Emotional baggage

It’s a quirk of our minds how we pursue some of the things we believe will make us happy, and in turn drop those pursuits when we realise we’re not getting the result we initially wanted. We deflect our insecurities towards others because we don’t want to be alone. This is the result of disavowed feelings that we deliberately refuse to acknowledge or let rise up to the surface and deal with them accordingly.

We look for ways to numb our suffering by consuming toxic chemicals, staying busy, exercising profusely, and going out to meet new people or to catch up with old friends. This may be the result of an experience we endured and never really addressed in any way; this could have been something as simple as someone who betrayed our trust, violated our self-esteem or made us doubt their kindness.

The mind is a very complicated and sensitive instrument, it continuously endures a life time battle between emotion and logic, play and work, sacrifice and reward. As human beings, we’re all very similar in design, culture, religion, race, and aspiration, but the nuances of emotion define who we truly are towards others. Uninterpreted emotions do manifest themselves as powerful directionless anxiety, resulting in us being anxious and depressed about everything because we don’t want to be anxious and depress about one specific thing.

The process of evaluating our emotions regularly brings about an alleviating sense in our mood. We must pay for our self-awareness with a period of mourning and gradually accept, in some area or other, that life is a lot sadder than what we initially expected. 

Tennis

Today I’m going to write about a sport that has seen the greatest sportsmen and women in history, scream, shout, and let it all out on the court, while wearing the shortest skirts and shorts that the world has enjoyed looking at. For most teenagers, this is soft porn they can watch in front of their parents, and for parents this is the only form of porn they can control.

This is a beautiful game, a game where you’re judged by your inadequacies. A game where your opponents–who’s most probably wearing even shorter shorts or skirt than you are–become champions because of your mistakes. This sport is called tennis.

On TV you’ll notice the coach watching from the player’s box wearing his shades with arms crossed, while the tennis player screams at himself and destroys their $600 000 tennis racquet that is supposed to make them play like a champion, while the coach reminisces on the times when he could watch a tennis game on TV, with his mother.

But seriously this is a beautiful sport, and each game can literally go on forever unless someone makes a mistake. If you’re 105 years old and you’re watching your greatest grandson’s granddaughter go up against the best tennis player in the world, you don’t have forever, you have about as much time as it takes to cook microwaved noodles for your grandson’s granddaughter to win the match. If she loses… well, let’s just say mourning the loss of that game will not be the only mourning she will be doing that week.

Every game, every set you see a player lose, it destroys them as much as their greatest grandmother silently fades into the next world. What makes things even worse is that the crowd claps like hungry seals clapping for fish when that hardworking player makes a mistake. My advice for anybody wanting to pick up tennis would be to play basketball. The shorts have gotten much longer, the crowd cheers you on when you DON’T make a mistake, and the pay is amazing. Plus you can convince your parents you’re not yet ready to watch soft porn in front of them. 

what a weekend.

So yesterday my girlfriend and I went to Groote Constantia wine estate. It was a cold and epic day. we pretty much got drunk of some really good wine and we started talking about our families. I guess wine will make any man reveal his inner secrets with the right kind of wine and the right kind of company.

We were talking about how closed minded our families are and what makes us so different that they would actually denounce us as if they actually knew who we really are.  What was important and it needs to be highlighted here is that we are not better than them, we are different. There hardest thing to do in any family is to love your family unconditionally.

After our evening of raises glasses, we went to the Grand West Casino. We saw King Tutenkhamun's tomb and we realised how rich the Egyptians were. This little bugger had three gold coffins and one coffin made out of stone. He had two chariots, one was for leisure, the other was for war. WAR! this kid is dead, but here were are standing infront of his war chariot.

He also had his throne, his organs placed in gold shrines protected by gods sculptured in gold. He had everything he needed for the after life and more. He even had servants called the answers for when he needed people to serve him in the after life. REALLY?

He had perfume, different kinds oils and make up to help him maintain a kingly image in the after life. His sandals were made our of pure gold and his all of his jewelry was made out of pure gold and blue stone from a meteoroid that landed in Egypt. This dynasty was rich and they lived like gods.

This Egyptians were black, and they were gods on earth. They had it all and more, in this life and the next.

The lesson I learnt here is that you got to get up early even on saturday to actually see the day. Winter I can't wait for you the end of your reign! 

as she was search for the sound of the dripping water she felt a drop of water hit her head. it was cold and fluid. she stood still, looked up and the ground beneath her opened up, and she fell into a cave.

she fell into a hole in the ground and landed on a sponge. she was glad it was there but she was frightened at the fact that someone had purposefully placed it there.

she looked around and noticed that the cave had many paths to it. she wanted to climb back up and go back to her warm bed, but the whole she fell from was impossible to climb (find the words and describe it).

she decided that her path out of herr laid with these paths. and so began her story.  

I woke up like this

I've decided to write like I used to. I read a book that suggested that I --me Nqobani Zondi-- should create unnecessarily. Write a piece of writing about anything I want.

I don't really know where the author got my name, I'm assuming it's all the american girls i've met in obz, but he spelt it correctly and the message was loud and clear. Message received!

This morning I'm going to write about what I did.

I got up at 6:15 and I pressed the snooze button so I could go back to sleep, that's all I did really. I believe everybody does this in winter. Pressing the snooze button is the best and worst thing you could do in the winter mornings; you fool yourself into thinking you have a few more minutes of sleep, which you get, but you have to pay a big prize for doing this. By the time I decided to get out of bed I was already running late. I got out of my bed faster than a black man running away from an attacking German Shepard. It was mad scary.

I got in the shower and brushed my teeth at the same time. I put on what look like a descent outfit and I run to work. When I got there, I was so disappointed at myself because I was actually 30 minutes earlier than everybody else.

The lesson to learn here is that you should have your own key when going to work, because there is absolutely nothing more annoying than standing in the cold winter breeze wearing your girlfriend's crop top, a snapback, and soccer boots waiting thirty minutes for somebody to open the door.

It is not by the colour of their skin that will will judge them.

There have been a lot of people that suffered from the xenophobic attacks that have occurred in South Africa. Most of the victims are of course the black foreigners hailing from Nigeria all the way down to South Africa.

One wonders why these people are subject to such hostility and pain. Why after 1994 that black people are still fighting each other and we can not find a way to live with each other in a peaceful rainbow nation. Why can't we be happy that we have a black government in power which should be able to take care of their own people?

After all the fighting our ancestors (whether old or recent) had to endure to lay claim to what is rightfully theirs, one wonders if the fighting will ever stop.

The people of South Africa are not happy, they are fighting each other for crumbs. Why is this so? The government in power cares not to change the way things are right now, the government in power only cares about filling their pockets with enough cash, that when they retire, they will be rich and comfortable beyond measure.

The current status quo is pretty much the same as it was during the apartheid era. White people have always had economic power and they have done everything in their power to keep things that way, including infiltrating the very hearts of our government by giving them what they want, so they can keep what they want.

If we were to unit and get a government that will empower it's people economically, there would be less fighting with each other.

Black conciseness is not only about being aware that you are black, black conciseness is about realising that you have been marked by the systems put in place by the white minority on this country, that you are beneath them. This means that you have decided to fight these systems.

Why you mad though?

#Rhodes must fall has been on everybody's' lips if not their copter screens. The whole country has been affected by the brave students of UCT. Young black students fighting for change in higher education institution. So why is everybody so mad?

For over 300 years black people have been oppressed in this country. Apartheid only accounts for 46 years of that oppression. Before apartheid this country was controlled by the European settlers; the first permanent settlers were the Dutch who eventually transformed their settlements into a colony. the British entered the country and soon they were able to take control of the Dutch colony. Later the were unhappy with what had happened and they started to revolt, which resulted in the Boer war.

The Boer War started in 1899 and ended in 1902; the British had successfully defeated the Afrikaner’s, and gained control over several other colonies. The British reacted by placing Afrikaners in concentration camps, and killing 26,000 of them. Now that the British had control over several new colonies, the British wanted to unify these communities, and they created the South Africa Act in 1910, which established the Union of South Africa. The British recognized that these united colonies of South Africa would not run successfully without the cooperation of the Afrikaners. Therefore, the British proposed some compromises and eventually worked out conflicts between them and the Afrikaners. This cooperation laid out the foundation for a future of white supremacy in South Africa.

One the day of 1913 the native South African, woke up as a pariah in the land of his birth. These were the early stages of white supremacy which further resulted into apartheid.

When young black people stand up, recognise and fight the injustice that has been happening towards black people in this country, it surprises me why some people would think that these kids are causing a unnecessary commotion in this country. 

As a new South Africa, we can't have structure that still celebrates heroes of oppression, we should not tolerate any kind of oppression in educational institutions or in the work place. Many white people have a problem with #RhodesMustFall, purely because they realise that they will be losing some of their white privileges which they got through oppression.

If you do not have a valid reason as to why Rhodes should not fall, then you should do this country a huge favour and keep quiet. This is the black man fighting against the oppressive system put in place by our former oppressors, not against white people.

To my non-African sister

I saw you the other day. I saw you walking my way.

I saw walking with the confidence of my black sister, as you were my black sister.
You braided your hair and made a statement to whomever was watching. You let your hips confused your brothers enemy. You wore a dashiki and claimed your false heritage under the African flag.

I saw you the other day. I saw you walking my way.

You tried to be stereotypically black because you said my people have culture. You left you house because you want culture? Or are you looking for that BBC?

I saw you the other day. I saw you walking my way.

You confused your father and your brother's enemy, you confused me and made me bite into the fruits that were reserved for the perfect aryan boy. I enjoyed it and I lost myself in you.

I saw you the other day. I saw you walking my way.

My hand moved slowly under your shirt until I reached the back of your bra. I looked into your green eyes and inhaled your lust for me. I stroked your golden blonde hair away from your face and I allowed myself to get lost in your lust, to forget that your father wanted you to be with another.

I saw you the other day. I saw you walking my way.

You started saying you were my Beyonce and I was your Jay-Z. A memory slapped the side of my head, a memory of my black sister singing her lungs out to a Beyonce track because to her that was black empowerment.

I saw you the other day. I saw you walking my way.

what have you done to me? Why did I allow myself to lose myself into this nigger lover that only cares about my black cock and not my struggle?

I saw you the other day. I saw you walking my way, I and I wished I had ignored you. 

Black consciousness at UCT

The end of assimilation and the beginning of self-determination.

http://www.uct.ac.za/dailynews/?id=9096

How notto cope in a white spaces.

Playing the victim

The other day I read a newspaper article about this man who the unfortunate encounter with this lady on the street. This man was on his way to work in his car and suddenly he spots this criminal sauntering on the street which he prides himself in keeping clean – even though he is not involved in the community criminal watch.

He decides to take action, by ridding these streets with this unnecessary announce that plagues this country with its abominable existence. He gets out of his car, adrenalin pumping, pulse racing, and his body ready for action. He approaches, stretches his hand to the gods as if asking them to give him power as he is about to cleanse these streets. He pulls his hand down from the heavens with such force I swear the onlooker saw his hand ignite with fire from the fiction caused by the descent of the hand like a NASA space drone re-entering the earth’s atmosphere.

PA! A resounding slap that sends this vile creature to the floor. Stunned by such power the creature slowly tries to get up and react to this attack, but the hero is on fire and will use all of his power to conquer and defend these streets. The hero will be remembered for his heroic acts for generations to come, he will make his ancestors proud, and when his time comes he will surely enter the gates of Valhalla.

So the other day I read a newspaper article about a man who had the unfortunate encounter of seeing a prostitute roaming around his neighbourhood; he did what any man would have done. He got out of his car, walked up to this ‘jezebel’ and slapped her across the face like how ‘A-pimp-named-slick-back’ would have done. He kept is pimp hand strong and told this bitch to get the hell out of his block, because he does not appreciate ladies like her defacing this wonderful and clean neighbourhood. Imagine the little white boys seeing such a lady? They would be distracted from their studies thus holding back the nation.

Stunned and confused the “jezebel” tries to get up but he persists, by pushing her down to the ground with his manly force… she had no chance of defending herself. She was embarrassed and vulnerable with no help from anyone and as soon as this man had left she wept, picked her purse and continued on her journey to work.

The other day I read a newspaper article about a black woman who had the unfortunate encounter of being assaulted by a white man in the streets of Kenilworth, the Southern suburbs of Cape Town.

This black lady was on her way to work – as she is a domestic worker – and suddenly this man came at her with such anger and such hate the she didn’t even have time to do anything except to stand there and receive a beating from this unknown stranger. She tried to get up and go to work but this random stranger proved to be too strong for her to do anything. She stayed put and she hopped that he would eventually leave her alone.

He left and she picked herself up. When this evil monster was in his car driving off, he screamed at her shouting “YOU CRIMINAL!”

When this story had reached a journalist the perpetrator tried to spin the story as if he was the victim in this situation. He says he thought she was a prostitute and so he got out of his car and slapped her once. He felt remorseful about his action immediately after he had assaulted her, he repeatedly tried calling her to apologies for his actions but she would not answer any of his calls because he thinks she wants his money.

The arrogance of this man is infuriating. What if that was my mother or your mother who was on her way to work trying to feed her family with what little she gets from her job? This is but one recorded incident that happened in the city of Cape Town, were domestic workers are beaten and threatened with clenched fists on a regular basis.

Post-Apartheid and we still have people treating our mothers as prostitutes, thieves and slaves that white men can do what they wish on them with no consequences. All I’m asking for is respect for your employees and to treat them as human beings.

Yes, I know that not all white men are evil and have no respect for other human beings, but when I read articles like this one, I’m heart broken and pissed off to learn that there are still people in this country who act like the oppressors that ruled this country.

When will this end?

http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/he-came-up-to-me-and-just-klapped-me-1.1767030?utm_source=digg#.VEgM5fmSyB6

That’s just how I feel.

My memory loves you; it asks about you all the time. When you’re far from me my memory reminds me of the times we spent together, it reminds me of the bad times as well as the uncomfortable moments we've shared.

My heart wants to stop loving you; it wants to stop beating every time I think of you. When you said you were done, closing the chapter without a beautiful ending my heart grew hard as if it had heart diseases. My heart is weak and my heart has been scared by your sudden change of mind.

My memory loves you; it taps my heart's shoulder almost every morning and almost every night. My memory speaks to me with a careless whisper forgotten as the sands of time reach the bottom of the hour glass. My memory has placed a force field protecting the memory of you from aging as I desperately try to forget.

My heart wants to stop loving you; it wants to stop and not beat in the same rhythm as your heart once did when we were chest to chest on a cold winters night. My heart wants to beat for the sole purpose of survival and not for anyone else. My heart wants the pain of losing you to go away.

My memory loves you; every lonely night when I blink I see your face and every fiber in my body is alive again. As the days turn into weeks, the weeks into months, and months into years my memory fights with everything it has to remember your laugh, your eyes, your fingers dancing on my hands. My memory does not want to let go.

This has become my life. This is me moving on. This feeling that has consumed and frustrated me has manifested it's self as an ambitious writer who hangs on to his surroundings like a drunk ghost in an empty vessel .  

But please don't worry about me. My heart will keep beating and my memory will keep record of your existence, I'll be okay my love; I'll be all right.

For the love of my language

Do we love ourselves or are we just pretending?

lately I've notice that when I'm with my friends and we all can speak Zulu, we have a tendency to speak English. We are so proud of ourselves by the way speak and the big words we use in our conversations. To be honest, I think when we speak it's like a spectacle to behold for the old Zulu folks that once were.

We are all young, educated ambitious people and we are proud of who we are and where we come from. We flaunt our names to the people that aren't from our country (or to those that know little about our culture) that don't really know how to pronounce our names, we walk around with our inflated chests as if we have been given the title superman or superwomen. We come from a culture of pride and even though we don't show it much, we are proud of our names. Our names have meaning and with our names we inherent a sense if direction.

My question is this: 'Do we truly love ourselves?'

We pursue education and enlightenment to become better 'world citizens'. We always aim to be the best in whatever we do, so we can make our parents proud. We dream of the day we honour our parents and the heroes that died for you and me to have this opportunity to become whatever we dream of being.

Do we honour them by forgetting a language they taught us when we were infants in their strong arms? Do I honour them by writing this post that is confronting the challenge we are struggling with everyday in another language?

One of my favourite writers struggled with the same problem. His insatiable thirst for knowledge betrayed him when he was a little boy by speaking English to his mother who can only speak Tshona.
His mother slapped him because she felt disrespected in her own house.

When some of us go to school we have to learn everything in a second language. Life becomes a little bit confusing and difficult but we find a way to make it work, so we don't disappoint whoever sent us to school. But hey, it's all for a better education right? It's for a fucking better future.  

I am whatever I say I am!

I’m a black man who was born in the Republic of South Africa. I descend from the Zulu kingdom and I now reside in Cape Town. This is who I am, if you ignore my race, the clan I belong to or any information I give you about myself, then you are purposefully choosing to ignore my identity.

A few days ago there was an advert made by a reputable advertising agency about feeding poor kids. The communication was provocative and eye opening, but unfortunately it came off as racist.

The advertising showed a small black boy being treated like a dog, by a rich white lady.

The message reads; “The average domestic dog eats better than millions of children.”  

The message is true and this is the crisis we are facing in our country. I believe the message is correct, and it’s about time we face facts.

Alza Rautenbach the founder and CEO of feed a child was the lady in charge of signing off this advert. She was on eNCA defending this advert saying; everything was done with the intention of causing a reaction. What truly got me boiled up inside was what she had said while trying to defend the advert. She said she does not see colour or (at the very least) her organization does not see colour.

I am a black man and I’m proud to be black, I’m not ashamed of the colour that shells my skin, I’m not ashamed of the melanin that covers my entire body. If you’re white I don’t think you should be ashamed of your skin colour, the same goes if you green, pink, purple or blue. Colour is part of your identity.

The colour on your skin is part of your identity and if you don’t see the colour on my skin or anybody else’s skin colour, for that matter, then you are purposefully choosing to ignore our identities. 

I’m a black man who was born in the Republic of South Africa. I descend from the Zulu kingdom and I now reside in Cape Town. This is who I am, if you ignore my race, the clan I belong to or any information I give you about myself, then you are purposefully choosing to ignore who I am.

Here is the link to Alza’s response to the ad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAUbW5zIad8 

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery

"So we finally made it, we made if even though we had our backs up against the wall!" The best line I’ve ever heard in a song. These are the words of Chester Bennington from Linkin Park.

A few weekend ago I went home for a funeral, a family member had passed away and it was a very sad and a beautiful goodbye. We mourned and we reflected and we later spoke politics. We spoke about what the current leaders intend on doing and we spoke about ourselves as black people. Don’t worry guys, this one’s for the black folks.

We – as black people – have been dubbed as the race that consumes a lot and produces less. When we are stressed we go shopping, and when we celebrate the festive season we spend almost all that we have saved up during the year, AKA 'Stokvel.'

As a young black man I think it’s my moral duty to do my best to inform, educate and help rehabilitate the minds of black men and women. We as the youth will lead this nation in the near future but we need to know how are we going to do that. I don’t have all the answers but what I do know is that we have to start looking at our spending patterns and reduce them drastically. We have to save and invest as much capital as we can so that we, as a race, will be financial emancipated and thus we can start looking at producing more goods than consuming most of them.

We as black people have never really been a people of greed, we have African proverbs that have been in existence since the beginning of time. We have lived on the premise of collective survival, “ umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu”. This is not something to be forgotten because this is how we defended our great nation many years ago against foreign nations. we have stood fast up until we decided to let greed creep into our hearts and destroy our people and what we have.

Bob Marley says it well, “emancipate yourself from mental slavery”.

Together we can build this nation; together we have a better shot at tomorrow.

Together we can all sing as one and say:
"We finally made it. We made it even though we had our backs up against the wall!"

Patel responds to DA claims on jobs stats

These are my experiences. This is not my design.

These past couple of years that I've lived in Cape Town has made me notice that there is a HUGE difference between the white people in South Africa and the people of colour. This is my experience. This is not my design.

Beautiful city, picturesque views and gorgeous women in a city with rich and interesting history. The move to Cape Town was a very exciting one and to be in a place that has so much to offer was amazing. Cape Town is rated as the best city to visit in South Africa and it’s probably the best city to live in. I was overwhelmed by Cape Town and I was hooked, I fell in love and I wanted to stay... that was up until the pink stiletto dropped.

On my stay I learnt a few things about Cape Town, I learnt that race is a big deal in this beautiful city that once wanted to exclude itself from the rest of South Africa; I learnt that Cape Town is probably the most racially divided city in South Africa. 'That is such a harsh thing to say,' you catch yourself saying. All I ask for is for you to hear me out. This is my experience. This is not my design.

When I was with my girlfriend (a white girl) we went out clubbing, and on two different occasions I almost got into unnecessary fights with white guys. The first night I was at a club dancing with my girlfriend and this random guy comes up to me and screams in my ear over the music "This is not America!" I ignored him and continued dancing with my girl. He taps my shoulder and screams in my ear again "This is not America!" Eventually I respond and say “you’re just mad because she's dancing with me and you dancing with your boys.” He responds by forcefully by pulling my girlfriend away from me and pushing me to the side. Naturally I got mad and let's just say we exchanged words and actions. This happened again when we went to the same club at a different night. Two white guys walking around like they owned the place intercept me from my girl and start talking to her as if I’m just an enigma that one can easily walk through. The lack of respect these 'boys' have exhibited is disgusting. What makes it worse is that I'm expected to brush it off and turn the other cheek because we live in a fucking rainbow nation.

But alas, I'm not the only one who has gone through this unforgiving experience. My black friends who have been in a relationship with girls, tell me their stories, they tell me what it’s like to date a white girl. Their stories and my story has too many similarities. They get pushed to the side by some random white boy and start talking to their girls as if they are not even there, then the girl has to interject and tell these disrespectful fellas that she is with her boyfriend. We don’t fight these boys because one against a team is never fair and unfortunately that’s what they do when they go out, they get drunk, get into fights with a team of barbaric men behind them and search for a potential mates.

What I learnt from these experiences is that young white people don’t really see young black people as equal, and considering our history many young people of colour are saying to each other: ‘One day there will be a day of reckoning!’

Yes I’m black, I’m a human being, I’m young and you treat me like a subhuman in the land of my ancestors? FUCK THAT! but for them their actions say 'FUCK EQUALITY!'

I write from my experiences because my world is shaped by these experiences. I'm not a fighter I'm a lover, but just like your hero Nelson Mandel, I will take up arms and fight for what's right. question is will you?

These are my experiences. This is not my design.

A Black and White Relationship.

Some writer advised me to write everyday about things that I can write about every day. So I’m going to write a post about what happened yesterday. Of course I’m going to use similes and metaphors, with that said I hope you enjoy.

I woke up in the morning. I took a shower. I went to work. I did a bit of work. I had some breakfast. I carried on working while I was listening to music. Because of my contract I can’t tell you what I did exactly, but it was work.

My girlfriend wanted me to join he for drinks at some restaurant in observatory, but alas I couldn’t make, I was working until 7:15pm. When I eventually went home, we started talking about race, I don’t really remember how we got there but we were in it like a toothbrush in a dirty mouth. The conversation got heated but she tapped out because her English is limited.

I flipped open the laptop and we started watching the big debate, and boy let me tell you it was a BIG debate in the staunchest sense of the word.

But lets backtrack a little bit; we need some information concerning the reason why I flipped open the laptop. This is the reason; I said to my German girlfriend: ‘white people in this country will be killed because they choose to ignore our (black people) suffering and only care about themselves. Yes this country has a lot of problems but there is this undying tension in the air between the race groups of this country, and if we don’t resolve this, there will be war.’

At first she thought I was being racist but then we flipped open the laptop and she saw for herself how some white people in this country really don’t care about reconciliation and moving forward as a true rainbow nation. 

On the show there was a clip of Desmond tutu saying, that white people are lucky they were not killed for their past transgressions, black people still wake up today from a shack and they go and work for white people in the city, and they are still treated like secondary citizens. One of the members (white) said why doesn’t anybody acknowledge that those comments said by Tutu were racists. The crowd’s response was unanimous like the votes for Sony Bill Williams fight against the White Buffalo, the crowd said, “Because it’s true!” 

One thing that is also true. For once in our lives we were all honest, people were angry and the truth was revealed (or a part of it). If we continue to talk like this and resolve the problems at hand we will reconcile and truly live in a rainbow nation. Until then, in the words of Lebo Mashile, “When the lights are off everybody is …cked”.

At the end of the debate my girlfriend was silent.

The purpose of this was not meant to make her feel bad, or for me to feel as though I have some power. I wanted her to see what it’s like to be a black South African living in a country were your ancestor suffered for over three hundred years and the people that benefited from that suffering showed not that they care or at least they want to make emends, they still benefit while the rest still suffers.