SOCIAL COMMENTARY & RECOVERY
Dumb White People
From the perspective of a dumb white person
I’m a “white” (skin tone only) South African so I get to say this, I think.
It’s kinda like being African American and so being able to use the “N-word.” Or being a Lesbian and being able to use the “D-word.” Which I do as well because I think Dykes are sexy as fuck.
I know any statement that defines an entire demographic or group of humans is fucking stupid. I send this story into the world with this awareness and the humor with which it is intended.
What I will do is speak from my ignorant white South African personal perspective, so that it doesn’t offend all the other still (un)fortunately ignorant white South Africans. I add that I speak from a South African perspective because of programming, environment, multi-cultural society, human nature, shitty behavior and more.
Please do feel free to point out my privileged ignorance in the comments, and tag your comment with #dumbshitwhitepeoplesay.
I’ve begun some earnest education and I’m keen to learn as much as possible because I’ve been a dumb white South African for years. Quite frankly, I don’t like many of us much anymore. And I don’t want to be much like many of us anymore either.
Your brutally honest feedback and humor could really help.
Is it an “ism” or is it education?
My nine-year-old (at the time) son piped up some months ago, “White people are…” He stopped there. He knows enough to know he was about to drop a racist comment. I’ve taught him well. As my mama did me. What she could with what little awareness we had about how deep this rabbit hole goes.
I looked at him and grinned. “Dumb?” I finished for him.
He nodded “Yes.” I asked him if I was being racist. He agreed I was. I said I knew but the undeniable fact is that, almost, my entire social circle of white friends is, in fact, ignorant in my now experientially learned opinion.
Bear with me while I share some of my thinking and also why most of our friends and choices of social settings are, now, with people of color.
Is this even the correct way to refer to people that aren’t Caucasian?
I’m a white South African, after all.
We generally have no fucking idea how to address our fellow not-so-white South Africans, or not step on their toes. But we don’t care too much because most of us have no friends of color to offend anyway.
*I know that stupidity and ignorance are different, but dumb makes a catchier title
Some of my best friends are “white”
Yes. There is still a massive racial divide in my country, despite the fact that Apartheid has supposedly been done with for thirty-odd years. It isn’t though. Not in any real sense that would actually fix the ongoing lack of equality or community in our society.
I can already feel the hackles on still luckily ignorant white South African necks beginning to rise. BEE we shout and then bitch about how unjust it is, that we actually have to compete fairly for the cushy corporate positions that were our right in totality purely due to our ability to get degrees.
Purely due to our financial privilege. Purely due to the color of our skin. Also, people of color weren’t allowed an education. Wasted on a slave. An educated slave may get uppity and revolt.
Get your game on, guys. We wanted Capitalism. We don’t wanna share our hard-earned moola because we earned it fair and square, dammit! It’s a big pond now with many fish.
I am a Uni Degree toting white South African, but I can say that this one I managed to understand at least a bit.
The costs of higher education. Or any education.
About having a full belly to study on every day. About being able to walk to school because it was that close and arrive full of energy for the lessons. About being able to afford additional learning resources, tools and even lessons when I needed them.
About having uncapped internet, or even fucking electricity to study and learn when I got home (okay, so there was no internet then, but you get the gist). And more. School was a fucking breeze. I was privileged, ya see. I just didn’t know how privileged I was… until I lost some of it.
Also, I’m still privileged even though I have lost a lot of it. Because that is how this works.
But this isn’t a post about privilege. Dumb white South Africans hear the word and they won’t even wanna read more of this story. We’re a fucking defensive bunch. And we’re still, mostly, the only ones that can afford a subscription and make this post some money.
1) But things have changed
No, dumbass. A good majority of kids are still arriving at classrooms with no desks (no roofs even), no books, no learning materials and on empty stomachs.
Not much has changed.
2) But I’m broke
Are you really?
I was a dumb white South African who thought that I was broke. Once upon a time.
I wasn’t broke.
I was entitled and spoiled.
It took losing everything, and actually walking in the majority of people in my country’s shoes, to really understand how fucking ignorant I was. Things that are taken for granted as given and “the way things are.”
Like private medical care on tap. And my own car.
At one point I had to have a biopsy in government care with no anesthetic available, after I had waited for two hours (which was fucking fast, because it was possibly serious so they let me jump the month-long queue), and then drive home wincing at every bump. Yep. I still had my own car.
But all I could think of was the woman next to me having her first biopsy, alone and sobbing. A woman who was going to have to walk to the nearest possible public transport and make her way home for god-knows-how-long it took to get to the depot nearest her house… and then walk the rest of that.
She was probably back up at 4 am the next day, to get to work.
The staff in our facilities are amazing human beings. They are also run-off-their-feet-mad-working-hours and the system is overwhelmed. If you go in there with a life-threatening illness, despite their best intentions, you’re probably not going to make it just because of the wait.
This is “the way things are,” for the majority of human beings in our country.
My idea of broke, before I was actually broke, was not being able to afford a weekend away. Me with my six pairs of shoes, a cupboard full to brim clothing (some bought and never even worn), belly full at every meal, takeaways as normal, birthday parties for the kids, Woolworths only occasionally because it’s expensive y’know, two cell phone contract, new car, only two festivals whenever, only one movie once a month, eat out at restaurants, two hot shower days, king-size cushy bed with a roof over my head, fresh fruit, and vegetables, can’t afford a trip overseas and more. And more. And more. And more.
Seriously. I also said this. How fucking embarrassing.
3) I can’t afford it
Okay. I did donate to two charities I felt strongly about each month. R500 between them that made me feel like I was a decent human being.
I even left the monthly donations running when I bottomed out financially until the bank account was frozen in full and the lawyers began to call.
I didn’t think I could afford to donate more either.
Here’s what happened in my cosy circle of privilege when I shared my situation:
I had “friends” living in mansions say that they wished they could help but they were broke. I had “friends” ew me. I had “friends” tell me that they would not help because I had internet and could, and thus should work, without even asking why the financial bottom out. After a lifetime of me never needing to ask for help from anyone.
“Friends” of over thirty years.
Yep. I too have frowned with mild distaste when I saw people afraid and struggling financially. Not obviously. It was a subtle, ingrained accusation that there must be something wrong with them. That they didn’t have their shit together. That I shouldn’t be too closely affiliated with the taint of failure or vulnerability. That it may look as though I’m like them by mere association. No longer one of the cool kids.
Because us dumb white people associate financial abundance with success. It isn’t though. It is insecurity, greed and fear. I understand now because I lost my social standing and figured out who the fuck I am. I understood what my true principles and values are. And I’ve found more people like me.
Some of them are even white.
In contrast, I had people of color who I had shared my story with randomly give me money and items with no expectation of return. Without judgment of any kind.
They even fucking believed me.
Complete strangers. But people, I guess, who could relate. Only one of them a white person. And he was living on the street.
No. If you are still eating at every meal and your food is fresh; if you have a warm roof over your head and a comfortable place to rest it every night; if you have more than one pair of shoes, even… you are not broke. Maybe this should be the baseline. We should err on the side of caution, because most of us have no fucking idea of what broke is as white South Africans.
4) Community
I no longer take my son to play at dumb white peoples’ play areas as much.
I moved into a Suburb some time ago that is mostly inhabited by people of color. My son and I play at the local park and we used the local family-driven restaurant play areas when I could still afford it. By choice.
My experience has been, and still is, that our brothers and sisters of color have a better take on family and community.
From a blatant taken the piss out of by an affluent white South African because of the suburb that I am living in (he called it a “slum”), to an underlying sniff of disapproval when informed of said place during new introductions to white people in my city, I have been continually judged for living in a “scummy” area.
My city runs on wealth, dishonesty and location, location, location. Not really even big enough to be called a city. The elite, that I was once a part of, are a vast minority and they only socialize with each other. And this reduces their perspective to a small town.
With this comes an inordinate amount of fear. Everyone is still desperately trying to be a rock star, everyone is up in everybody else’s business. Everybody in this circle’s social identity and status is infinitely more important to them than real connection. Or even principles or values.
I can say this because I used to get in the door at events for free due to my social standing and “connections.” And I also pretended I was cool for a hella long time.
This is what us still wilfully ignorant white South Africans have become:
Massive homes. High fencing. Electrified, of course. Keeping up with the Joneses. Outward appearances more important than true joy or purpose. Materialism at its worst. Consumerism at its most dangerous. And as a consequence, endless greed, massive social disconnection and fuck-all sense of community.
Perhaps this story should be titled, “Rich People Are Dumb,” but financial affluence and race are still irrevocably connected in South Africa.
My son and I prefer to socialize in non-white play areas because people make casual conversation randomly. We talk to each other. People aren’t afraid of each other . The kids are better socialized, friendly and more open. In fact, the older kids always facilitate moderating the groups and inviting new kids to play.
White kids are raised on Capitalism and the highly competitive extremes of it. They can be feral and brutal in their group dynamics. It’s often too risky to even ask if you can play. Especially for an emotionally intelligent, gentle little soul.
I’m, quite frankly, done with dumb white peoples’ terror of anyone or anything they don’t know or understand personally. Or fear of anyone who may threaten their place in the vibe.
It’s no fun at all.
5) I’m okay Jack
I think my privilege really revealed itself fully with my anti-vax bullshit.
I was an anti-vaxxer. I admit it.
I chose to only vaccinate my daughter with “life-threatening” illnesses. Polio, TB (because I worked on markets those days and took her with me to work) and measles because I had to, to get her into school.
I think it was more the having to that pissed me off, than the vax itself. I’m into freedom of choice. Thing is, human beings are generally selfish creatures and probably can’t be trusted if their choices affect other people.
Mostly we don’t give a shit if things don’t directly affect us.
My daughter got measles, mumps, and chickenpox. Mild. Her immune system was strong. And it is strong now. She hardly ever gets ill. I’m sure that getting these childhood illnesses strengthened her immune system because that is what nature does, isn’t it?
Thank fuck (I hope) nobody she came into contact with at school got any of the illnesses, I allowed her to contract to build up her privileged immune system. And had major side effects like blindness or sterilization, or died, because they were only eating butternut for dinner twice a week.
Thank fuck (I hope) their parents didn’t get it from those kids either and then have to take public transport to work and some other people treading water to survive with compromised immune systems didn’t also get infected.
And have to go into an overwhelmed public health care system. Or miss work without insurance and be unable to feed their kids or selves. Or possibly died.
If I get this COVID thing, I‘m a goner. My lungs are fucked. I’m high risk. Like a good ignorant white person, this affects me now so I get it!
Kinda like Jane Blogg’s kids who don’t have running water or proper sanitation at their shack. Jane’s kids, who I didn’t think of when I turned down those unnecessary Gastrointestinal flu vaccinations because my son surely wouldn’t die from dehydration from a simple stomach bug!
We have water on tap. Rehydrate because we can afford it. A chemist nearby.
I’m okay, Jane.
Also. I fucking apologize.
6) But we care
The white South Africans’ form of protest?
None. Unless it directly affects them.
During the lockdown, I saw two attempts by my people to protest. This despite the majority of our country having their Human Rights violated daily, as a matter of course since forever. But none of us have even bothered to read our Bill of Rights because we’ve been unaffected for years.
Until lockdown.
Suddenly a bit of freedom curtailed and there is, finally, an outcry.
My people took action! At last!
One post, by a trust fund kid, urging the community to stop paying their taxes. (You earn enough to have to pay taxes? How fortunate.)
One bunch of entitled idiots heading to their local (mostly white) beach, mask-less during the height of the outbreak when nobody knew how this thing even worked.
Genius, I tell you.
I’m sure that they went home to their servants and didn’t sanitize. Yes. Servants. You can call a domestic worker a domestic goddess and it ain’t gonna change the facts.
7) Love, Joy, and Wonder
I’m no longer dating material for dumb white South Africans.
I’m a fuck broke, single mom of two. I’m too outspoken to be a good wife. I’m often badly groomed because of time and who cares what people think anymore for real, with no real contacts that could benefit anyone business-wise or socially left.
Most white South Africans have run a mile.
I travel on foot now.
Traveling on foot in this city is an ENTIRELY different experience, let me tell you. I’m one of the “huddled masses” now. And we are fearless, interesting as fuck, pretty entertaining and cool to boot.
I see my city in a way that I, honestly, haven’t ever seen it before. The awesome “cosmopolitan-ess” of it. The energy of that. The vibe.
I’ve rolled my eyes at the litter, lack of obedience to road signs and the general chaos on our streets plenty of times, as a self-driven white South African. I’ve been all the way to Bali to see the litter, lack of order and busy chaos of it, because it was exotic and foreign. I’ve had this on my doorstep all along and all I had to do was to get out of my fucking car.
The streets of my city are a blast. It’s fascinating out here.
On the streets, people are selling shit. Making shit. Painting shit. Talking shit. Doing shit. And they are making eye contact and saying hello while they do it. There’s a whole community of people actually engaging with each other out here, instead of just rushing into a mall to stock up for the weekend while they avoid eye contact because only weird people smile at strangers.
“Nice Tat,” commented one skinny as fuck chick who walked by. She clearly had an addiction problem and I would probably have subconsciously unseen her if I’d been in my car.
I looked back at her and yelled, “Thanks!” grinning to myself as I walked on.
Two super drunk women (breaking all kinds of lockdown regulations with proper no shits given) met walking home at dusk one night. We fell into conversation and they trailed after me as they tried to figure out how they were going to get home. We talked about life. About people. About the government and how it is failing us. About how patriarchal and fucked up our system is. About how corrupt and abusive our cops can be. My story. My sharing. They didn’t blink an eye. They wanted to hear more.
They even agreed. Especially about the cops.
We dumb white people don’t wanna hear about anything, except where the next event is and how we can earn more money for doing fuck-all. Our survival depends on this in all sorts of ways.
On foot there is so much more. More life. More honesty. More connection and more learning than I ever experienced, or understood, as a naive white South African.
Also, I’ve already had two random marriage proposals.
One while I was walking barefoot to the park. It seems I’m still a catch to some people… even though I can’t afford shoes right now.
Thanks for your reading time!
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