achievement is slowly being taken by what one has to show materially as opposed to what is required for one to be iskhokho (one who is exceptional in his or her field). My friend will have to forgive me, for sometimes we need to be harsh on, and demand more of, ourselves if we are to break the curse of underachievement.