OIA OPENING GALLERY

?. Okay, so now you’ve recognised it “was done in your name”, and I think we all had. Now what? Must we say “sorry” forever more for what our forefathers did? Will we move forward that way?
I am not for one moment being oblivious to the fact that racism is still alive and well, every South African, black or white these days experience it at some time. But what I am saying is, if we do not stop making everything about color and race, it will never go away. I say again, I see people in these pictures, not blacks and whites. And if there is a gallery of a party held in Soweto, or a fashion show, where there were mostly black guys, I still look at it and see people, not color. I will gain nothing by complaining about the fact that there are not enough pink people or green people or whatever. That is the point.
If every single person in this country would just in themselves, and only for themselves try to see people as people, and not sit and count how many people of each color there are, the world would be a much better place. The fact that someone actually browses through these pictures and physically count how many white faces and how many black faces there are shows nothing more than a serious personal problem, I don’t care what demographics say.

BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE…

Not guilt. I don’t think of it as guilt; I am not complicit, but I am implicated. I suppose growing up in a family in which one’s father is a white South African man who chose to fight for the liberation of ALL people in the country of his birth at a huge cost to himself and his family rather than passively accept the white privilege into which he was born makes me uneasy about simple responses. Out of touch with reality: I guess if reality is a townhouse complex unit in Fourways or life on a golf estate, I am indeed out of touch. My ideas are informed by my everyday interaction with other South Africans, Black and white, political comrades with whom I share a goal of bringing about a changed South Africa, and for us, even when we party, we realise our every action is political in the true sense of the word. So no white guilt here, I’m afraid; but for me the options aren’t only “white guilt” or “mindless acceptance of the status quo”. And my criticism of this site is nuanced: my crude count of faces and phenotype was in response to a post which claimed that there was balance and a realistic reflection of contemporary SA.

It is, however, telling how emotionally laden the responses have been.

Knowledge. I think I’ve suggested a couple of things which could change about MambaOnline, but the assumptions from which you depart in your email (and state as FACTS rather than as opinions) indicate to me that you’re unlikely to do any of these.

(1) Have more phenotypically Black faces in the prominent areas of the website (the home page, eg. at this moment has none).

(2) When thumbnails are used as links to galleries, perhaps you could use phenotypically Black faces more often. If, as is indicated elsewhere, you “see” people, not Black or white people, how would one explain the overwhelming dominance of white men’s faces for a site in a country which is majority Black and whose queer population would therefore also be mostly Black? This is not an attack, just a matter for pondering.

(3) The “pick of the week” is invariably a young white man under the age of 35, mostly under 30. Is it possible that this minority group of queer men in South Africa could be the minority “pick of the week” as well? Or will this have a “cost”?

These are initial thoughts, but if you treat your assumptions about Black South Africans as having a “victim status” as a fact rather than as your opinion, much of what I suggest would either be “impossible” or “unthinkable”. I wonder how many Black people on this site see themselves as “victims” in agreement with your view. And what, one wonders, are the consequences of a view that “South African Blacks in general have a victim mentality” when confronted by real protest? I know what the historical precedent for this is in South Africa: willed white South African ignorance of Black lives has suddenly transformed into expertise on global Blackness.

Interesting debate. I don’t know if what 1985minotaur is saying is completely over exaggerated. I think he (or she?) is expressing a view felt by many black South Africans that, although many black South Africans come to the party, many white South Africans still prefer to stay marooned in their whites-only cocoon. One wonders whether, if the OIA was held in Maponya Mall that as many white South Africans would attend this event as black South Africans?

As a white gay person myself, I find it shocking how many white gays so easily forget that the struggle against apartheid was also very much a struggle for gay rights when they spout off about how, even though living in this country is utter shit, that at least the labour is cheap! But – oh no – we’re not racist because we care about the maid’s baby as if it were our own.

Now this does not necessarily leave the confines of dinner table conversation (with all that barbed wire, it’s no wonder..), but I often think that the attitude seeps through at least on a subconscious level. The basic point is that South Africa still is a racially divided society, and I think there is a greater duty on WHITE South Africans to integrate more willfully into South African society.

This is not to say that I think OIA is guilty of this – I think OIA is a fantastic organisation that actually has (at least in the past) done a great job of reaching out past the overly dominant gay white male sector of the community. But I think that white South Africans need to constantly remember that apartheid is not something easily forgotten, and although South Africa shouldn’t belabour itself under the memory, it should form as a backdrop for our understanding of how we relate to each other.

Paradox?. You agree with Tom who agrees with some of what I say and complete contradicts what you say?

And why do you demand a concession? This rhetorical gesture means it’s your way or the highway: either one agrees with your view or one is mad?

It is precisely this sense of entitlement to controlling the debate on racism which whiteness arrogates unto itself that I as a white person distance myself from. But then my history in antiracist struggle has taught me to listen for nuances and to avoid the sort of generalising statements about “Black people” as those with a “victim mentality”. Also, the South Africa I live in is one where, as Steven Friedman has pointed out, white people play the race card ALL THE TIME but pretend not to. Anyway, I would have to repeat myself (and it seems that you, Hein, either misread the arguments forwarded or choose to misconstrue them based on your assumptions of your “closer” familiarity with “South African reality”.

Aluta continua.

wow. you guys really have a lot of time on your hands 🙂