Born at the end of colonization, I grew up in what they called the post-colonisation era, I understand some people out there dont know how it is to be colonised, but my parents, and grandparents will tell you how it is to be at the bad end of it. I'm more tolerant of things like "unity", "togetherness", "freedom" and all the other buzz words simply because I really did not see with my own two eyes the extent to which we were oppressed. But I've heard the stories, I've seen the evidence and I can tell you, just to listen to the stories is not an easy or comfortable thing. You ask yourself how a human being can treat another human being like they are worse than animals?
But hey that's in the past right? Its all gone right? Maybe; but to say that we have come together as one, black and white, in as much as we might try, we have not. Why do I say so? I say so because we have not, I say so because I grew up in Chitungwiza and down there it was a site to see a white person driving through. I say so because I went to St Mary's Secondary School, where the white man's kid has never set foot since it was converted to a day school in a black community. I say so because I went to NUST, where if I were to count the white students there I'd never get to 3. I say so because I looked for a job and I never made it into the top notch jobs, which were noticeably predominantly white. I say so because basically the evidence on the ground shows we did not come together as one.
What we did was to stop denying each other walking in any street in any town or place. What we did was to stop putting curfews on each other. We stopped calling each other names (at least in public), and we allowed everyone to vote, but we do not live together, we do not go to the same schools, or get the same jobs, or eat the same food, or hang out at the same places. Its not like its written down that you shall not live in such such a place or eat at so and so, its like this: I went into a supermarket sometime back, in a hood that the rich black people stay with the middle class whites, and I was standing at a milk shelf. I asked the attendend who was next to me, a fellow black sista, how much a pint of milk was costing; she told me she did not know and asked me to check with guys at the tills. Ok fine. Now comes a white man, and before he even says a word, my fellow sista goes "Good morning sir, how are you doing today, can I be of any ....". Ok so maybe they know each other, right? So anyway, I finally got the price of a pint of milk without checking with the guys at the tills, the white man also wanted to buy milk, so my fellow sista...
Moral of the story is, we are still colonised. Sad as it might be, most black people still feel inferior to whites, and most whites still feel superior to blacks. That's how I see it. I went once into this diner, sometime back, me and a friend of mine. Turned out we were the only ones different there. The service we got there also turned out to be the most pathetic. First, the waiter seemed to hesitate to let us sit in the diner, then he seemed like he was not going to give us the menu, he wanted to be sure we knew what we were doing, and then on ordering I think the worry had shifted to "are you guys able to pay for this?" Apart from all this, I have to tell you the whole atmosphere felt like I was not in my country anymore. I felt like a total stranger in some world that I could never fit in. It was so refreshing to step out back into Zimbabwe outside. Outside my country was still there for me, outside the street kids were begging as usual. Outside people were buying vegetable to go and cook sadza for supper. Outside was the normal Zimbabwe, the one I grew up in.
Whites and blacks, we live different lives. And it feels strange sometimes. How a people, confined by the same bounds of a country's borders. Can live such different lives. But then again who said we should not be different? We are bound to be different if we grew up in different enviroments, with different values, but sometimes, coming from the less privileged, you feel like something unfair is happening, maybe it is, maybe some independent observer (if such exists) is the only one to tell.
i am manulite
But hey that's in the past right? Its all gone right? Maybe; but to say that we have come together as one, black and white, in as much as we might try, we have not. Why do I say so? I say so because we have not, I say so because I grew up in Chitungwiza and down there it was a site to see a white person driving through. I say so because I went to St Mary's Secondary School, where the white man's kid has never set foot since it was converted to a day school in a black community. I say so because I went to NUST, where if I were to count the white students there I'd never get to 3. I say so because I looked for a job and I never made it into the top notch jobs, which were noticeably predominantly white. I say so because basically the evidence on the ground shows we did not come together as one.
What we did was to stop denying each other walking in any street in any town or place. What we did was to stop putting curfews on each other. We stopped calling each other names (at least in public), and we allowed everyone to vote, but we do not live together, we do not go to the same schools, or get the same jobs, or eat the same food, or hang out at the same places. Its not like its written down that you shall not live in such such a place or eat at so and so, its like this: I went into a supermarket sometime back, in a hood that the rich black people stay with the middle class whites, and I was standing at a milk shelf. I asked the attendend who was next to me, a fellow black sista, how much a pint of milk was costing; she told me she did not know and asked me to check with guys at the tills. Ok fine. Now comes a white man, and before he even says a word, my fellow sista goes "Good morning sir, how are you doing today, can I be of any ....". Ok so maybe they know each other, right? So anyway, I finally got the price of a pint of milk without checking with the guys at the tills, the white man also wanted to buy milk, so my fellow sista...
Moral of the story is, we are still colonised. Sad as it might be, most black people still feel inferior to whites, and most whites still feel superior to blacks. That's how I see it. I went once into this diner, sometime back, me and a friend of mine. Turned out we were the only ones different there. The service we got there also turned out to be the most pathetic. First, the waiter seemed to hesitate to let us sit in the diner, then he seemed like he was not going to give us the menu, he wanted to be sure we knew what we were doing, and then on ordering I think the worry had shifted to "are you guys able to pay for this?" Apart from all this, I have to tell you the whole atmosphere felt like I was not in my country anymore. I felt like a total stranger in some world that I could never fit in. It was so refreshing to step out back into Zimbabwe outside. Outside my country was still there for me, outside the street kids were begging as usual. Outside people were buying vegetable to go and cook sadza for supper. Outside was the normal Zimbabwe, the one I grew up in.
Whites and blacks, we live different lives. And it feels strange sometimes. How a people, confined by the same bounds of a country's borders. Can live such different lives. But then again who said we should not be different? We are bound to be different if we grew up in different enviroments, with different values, but sometimes, coming from the less privileged, you feel like something unfair is happening, maybe it is, maybe some independent observer (if such exists) is the only one to tell.
i am manulite
Comments
Brilliant observations! Please keep writing, get the message out!