Apparently I am idiot!

Ha ha. Ok so today I was thinking how I really need to get back into this blogging thing. I mean writing is my passion and in my new job I get to do very little of it. Come on- I had the word SCRIBE tattooed on the inside of my left bicep - you don't get more committed than that.

So I mulled it over all day and I was planning to come into work and punch out a few words in the hopes that something witty, or insightful or both would spill out of my brain onto the screen in front of me.

So when I got an email from a colleague from an old paper about a letter to the editor about a column I had written some 3 years ago obviously my first thought was "holy shitballs can you say sign?"

Wanna read it:

"Hi Frankie,

This e-mail came into the heraldletters address - I'm intrigued, what was the insult?

Hope you're well and your work is going well too.
Susan



----- Original Message -----
From: Garikai Masara garikai.masara@gmail.com
To: heraldletters@avusa.co.za
Sent: Monday, February 09, 2009 2:08 PM
Subject: For Froncois Rank

Dear Francois Rank,
You insulted me calling me an idiot in your publication (Weekend Herald). Well you too are AN IDIOT.-- R.B.NgoroEditor-Online Asia Africa Newshttp://www.asiaafrorights.org/"


Now normally I would take offence to something like this but the dude (an editor) spelt my name wrong in his email.

Just to clear up something - Ngoro was the media spokesman for the mayor of Cape Town three or four years ago. He was fired for making derogatory statements about Coloured people on his website. I in turn wrote an opinion piece about how offensive I found the word. I called him an idiot and made a few terrible puns using his first name and that was that. IT WAS THREE YEARS AGO. It does however illustrate two things. The power of the written word and the power of the internet. If it was not for the interwebs and the googles Ngoro would never have known I had insulted him in column in a small regional paper all those years ago.

I could go all Maddox here but that is not my style. Instead I am going to thank Blackman (that's his name people). Thank you Mr Ngoro for making me realise that is in fact time for me once again to pick up the pen (as it were) and put my thoughts out there for all to see.
Send me another email tomorrow. It will keep me inspired!

Here is the original column I wrote courtesy of the http://www.weekendpost.co.za

Blackman is an idiot- thank God most black men are not!

The word coloured was created by a government who couldn’t define certain people

Deputy Chief Reporter Francois Rank finds the term offensive, but he is not ashamed of his mixed descent

THERE’S that bleeding word again. Coloured ! When Blackman Ngoro (what an awesome name) wrote that inane article on his web site, I’ll be honest it didn’t really bother me.

I just thought it was pretty funny that a black man named Blackman would be stupid enough to write an article about race. I mean come on, the potential for double meaning here is limitless.

But then again Blackman is from Zimbabawe, so he is in the unique position of having coloured people living within his country’s borders.

Actually so do Americans. Wait, no, those people are black. Semantics is an interesting thing, isn’t it?

It’s amazing how the same word can have two completely different meanings – both linked to race in this case, mind you.

In America if you are of mixed descent and one of your parents is what they call black or what we call coloured , you are black or what they used to call coloured.

Here if one of your parents is black and one isn’t, you are what we call coloured and not what we call black but definitely what they call black.

The point I am trying to make is that the terms that Blackman used in his article are in the long run simply a construct.

Blackman, I am sure he won’t mind me calling him that. I mean that’s who he is or should that be what he is after all?

Constructs: In this country the word coloured was created to divide and that is what it is still doing today.

I am coloured , so I have been told, but I have always regarded myself as black.
I date a white woman who I might end up marrying one day.

Sometimes when we talk about our collective future she asks me what our children would be. You know white or coloured . Now it’s possible that our kids could come out white as the driven snow with beautiful light eyes but they won’t be white, I’m afraid they’ll be coloured .

Stupid, isn’t it?
But that is how the construct works.

The word was created by a government who couldn’t define a certain group of people, so decided to lump them all together and call them “Kleurling”.
The Oxford Dictionary describes the term “ coloured ” as “wholly or partly of non white descent (now usually offensive except in SA use) SA: of mixed ethnic origin”.

It’s the offensive part I want to deal with. I for one find it offensive.
Not because I am ashamed of my mixed descent.
Although I don’t know how mixed it is as both my parents are the same ethnicity.

No, I find it offensive because the word itself was something someone came up with because they could not think of anything better.
Now I know some scholar is probably going to blow me out of the water with a diatribe about the Geneology of my people, but I don’t care.

I am proud of my people but please do not label me – especially because you find that I am inconvenient.

Blackman you’re an idiot, thank God most black men are not.
The next time my girlfriend asks me what our children will be, I know exactly what I’ll tell her: “Beautiful. They’ll be beautiful.”