Walking while black has
always has its hazards in this country. The most common is that dogs will bark
while you walk by; if you are unfortunate they may even try to bite you. It is
a phenomenon which I’m sure is unique to South Africa.
My experience in other
countries has been that dogs don’t bark randomly at blacks walking down the
street. It must be that these dogs are often trained to antagonise black
passersby or keep the imagined or real black intruder at bay.
Walking while black might
get you shot and killed in countries like the United States. Especially if you
are a young man with baggy pants and a hoodie. There will be angry protests and
petitions.
Political leaders will
utter politically correct statements but as time passes by and life goes on,
our attention moves elsewhere until another unarmed young black man is shot
dead, walking while black.
Walking while black and a
woman in South Africa poses its own dangers as I’ve pointed out in a previous
column. According to weekend reports, 44-year-old Cynthia Joni, a domestic
worker, was assaulted by a swimming coach Tim Osrin. He allegedly got out of
his car, cornered her, slapped, kicked and beat her to the ground, as she was
walking to work in Kenilworth.
His justification is that
he thought she was a sex worker, therefore he was within his rights to assault
her. A black woman walking the streets of an affluent and predominantly white
neighbourhood could only be there for no good. He arrives at this deduction
because the area has become a popular working area for sex workers.
While visiting a friend
who lives in the area a few weeks ago, I witnessed this myself. The
scantily-clad women sit or stand on the side of the road along the Harfield
station road, flashing their breasts to passing cars. It is the nature of their
business, and I assume they remain in the area because business is brisk.
It does not matter
whether or not Osrin thought the victim of his anger was a sex worker. If he
thought her behaviour was suspect or criminal, then he ought to have reported
it to police and not become a vigilante. It appears though that there was no
suspicious behaviour; Joni’s crime was walking while black and a woman.
What matters most is that
Osrin felt it within his ambit to, without obvious provocation, strike out at a
woman as she walked the streets. He feels the need to point out that Joni was
walking at 9.50 in the morning. It is curious that he would mention the time to
justify his actions.
Historical context
Clearly walking around at
those hours makes one open to attack. Joni is a mother, grandmother and
domestic worker who does housework for others in order to earn a living for her
family. Walking while black at 9.50am is not an unusual activity in this
country.
If he were to cast his
eyes further south from his leafy suburb of Kenilworth, say to Gugulethu or
Khayelitsha where Joni is from, he would find a lot of people walking the
streets at that hour. They might be walking around aimlessly, exasperated by
the fruitless effort of trying to find work in a stagnant economy that has
stubbornly refused to create jobs for about 25% of the population for many
years now.
Most likely, though,
people are walking at that hour to and between the jobs that they can get.
Let’s give a further
breakdown of what those job seekers might look like. They are likely to be
black and women. Some will find housework in order to take their children to
school and feed their families. Often they are the only breadwinners.
They walk with the
freedom and confidence that ought to be theirs at 9.50 in the morning because
they are making a living. They walk instead of leap out of cars the way Osrin
did because for many, cars are out of reach.
The deliberate spatial
development of the past means that the areas where they live are situated
incongruously far from where they work. Taxis and busses can only take them so
far, so they will walk through the leafy neighbourhoods which we all share
without the expectation that someone will haul them to the ground and beat them
for doing so.
A leading South African
academic remarked to me recently about the rage which engulfs us every time
there has been a seemingly racist incident. He described it as an impotent
rage. His question to me was why do we react as if we are a powerless people
when freedom has long been won?
