A way of eating ice-cream

Richard Chinheya writes as follows:

There was a long held view by white citizens in Zimbabwe to conclude that it was pointless to pay a black man much money as 'he would spend it on beer'.

Whereas whites had a solid foundation where they would plan for their children so that by the time they were of age they had a car, and/or house and a job they thought the blacks did not have these owing to their laziness and stupidity. These circumstances justified a superiority complex and perpetuated an impression that blacks were stupid, dull or unintelligent.

Perhaps the domestic employees were the basis for these perceptions but these were important to make whites feel intelligent and the blacks dull. sadly even now both blacks and whites are victims of these syndromes.

Certainly, what your write is true, especially of past Rhodesia, although it is less true of present day Zimbabwe, but still the racial divide persists along these lines, to some degree.

I want to suggest the presence of an alternative reality, however, even in the midst of all of this unfairness. The logical assumption that all whites cared for their children by setting them up with the material benefits of life could prove to be occasionally mistaken. Injustice is only perpetuated when it is assumed that one been given all the positive things in life, which will set one up in good stead for a middle class existence. Some parents -- even in Rhodesia -- might find that scenario to be all too easy. Their own children might not necessarily be favoured in this way.

So it was with my father, who didn't necessarily want to transfer benefits to me automatically. The common sensical assumption that he would, or did, has always followed me like a bad smell.

His failure to do so, however, was a fact, albeit one not likely to be believed.

In KG1, for instance (I was five), me, my schoolfriend Nicky, and my father took an afterschool walk in Ballantyne Park. "I'll buy an ice-cream cup for anyone who can walk along those bricks without falling off!" This was my father's challenge to me and Nicky.

So we stepped onto the line of bricks that formed the exit to the park, and walked along them, one foot in front of the other, wobbling. After a few seconds, I fell off, but Nicky kept on going for a few more seconds.

"Nicky wins!" proclaimed my father. "I will buy her an ice-cream."

"What about me?" I wanted to know.

"No, I only have enough money for one ice-cream, so I will buy one for Nicky."

That's what happened -- and Nicky ate her ice-cream in front of me.

I don't hold a grudge against my father for whatever he thought he was demonstrating on that day. He taught me quite directly that I couldn't depend on him too much, and that his judgements were unlikely to count in my favour.

The problem is I have been punished for having been given all sorts of unfair advantages in life -- those that pertained to being born white in Rhodesia.

The fact is that most of those advantages I am assumed to have had did not really exist.

It has taken me a long time to realise that in the eyes of Westerners, my father's was pretty abnormal behaviour.

But then again, it is also the reason why Westerners themselves have always seemed to irrational to me. I mean, in the sense that they have treated me like I've had unfair advantages by being brought up in a colonial society, when to my mind it is the Westerners who have lived in the lap of material luxury. They would be insisting on a very crazy interpretation of life if they think that somehow I have been set up very well for success in life, and need to face "reality" by being brought down a level or two.