Publications
Partners
I came home for the holidays, along with a foreign friend. She wanted to see where I come from and experience the beauty that is South Africa. This was the perfect opportunity for me because I would also get a chance to travel around South Africa and really get to know this place that I have called home all my life. We did both the Johannesburg and Cape Town city sight seeing tours, I went to museums I'd gone as a child and got a newfound appreciation for our history, I did a number of things all for the first time with my friend and it was interesting listening to her take on our way of life and how lucky she felt we are for living in such a beautiful country. I on the other hand was growing more and more disappointed as I listened to speech after speech of how the white man was the first to name this landmark or did something so historical that everyone around the world should know about.
It got so bad that in the Joburg city bus tour, they told us about a random white woman who famously poisoned her husbands for money, all because 'they couldn't find one heroic black story' to tell. I'm deeply disappointed with all the parties involved in making this tour possible, I found myself asking this, was it laziness that made it impossible to find stories that our ancestors played a key role in; or, were there so many stories that none sufficed and the only sensible solution was to white wash our history??? I encourage my fellow South African to spare R200 and just a day and for them to take these tours so you can get an understanding of what I am talking about. It's insane to me that this was approved and the only narrative we are given as Black people is that of having experienced apartheid and all round poverty. WHAT THE HELL WERE OUR ANCESTORS DOING BEFORE WE WERE COLONIZED?? South African tourism department.. you can do better, I have to believe that otherwise the stereotypes of always belittling the Black man or woman will never die because of the very stories we tell to the rest of the world.
