So I went to a Catholic school (sticklers for the rules), and throughout most of my school career, I spent countless hours either in detention, in the principals office, and I was even suspended for a stretch… Not because I was some juvenile delinquent of a troublemaker oh no no no, the beef was all because of my luxurious natural Black hair, child.
I was neither trying to rebel nor make a statement or anything of that nature, it was not a form protest nor was it a demonstration, I most certainly did not possess the vocabulary to articulate about my crown — all I wanted was to be left alone to grow my hair out if I wanted, put cornrows if I chose, maybe do natty dread, or even shave a Mohawk… however these colonial institutions of indoctrination called schools are designed to essentially beat the Blackness out of us, at both a psychological and spiritual level.
Who knew merely existing as the Black kid I was could cause so many white adults such consternation?! My very Blackness was offensive to the school’s western sensibilities, because how dare this Black barbarian refuse to “comply and submit to the will of Jesus… uncombed hair is messy, therefore it’s ungodly because cleanliness is next to godliness…” and so on and so forth and stuff like that. I also distinctly remember how Black kids were prohibited from speaking vernac, meanwhile Frikkie & Marietjie could praat all day. Lol
The fact that natural Black hair is still an issue, here in apartheid, is more evidence of exactly how little things have changed in the last decade and a half since I completed school, and in the nearly 30 years under ANC misrule. To this day our Blackness remains a crime, to this day, it is only native sons and daughters of this land who’s hair is policed. To be frank, allowing ourselves to still be pathologised and to have every aspect of our lives interpreted through the prism of whiteness is sickening!
In this latest racist incident which took place at Crowthorne Christian Academy, which was found to be operating illegally amidst their atrocious acts of whiteness I might add, I noted how the parents stood up for their child and defended her right to just BE. In all my school years, not once did my folks stand up for me or defend my right to wear my hair how I liked, not one time was my Blackness affirmed… I don’t blame them however, because many a parent believe being a ‘good Black’ will shelter them and their children from racism.
We must resist any and all efforts by apartheid apologists who seek to claw back the tiny gains we got through democracy. The pencil test was discriminatory, and that expression of anti-Black racism is the genesis and the reason we still have nonsensical school policies that prescribe and proscribe Black children’s appearance. As the great Steve Biko warned in one of his few interviews: “In 1966, there was an anomaly where Whites participated in our oppression & in opposition to that oppression. A totality of White power…”
Precious little has changed since then as evidenced by the sheer number of Black people, still confused by the cognitive dissonance of their perceived inferiority, defending this racist school, it’s principal, as well as its archaic rules. The notion of white supremacy can never be uprooted for as long as Black people view themselves as less than or unworthy of being who they are, and looking how their maker intended them to look — the irony of course, is that this latest manifestation of apartheid was sparked at a Christian school… WWJD indeed.
There’s a sea change on the horizon, however, because a more socially and politically conscious, proud native is finally awakening from a rainbow delusion induced stupor. Black people who do not care for Eurocentric standards of beauty, or about being “acceptable to society” merely because they coddle whiteness (political correctness) or conform to the ridiculous notions of white supremacy.
We need more Africans who defend their children whenever racists attempt to deny them an opportunity to learn due to appearance… just focus on teaching and learning!
I’d like to end with the poignant words of Malcolm X: “There will come a time when black people wake up and become intellectually independent enough to think for themselves as other humans are intellectually independent enough to think for themselves. Then the black man will think like a black man and he will feel for other black… people. And this new thinking and feeling will cause black people to stick together, and then at that point we will have a situation where when you attack one black man you are attacking all black man. And this type of black thinking will cause all black people to stick together’ this type of thinking also will bring an end to a brutality inflicted upon black people all over the world. No system designed will help us except us.”
Peace and Black power