Yours is the only voice to make the difference

Young voices tell me they want their voices heard with the election next year. Wonderful sentiment and I hope you’re heard.

Picture: iStock

Old people shake their heads. I shake mine about this hysteria about Barbie. Maybe because she never, for me, was “representative”. And I never liked pink.

Her Ken was not my Dirkie from next door who would put my Ken doll with his widespread weak knees in his plastic Jeep and, when I complained, swore to high heavens. I got my mouth washed out with soap when this Barbie swore back.

ALSO READ: Let the young voices speak

My Barbie had her head cut short. “A bob,” my mom dismissed this child with her own “boys’ cut” – and never bothered to make me feel better about messing up Barbie for ever. In fact, Barbie got a knitted nightcap like my singing sleeping doll.

My Barbie had such cheap see-through nipples I could dent it with my little finger and it would never pop back. My Barbie couldn’t bend her knees: she forever waited on her Ken with his also wide-open legs. My Barbie was not a voice – not mine or anyone. My Barbie was plastic. And cheap at that. And you better believe it.

North West councillor shot twice in head while walking home from shop

So make your “representative” movies and celebrate them; blow away – or not – the new buy-in into yet another fad; give a plastic doll who makes her creator’s family millions a voice. But know that is not this girl’s voice. We need to redefine The Voice.

ALSO READ: YouTube reaffirms commitment to amplify Black voices in Africa

Dead Beloved had a drop-dead gorgeous radio voice, unlike a certain morning host who has millions following him because of meaningless pranks.

I ungraciously border on hysteria on air, whether I voice bad buildings in the city or try to hang Dr Death in KwaZulu-Natal for euthanising two bull terriers that landed in his “care” and forced the NSPCA to remove him. But I used my voice.

Young voices tell me they want their voices heard with the election next year. Wonderful sentiment and I hope you’re heard. But here’s my nub: you know about the data telling us kids “can’t read for meaning”. You can make your voice heard. Read to them.

ALSO READ: Sadtu voices concern at increased violence at schools

I love that “celebrity voices” are highlighted but the chocolate maker Cadbury in a very clever PR ploy asks you to “generously” donate reading a bedtime story to kids. Visit their website and make your voice heard.

Yours is the only voice to make the difference.