The Struggle to Excel

 Dear Chris Excel

Your tweet:

'Coloured people are also included in BEE they benefit from  it … 

That “B” from BEE stands for “Black” 

Their problem is that they are desperately wanna be white and get white privileges and white don’t want them 

So they end up feeling like victims that are left behind …'

Oh, Chris, Chris. Does not the Book of Proverbs tell us that: 

'Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.' 

And, in more recent times: 

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.

I am embarrassed for you; such a reflux of ill-considered, ill-informed, ill- mannered, bilious stuff. Reading your outpouring is like watching a drunk heaving out his partially digested dinner on the pavement.

You do realize that your flatulent noises on social media say more about you than about those you seek to denigrate. Just as Kelloggs is the breakfast of champions, spite and hateful generalizations are the breakfast of bigots, losers, the immature and the foolish. Make your pick. 

Do you not have a life, Chris? Unfortunately, many will leap on the afterbirth of the misshapen child of your thoughts and tuck into it with gusto. As is customary in this land.

Do you know many people? I mean, in the way that transcends gossip and populist prattle? That is the starting point if you wish to make sense and contribute more than post-digestive waste to the discourse. Of course, if your fervent desire is to mud-wrestle in the pits of racism and mindless hatred, you can ignore that option. Don't Let truth get in the way of a glorious romp in the pigsty.

Surprisingly, there is infinite variety in any group of people. Even yours. To stereotype is the way of the lazy, the infantile and those with darker motives. Again, take your pick. Just remember Rwanda. Oh, and Nazi Germany, Bosnia and the many other fine examples where things began with a nudge and a whisper.

Unlike the Almighty, you cannot see into people's hearts. That one thing about people makes nonsense of every racist rant whispered in darkness or shouted on rooftops. 

Your piece would be insulting to those who poured out their lives trying to make South Africa a real country for people (indeed, insulting to all decent people anywhere), were it not that, like horse droppings, it needs to stepped over and paid no more attention.

Racists, the old, common or garden variety and the new breed, foam and spittle flecked populists, social media tub thumpers - they are all cheaper than a dime a dozen. There's a better, higher way, if we have the foresight and courage for it. You don't need to ask, because we all know. It's easily seen in whether you left the people and the places you spent time in / with / on just a little better or like a typical South African public park or toilet. Yet again, your choice.

I wish you well in the arduous, long march to maturity and a semblance of wisdom and in the struggle for something more enduring than fifteen minutes of dubious fame.

Richard

Tips for the blogger gratefully accepted 

Capitec Bank, South Africa  

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