Us and them
I am of the opinion we are inclined to define ourselves, the space around us and where we belong. How we define these things is a construct of society, culture and a myriad of other factors.
For some strange reason during the course of this definition of self for some reason we focus more on the differences between us than the similarities; language, tribe, race, skin colour, gender, sexual orientation, genealogy.
Difference is misunderstood and in turn we fear what we don’t understand from there it’s easy to hate what we fear and it’s difficult to turn away from a hateful path. Hate is like a plague we pass down to our children, their children’s children and their children’s children’s children creating a society of people who hate and fear without quite understanding why…
If a look at your history does not fill with either shame and or anger then you do not know your history well…
Racism has been age old problem there from hundreds of years before I was born and still now its tentacles permeate across the fabric of our society.
The Colourism Issue where people bleach their skin to be lighter skinned in part stems from the racial bias where black is ugly and beauty is in fairer lighter coloured skin just like how people would abandon their mother language to speak the civilised more educated English language of the Imperial colonisers.
Before the liberation of Zimbabwe, Rhodesia as Zimbabwe was a racially segregated land meaning the land was divided into places for whites only, suburbs, buildings, restaurants, schools and blacks who were the natives were second class citizens without a right to vote.
Recently I learnt a curious fact from a conversation with an elderly uncle, how that Right of Admission is Reserved sign, one sees commonly displayed on entrances of some establishments is a remnant of the racial colonial times.
Back in those times the world had started frowning upon the blatantly segregatory apartheid regime in South Africa and it was a tad bit tacky to display a sign that showed blacks were not allowed so instead Right of Admission Was Reserved which meant that someone would discretely tell you, you were not allowed inside for some reason or other and not spell out its because of your race.
As my uncle was explaining this, he told me the story of how he had once been kicked out from a prominent hotel in the city, the very place we were now sitting, enjoying a round of sun-downer evening cocktails that a man such as himself would have been arrested for back in the day… how times have changed he marvelled.
A trauma of years of racial segregation is not easy to wipe away even when you call a nation a rainbow nation. The children of the oppressors carry with them the guilt of their ancestors while the children of the oppressed still carry the anger of their forebearers, what a fell gathering, is it surprising that racism exists still?
Be proud of who you, skin colour and all but of course when people tell you to be who you are they proceed to judge you and tell you how you cant be like that
According to the constitution of Zimbabwe homosexuality is a crime. I must say I have always wondered how this law is enforced if the government department that goes about peeping into people’s private lives. I have seen Christians violently speaking against homosexuality calling it unGodly and its pretty much a sensitive subject yet again I keep thinking I thought we should leave judgement to the Lord, let he without sin cast the first stone…
The differences between us not only separate us they are what make us unique and I hope one day we will be celebrate each other’s differences like children at play
~B
Photocredit: the girl on the bench Peter Magubane in The Guardian
Becoming The Muse 
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