Morons who vote.

I had to finally type out my thoughts, as a result of an uncomfortable conversation on Whats App, that made, (at least to me) the issue of White Privilege blatantly obvious.

I believe that I was witness to white anger and privilege, because of a conversation around the potential licence fees payable by owners of generators and solar power, whether we are on or off the grid. the travails of Eskom are well documented and the people and businesses of South Africa are suffering the results. I am not the first nor the last person in South Africa that bemoans the dire situation our State Run Enterprises are in, and I am certainly of the opinion that mis management and corruption, have resulted in much of our current issues. that being said, this is the sentence that has my dander up:

"so the way I see it-and I might be kicked off the group because of my opinion. if you still vote for those corrupt, thieving criminals who call themselves a political party with values then you are a moron. the ANC has entrenched themselves as a corrupt nepotism who relies on an uneducated mass to keep them in power-just like ZANU-PF"

We have in South Africa, both a constitution and policies in place that may be second to none, we have inherited the sins of a past that have not adequately been addressed or attended to, so when a man says that the present government is still intent on indulging it's bulimic urges, by over taxing it's people, I could say that the last regime did so in spades, and compensated only the privileged few.
Yet, you forget these issues, because lack of services are just the preserve of the privileged, and morons voted the bulimics in, were the privileged of the past morons to?

When a man of privilege is angered by lack of privilege, it no longer becomes worthy of intelligent discussion, as the perceived Masters voice, overrides any further discussion, from my perspective I will unpack what it is, and was to be the Moron,

white privilege, deprived the Moron of education, so it could create unskilled cheap labour, and servitude to the privileged. it then tiered colour, and allocated education accordingly, the Morons were deprived of hope and dreams, and were quickly taught that aspiration was illegal and non beneficial to privilege, privilege effectively kept out Morons from any participation in political or social thought.

White privilege  resided behind high walls, with manicured lawns, dogs, ample food, education, access to health, wealth, and a play ground bar non. the Morons were used to keep the privilege going.

However Morons survived on the dream of freedom, of hope, of aspiration of one day being counted and allowed into an elite group of green lawns, tennis courts, and pampered poodles, one day the raised fist and movement of the Moron made dreams and hopes possible, and the Morons voted, for the right to dream and aspire.

We the Morons have joined an elite group of privileged, yet the door still remains shut, we will continue to be Morons, because the hues that make us brown and black and in between, will forever be the benchmark upon which our actions are judged.

Now we shall go back in history a little, where a little brown girl was born into the hell of her brown skin, she didn't know what privilege was, her Father laboured in jobs where he was just another Koolie, who was barred from the whites only toilet, or the lunch room, where his skill and brains were utilised, but he would forever be Koolie, that he raised his children to know their worth, to raise that first for the dream of freedom and hopes and access, where education was denied him, so he toiled to provide that privilege for his children.

The brown girl was thirteen when privilege was revealed, she knew struggle, she knew police raids, she knew door to door campaigns, she had no garden, no poodle, no tennis court, she wore a uniform boarded a bus, from which she was barred, but a certain privilege came with that uniform, and it opened a different world, of children who did not know struggle, who thought Indians were the dark people in Durban, who cleaned the toilets on Whites only Beaches,
Privileged children who could tell the curry muncher to go back to India, who ate Drie Hoek Koelie Koekies with relish but had a learnt dislike for Brown People, who's parents voted for a "Bullimic government", that provided for the privileged only, and saw nothing wrong with taxing the eventual Morons, to keep their hunger for privilege alive, and the suburbs and the infrastructure going to keep those privileged happily living in paradise.

That brown girl, never played a sport, she did not know how, she lived in a rented flat, in a brown demarcated space, and her friends were those who had an idea of what life as a Moron was like, there were no pool parties, after school visits or invitations for the brown girl on the fringes of privilege.

Fast forward to present century, when the Morons were let out of Prison and exile and the rest of the Morons stood up on mass to vote in, a better life, the privileged packed their bags for greener pastures, where they could remain privileged and their children could have poodles and tennis courts and green lawns, and the Gods smiled on them, they were skilled, educated and white, they had access to passports and money and off they went.

the Morons have remained, but today we have some benefits of privilege, houses with lawns, marriages of our choice not dictated by race, access to jobs, housing and education, we have freedom of movement, we have passports that say South African Ciizen, we can travel, we have freedom of Speech and religion, we can go to the beaches, we can visit the game reserves and have a choice of accommodations, we can use the toilets, we can eat in restaurants and frequent hotels, we can dream and dance and sing, we are Human Morons, and we have the privilege of the vote, and why would we vote for the Bullimic, nepotistic, thieving corrupt ANC?

They brought us hope and dignity and humanity, because they provided what Privilege denied, because they created the dream of a South Africa for all her people, and yes they have become corrupt, and have failed with much, but what the privileged fail to see, is the creation of a dream of a better human future, which reduces some of the comfort of the privileged, which the Morons have never sort to deny, but to have an equal share in. Morons now have access to a life previously denied.

Morons can vote, Morons can speak up when government fails to deliver or provide adequately, the constitution and government policy puts the Moron in a position to effect change correctly.


I am therefore proud to be a Moron, not an uneducated mass Moron, but a Moron who still has hope, and who wants the best for all of South Africa, the Privileged are angry and disgruntled because things are just not that comfortable any more, but if you could have spent a day, in the shoes of the little brown girl, you may understand why Morons vote, and why Morons will continue to vote.

Morons are not Koolies with prized pastry treats, Morons are human beings that want nothing more than a better life, so when privilege gets angry and confrontational, you should walk in the Morons shoes for a day, and remember the words of James Baldwin:
"we can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist"

Morons don't vote for failing infrastructure, Morons vote for the hope of a better future, and when your past was robbed of hope, and any kind of a future, it is then clear where you will vote, education is not an indication of intelligence or voting trends. and it is not always productive to think of uneducated masses as being easily swayed by political rhetoric, it certainly didn't work for maintaining privilege in South Africa, so perhaps it is time, to change the way you think and deal with the gift that is white privilege.