Before you read on I should warn you that this will be unapologetic, harsh and maybe even hurtful and no, this isn’t about racism; this is about us.
These past few days I’ve had to try my very best to avoid negativity on the internet and let me tell you I have failed miserably. Constantly being bombarded with hateful posts about people playing “spot the racist”, pulling up website articles from years back to prove some sort of point that they are right and the other party is in fact not. It has come to a point where even my dog Buddy is starting to wonder if it is safe to bark outside. Will his bark be heard as an insult? Will it be heard as just plain jargon or will he be shunned at the very notion of, well, barking? Funny thing about us in SA is that we only focus on issues as soon as everybody talks about it and until then we just go along in our blissful state of being ‘unaware’ of what’s happening around us.
Despite all of this back and forth and who is right and who is wrong one thing remains universal: we are all just crappy people. You heard me, all of us and you are probably thinking “nonsense I am a good person and my peers admire me” well sorry to say we are all crappy people. Why you ask? Because we are letting the world steal our humanity and compassion for each other and the worst part of all? We don’t accept responsibility for it happening because it’s easier to just shift the blame. We jumped aboard the hate train and now we are stuck to enjoy the trip so you better get comfortable… or you can do the sensible and morally right thing by getting off on the next stop. People do not realise the potential words have to hurt, to damage and to even scar somebody because these days (like it or not) we are so sensitive to everything that even the slightest thing can cause pain to anyone.
As Buddy is sitting here and looking at me ranting on about human beings being horrible, I will iterate my point as I always do every time I get the chance to write; we should all be more like dogs because even if they are brown, black, white or Asian they have one thing we can learn from them: It’s not what you barking for, it’s only how you bark.
