By Bongani Frank Masilela
These two words need to permeate through your conscience if
we are to free ourselves from shackles so strong and unnoticeable that they are
eroding the heart of the community.
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| Source: The Graduate21 |
Let me be frank with you, the end of Apartheid did not
signal the liberation of Black people. The end of Apartheid was a consumerist
revolution and it should be seen as nothing less.
All that the vote did for us was give us the ability to sift
through dreary leadership and the capacity to assimilate into white capital and
it is the latter that scares me the most. We are a traumatised people, this
much is palpable. 400 years of slavery, exploitation and most importantly
Deprivation have made us a people that seek to attain that which the master and
the baas could attain, using capital that was unjustly acquired of course, and
that which we could only observe from the confines of the kraal, the hostel and
the rondavel. This is trauma
that has barred us from even acknowledging the capacity that we hold to empower
ourselves and it is time that we put an end to it.
From 2004-2012, the Black middle class in South Africa
nearly tripled from 1.7 million people, to 4.2 million (which is still only 10%
of the Black population, but we’ll leave this for another day), according to
the University of Cape Towns (UCT) Unilever Institute of Strategic Marketing.
As a collective we have over R400 billion worth of annual spending power. Where
is this money going to?
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| Shoprite, South Africa's largest retailer. Source: Financial Times |
Shoprite is the world’s second largest retailer after
Wal-Mart, with sales in excess of R100 billion annually (to be fair, some of
this money is made across the continent, yet a significant portion is still
made in South Africa). South Africa is the fastest growing luxury brands market
in Africa (read: European Brands like LV/DG/Gucci/). The fastest growing
demographic in Curro Private schools, is the Black race, a franchise of schools
that will teach your children to thank Winston Churchill for the fact that they
don’t speak German today, whilst depriving them of knowledge on Biko, Malcolm X
and Ancient Egypt.
Look around your local Spur and you will see 'noveau riche' Black moms hosting their children’s birthday parties there and DSTV is still the most profound symbol of entry into the middle class.
That is what the end of Apartheid can be reduced to
essentially, is the yearning to participate and assimilate into the
socio-economic fabric that was once exclusively white and is still being
disproportionately dispensed by white capital.
I’m not going to go into detail about figures, but if we had
to take the Shoprite example, of which over R60 billion of that money is
generated in the country, if we supported a locally black-owned store, or even
drove a considerable distance to find a black-owned store, we could sustain 20
000 stores a year on a turnover of R3 million each. Think about the same for
Curro private schools, if we started a Black Curro (along with an education
board that ensured that these schools taught our precious Black children
something valuable, and didn’t focus on making them relax their hair and
appreciate imperialists like Cecil Rhodes and Paul Kruger).
If all that money being spent at Zara and the Louis Vuitton
stores went to enabling David Tlale
and other Black designers thus elevating them to a point where royalty and
rappers alike stunt with their creations, and if children’s birthday parties
were spent at Black-owned restaurant franchises (Vuyo’s?), we could build a
culture around Black-centered consumerism. And for the love of god, can we
PLEASE stop making fun of DJ Sbu and his Mo Faya drink, Sbu Leope is what Black
South Africa needs, he is enabling dreams and a sense of entrepreneurial
fervour that is lacking as a result of said trauma.
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| Source: Twitter |
Black People, the power to enable ourselves lies not in our
ability to fight for transformative policies in the white monopoly corporate
world, although we should not give up this effort altogether, it’s still our
land.
Real power lies in our ability to funnel money into the
community. We need to hold each other accountable to this, however. We need to
set targets of supporting at least three Black businesses a week, no matter the
industry (start with your plumber, electrician, caterer, GP and even butcher).
Increase this number every week and hold your friends accountable. Suburban
Black people like myself are guilty of being too lazy to drive out of the
neighbourhood in order to support a Black business, unless it’s a barbershop,
this mentality needs to change.
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| A simple message from Bongani Masilela. Source: Open & Agile Smart Cities |
We need to start Black Mani Associations in our
neighbourhoods to make sure that this movement gains traction. The culture of
spending needs to be exclusively Black at a subconscious level. Let’s transform
this democratic dispensation into more than a consumerist revolution.
Kind Regards
About Masilela: A Hopeful Black Brother including Thami Pooe who
introduced me to this concept and with whom I evangelise the good word of Black
Mani.
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