Passive Aggressive Labelling

"Ja Phums always the suspect never the victim hey?!"

I don’t know what has me more annoyed the fact that a lot of people think that I’m a racist or that I’m constantly harping on about subject matter which shouldn’t  matter. I don’t know how many times I’ve been asked to stop being so racially sensitive or to just chill out and move on or get with the times. I don’t know how many times my experiences get watered down to isolated occurrences out of my own provocation because I have an antagonistic attitude towards authority. I don’t know how many times I’ve been told that I’m keeping myself back in the way that I think or been made the example of what a reactionary I am. I don’t know how many times the title “Decolonise the mind” has been misappropriated to label my world view.  Hello racism how you living? Under a label? What?!

We’ve all got our own set of prejudices and what not. Let me isolate this and I say I have my own prejudices and believe that everyone else does to. What pisses me off are people who won’t admit to having these little idiosyncrasies and would rather opt to look past them. Or just to qualify them as being awkward. What’s the difference between having a real interaction with a friend and having a polite conversation with an acquaintance? Have we now decided in order to actually get a long  we must simply jump to humour without acknowledging or fully understanding the historical context of jokes and their relevancy in the contemporary world? How am I taking myself too seriously when I’m offended or directly affected by a perpetuated systematic  way of thinking that continuously opts to keep a certain notion alive; that my sight, sound and speech  are to be denigrated in a corner, where the sullen fist has always been kept. How am I supposed to not air my thoughts on the way I see things with the very same people I believe I share a sort of kinship with? The kinship? That of equality. Too long has discourse dictated the expectance of my actions towards certain people. As if “I’m expected to know better”.  How many times would you like to tell me that I’m a smart guy, give me a pat on the head and try and shape the way that I think so that I can further enlighten myself. If you haven’t noticed the language I’m using at this moment I’d suggest you head for the door now.

So what has brought this little tirade about?  .

There’s this thing that people like to do. Especially when they feel threatened… If there’s someone who says too many things that make them feel uncomfortable or perhaps hit a little too close to home, they decide to paint the image of a conspiracy theorist. Except there’s no conspiracy here; just a knowledge of hundreds of years of foul and violent history with the sprinkled bacon bits that are: contemporary economic subjugation. Too much? Is this all histrionic rhetoric? Well I’m not saying anything new here and if you find it so then again head for the door.

 But it’s weird, cause language has been a very large role player in this constant struggle to find an equilibrium. When one engages in colloquial terms and settings it’s labeled emotional and sensitive. And then if they take to a more formalized approach they’re labeled the conspiracy theorist finding coincidences in everything or are are attacked on technicalities on the use of the language. How is one meant to win then?

It’s weird people decide when and how they want to act. When it best suits them. But the favoured disposition is that of ignorant condescension. Not only a historical ignorance, but rather social blinkers, driven by intellectual hubris, which often leaps to label what it cannot deal with in order to make things move a long. It’s an unwillingness to accept that we live in an uncomfortable society driven by so many socio-political and economic factors and band aids won’t work! Does this not leave us in the same boat as our parents? Well that’s fucking retarded isn’t it? Considering we grew the fuck up together. I’m tired of the assumed superiority which entails bludgeoning we the unconvinced into conceding that your point is more valid than our voices.

Misguided is what we are and our thoughts still need shaping.

I have a nut sack that needs gargling

Language: It gets very interesting when one points out the exclusionary (yes I do mean to use the term exclude. Everyone wants to make it into the club) language that gets used it becomes a simple case of semantics and contextualization.

So let me get this right? I can’t fully understand or know what I’m talking about cause I’m not a first language or a native speaker. While you can play and tweak the code wherever you see fit, cause you grew up with the rules? This means that any person winning a fight dictates the rules of engagement. But then we need to find out who’s fighting for what? I’m fighting for equality, while you’re fighting to hold onto your superiority complex. Now this is obviously a natural primal instinct, but at what point do you actually concede the fact that there really is no difference between you and I? When do you actually acknowledge that you are not better than me? When do you publicly apply this in practice? Is it a theory you enjoy verbalizing? A public persona perhaps?

I can never understand how people can get along with me, until I start asking them questions that they don’t want to answer, or worse cannot answer. What about the answers they give me that I do not agree with? There’s always a shift in engagement people have with me when I express my political and social outlook. Why don’t people wanna engage me? I suppose passive aggressive one liner statuses are funnier and easier. Also I get too sensitive about issues. I suppose I always make it about race. I suppose I’m the problem. I I I I I I I I I I. It’s all on me.

Why don’t people talk anymore?

Affordable Train Ride

After reaching his destination from a trip that seemed to have taken forever and a day, from a day that seemed that it would never end, whilst probably thinking it was the worst birthday known to man, the kid sits at the Gautrain station waiting to be picked up by his sister who had forgotten his birthday. If this is 21 I should have stayed 20 he thinks to himself. He knows his sister will move at a slugs pace in leaving the house where she's probably already put up her swollen feet and will probably be cursing him for making her leave the house in her condition. I'm pregnant, do you know this? The question he anticipates her to ask.

Still in transit and waiting to make it to the final location of rest and good company he takes in his surroundings. A guy not dressed in rags and bathing in ethnic privilege walks around the train station, desperation marring the preconceived ideas of how deep his wallet goes. The Gautrain guards take a no nonsense approach to begging at the station regardless of accent or skin tone. The kid watches the man walk into the station only to be escorted out. The mans frantic energy increasing, he loses his temper at the brown hands escorting him out. "I'm not fucking begging! I just need money to catch a taxi!" He yells at their backs.

The man walks past the seated youngster a couple of times, looking to ask everybody except him for the taxi fare required to make his way to wherever he needs to be. She has long wavy blonde hair and dons a pair of D&G sunglasses. Her jewelry is the that of subtle  luxury. The man she walks with has that air of self importance that says any person walking by me must keep a 2 meter radius. The non-beggar seems to shrink as they appear and his hunched approach to them is a cringe worthy spectacle. Unamused eyes the kid keeps his balls fixed on the pending train crash. "Hi sorry, excuse me, can you please help me with some taxi fare." The snobs seem to put their noses higher in the air, feigning an ignorance to the non beggars presence that must have made him feel a slap would have been more welcome. At least they would have acknowledged his presence as a person and membership of the lucky sperm club. The non beggar resumes to roaming around all the while getting closer to the kid, who watches the man inch closer with each pace up and down in front of him.

"Hi, sorry, I really didn't want to approach you for this, but it would seem that even my own people don't want to help me and I really need to ask for some taxi fare. I just need R12, the people who were meant to pick me up have switched off their phones and I don't know what to do. They just kicked me out the station for begging and I wasn't begging I was just asking for taxi fare!"

The kid searches his pockets and hands the non beggar the last R4 in his pocket.

"Thank a lot man."

Is that really how the world works? The kid thinks to himself

Shots I think

For some arb reason I can't get all the images that I shoot on manual on my computer, I think the memory card is bugged or some shit cause I can only get the pics I take through Magenta's filters on, which kinda sucks, cause I've been fucking around way more with her manual settings and have a few favourites I've been wanting to put up. Anyway here are a few shots I took over the last couple of days. Their in Sepia and Film Grain. I still control shutter speed and apperture so I'm not completely useless. Oh have I mentioned that I'm not a photographer? 

Freedom or Death

I really don't know where to begin with this post or how the fuck I'm going to make my point. Maybe I should start with: I have very little faith in the humanity and intellect of most religious people. Hmm... Okay I'll start there. For some reason most people who have faith in higher powers seem to relegate reason and rationale to the back back of their Bibles, Torahs or Qurans.Do Buddhists and Scientologists have books? They also have this nose in the air, beady eyed stare about them that makes me want to kick their teeth in all the time. Now don't get me wrong some of them are cool and I'm able to kick it with them. I mean some of my best friends are religious, some of them are really smart people, you should meet them I'm sure you'd get a long really well.

Anyway, my brother and I went on our usual Sunday skate mission yesterday and something kind of.... Actually something  really a mother fucker cool happened. While I was going for a grind on one the Civic Centre benches I saw an older lady and what I assumed to be her grandson coming from church, on their way to catch a bus home. The kid was probably four maybe five. As he and his supposed grandmother approached me, the lady seemed to be smiling. On my skate back to try set-up for the trick again, I watched the kid trying to take in the moment and see what exactly it was that I was doing. I went for the trick almost (doesn't count) landed and went back for the reset-up. As they passed the woman looked at the kid with a huge smile and said

"Uyabona, nawe uzokwaz'ubaba." Look, one day you'll also be able to fly.


Upon hearing this the kid started jumping up and down and cheering. They stayed a while watching me go for the trick before walking off. And I remember thinking "Damn I wish I could have shared a moment like that with my religious adults."

See the thing is people fear and hate what they can't understand. This city fears and hates what it can't understand. Breaking established codes and conventions has been something that has never really been encouraged. Most black people who see us skating tell us to get off our boards cause we're fucking shit up or because we're going to hurt ourselves. As if there's something wrong with hurting yourself if you doing something with a purpose. This kid who was probably making his way back to the hood was just told by his grandmother to let nothing ever get in his way of what he wanted to achieve. Whilst still recognising that he was going take hard knocks on the concrete. She told him that one day he was going to fly.

So often religious people use their books to suppress freedom rather than grant the people the ability to achieve their aspirations without letting anything get in their way. Shouldn't the role of religion be that of encouragement rather than discouragement.I'd rather have a happy pious man than a cynical bible basher. Now I recognise the fact that I'm pushing my own agenda here, but then again it is my blog. I know that I'm throwing a lot of generalisations here but it's my experience and again my blog.

I think that kid is going to remember yesterday for the rest of his life. I hope his grandmother stays with him for as long as possible, whispering those kinds of wisdoms till he actually internalises them. I hope he gets onto a skateboard this week. A surf board at 7. Goes snowboarding by the age of ten. And keeps the mentality to everything he approaches. The bigger the trick, wave or mountain, the greater the feeling of defiance. I hope he internalises that going against the odds means that you have a greater chance of being the first at whatever you do. Freedom or Death! Skate or Die!

Oh yeah and fuck you DA!