Workers wage their struggle at the workplace, students wage their struggle at institutions of learning and women lead and wage their struggles. Other groups can understand and support the struggles as waged by the affected groups, but should not lead such struggles. No matter how well meaning men can be, it would be ridiculous for them to lead womens struggles against male domination. It is logical for women to work out their agenda and pursue it. Men who identify with the objectives can support and become part of such a struggle. The same goes for white people in the black peoples struggle to rid themselves of oppression and exploitation. The other criticism leveled against black consciousness is that it has run its full cycle and should be discarded in the process of rebuilding our country. This argument is unfortunate because material conditions and black experience paint a different picture. A very large percentage of our countrys economic assets are still frozen within the predominantly white society, and are passed on from one generation to the next in forms such as stocks, bonds, land, businesses, trusts, endowments, foundations and insurance policies. White children are therefore privileged to enter the world with a high percentage of the resources that they need to succeed in life already in their families, schools, businesses and other social organisations. On the other hand, black people still lack the most basic of the human needs, food and shelter. In a modern society, housing is more than a matter of comfort and convenience, it affects childhood development, individual self-esteem and family viability. The standard living shelter for blacks has come to be a shack - wherever you see one, you need not ask who stays there. It is ironic that blacks seem to have graduated from match box tenants to shack dwellers. A decade into our political freedom, pain and suffering, curable and incurable disease including pandemics, have all assumed a black face, in an African country whose image is anything but African. Cultural alienation has come to characterize black life. All things African are aseptically scrutinized, assessed and rejected. Our national symbols lack the African face that gives testimony to our origin. The foreign names used to refer to places in our country are more than those that reflect the history of the African side.
Posted on: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 09:01:18 +0000
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