Im not racist but...

The hypocrisy of two words, even worst, the hypocrisy of a only sentence: “ I am not racist”. A status I AM, a non status I AM NOT, a sentence used to create a mask to hide under, which says who I AM NOT, but not who I AM. A defensive approach starting by “ I am not a racist, but blacks and coloureds ...”. The first part says that it is not related to race, the second one, in contradiction, pronounces the words blacks and coloureds!!!!! Do not make you thinking?

The beautiful faces and shapes of things always comparable to the Western, hide the reality, the ugliest; in the middle a perfect incomprehensibility, a negation, a no. We do not want them around.

Beautiful houses, beautiful cars, clothes, beautiful dogs and then...

While a friend and I were chatting, after a nice dinner at the Mozambican Restaurant, just in front of my house, a beautiful woman came out from her house with a bed mood in her face. Before to let her say anything we were already excusing ourselves to be maybe too loudly. She just ignored our words and in a brutal tone she asked “What are you doing here?”. “Sorry, I live here” I said. And she continued “ Yes, but what are you doing here?” My smile disappeared from my face trying to understand, but she still kept on talking “ I need to let my dog out”. A huge dog was standing beside her. “Is it dangerous?” I asked trying to not lose my calm and after she answers “ It should not be”, she walked in, leaving the dog in the yard.

I could not believe, my eyes neither my ears, and in few minutes I walked into my house too. If there was a white couple there outside, chatting, as many times had already happened, she would not say one word, but the mix, a white and a black is confusing, a black couple talking in the same road is unacceptable.

Maybe I am exaggerating, I hope so!.

I have found a job as a receptionist in a backpacker for 20 R. per hour (2 euro per hour) and I am actually happy. The next morning I woke up early and I go.

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“ I think you should also know how to deal with different people....I am not racist, Tina, but, you know blacks and coloured we use to put them in the 2 rooms which we have at the ground floor....you know, to keep an eye on them...” Form the other side of the room, the manager of the backpacker is smiling at her, proud of what he was listening to.

Blacks are always at the back, the white one will come and check or double check if the work is done or how. No smiling, no humility, no respect. And I felt bad and sorry.

I cannot I can not compromise myself anymore, I can not accept this and I am tired of listening to this I AM NOT RACIST BUT...................enough!!!!

Be responsible and ask yourself what you are!!!

White fathers and mothers saying that they are not racists but their children do not go out with black kids, their daughter do not date a black guy, they do not have black friends; black or coloured is the lady cleaning their house off course, or the nanny of their children.????

At the restaurant whites eat and blacks serve!!!!

Yet!!! Most of the time.

Is the situation changing? Yes? Maybe? Not?
Is the mentality and the culture changing? Yes, not, maybe... but we need much more time.

A friend of mine invited me for a play, a satyric political Indian play called “The Lahnees's Pleasure”, written and directed by Mr. Ronnie Govender.

I started to watch the play, about Indians living during the apartheid...in really few words (Mr. Ronnie is going to forgive me!). I started to be interested: in the audience almost everybody was Indian, then 2 old white couples, a single white man, and me. All Indians were laughing from the beginning, while the white people were looking at the play like a reality were living not many years ago and now having in front of them in a shape of a ghost.

The past is not yet a past and not everybody is ready to laugh about it.

We need time, but are we building a better society, living and keep our children living our own life, without any share, without walking the path of the difference????

I have been teaching in the Italian school a Maputo for 2 years and I remember how I felt upset and sad when my students went on Wikipedia to do a research about Maputo....I could not understand...then I just thought...off course...they do not know the reality around, their parents are afraid to show them the difference, the condition which other kids live in, starting from the periphery of the capital city.

There are people who never have jumped in a Chapa, never have smelt the “difference”....It is easy to judge from outside: they are ignorant, they are stupid, they are lazy...and we? We were born, me I was born with a status, and although from a not rich family I have had all the possibility to study, to work and study and now write these words.

Sorry I am not a racist but whites should think twice before to say I am not racist but blacks and coloured!!!!

Vivete la vita!!!

Tina