I was raised by matriarchs in a household where the politics were just as strong as the women who were tired of being subjects of oppression. My grandmother, being a source of cheap labor for white people throughout her life, helped to ease the burden of finding my own political identity. I knew two things from a very young age: I was not going to work for white people and I was going to be a fighter.
When Julius Malema formed the EFF, naturally, I had an affinity to its radical ideologies and promises. Until I started seeing that very radicalism dissipate to opportunistic controversies, Malema’s own affinity to capitalism and the party’s obsession with one Indian family. I saw cracks in “radical blackness” that were unsettling.
I silently withdrew from the idea of complete freedom — economic, social, complete and holistic freedom. The idea of reparations for black people for years of disenfranchisement, the idea of equity and somewhere down the line, equality. A friend then pointed out that I had given up on The People, the same friend was one of the first people to don a BLF (Black First Land First) t-shirt on campus. I started tagging along when they held debates. Most of which were centered around a compilation of writings from anti-apartheid activist Bantu Biko’s ‘I write what I like’. Yesterday they discussed Chapter 7 of the book titled “Fragmentation of the Black Resistance”. I was enamored! Not only by the book but by this gathering of radical black intellectuals who had held on to the spirit of freedom.
I then asked the friend about BLF’s public support for the controversial Gupta family and President Jacob Zuma so much. His response was this, “We don’t support Jacob Zuma, we don’t support the Guptas, but our fight is with the fundamental causes of past and present black oppression — white people”. My usual argument is that the ANC has had years to rectify the imbalances and fix the past, but I patiently waited for him to continue. “White people own 90% of the economy and changes in the cabinet magically affect the Rand (ZAR). What does this tell you?” … Um we’re shit at economics? “No”, he said, “The ANC are merely custodians of the small state, not the rulers of the country and political freedom was and is not enough to overthrow years of economic looting”.
Now I must admit, I wasn’t sold but the more I read, the more I saw the bigger picture. You see, because our “freedom” is incomplete and damn near non-existent, oppressors still hold a lot of power and yes, the custodians are just as culpable for being complacent and not radical or conscious.
If we want to achieve freedom, radical blackness has to be normalized. If the hanging of Solomon Mahlangu, his resilience and last words have taught me anything, it’s that the fight for freedom is never over if there are still black people left behind. As long as there are 63% of black youth that live in poverty while 90% of the economy belongs to a minority, we have a long way to go.
Radical black activism like the BLF’s is accused of populism and providing discourse and exclusion but in actual fact, it legitimizes black racial identity as a collective force, it provides an urgency to the plight of black people and it acts as a constant reminder of the “fight”.
The idea that there is no meaningful connection between inequality/current dispositions of black people, systematic oppression embedded in society and contemporary black experiences is one perpetuated by white/mainstream media. The mainstream media dictates what it is to be black, it dictates what to be outraged about, who the good/bad guys are and that should come as no surprise because it’s owned by the very same people who manipulate and oppress black people every single day since 1652.
The fact that I feel compelled to justify radical black activism is telling. The state is a product of the people, but South Africa the country, is a product of black people. A people that is disenfranchised and landless in their own creation.
We have to confront the lack of space and tolerance for black radical women in this “democracy”. Is it still our democracy when it fails to recognize such critical black presence? Is it still for the people when it fails to receive radical blackness with intellectual seriousness?
Black power movements were banned in the Apartheid era, today, it would be illegal to ban them so the next best thing is to paint them in a light that would invalidate them and their importance. White supremacy has always prevented radical black subjectivity because black power ideology would actually liberate us.
