Charles Ash
I see the cover of Discovery magazine and it shows a Black man walking
a Labrador. This is what we shall refer to as the classic white-media
“curve ball”. A strategically placed image of a Black person in a
publication to throw your highly race oriented mind off guard (let’s
face it, by default, ALL South Africans have a highly race oriented
mindset). Denial; head-in-sand-escape mechanisms; or just plain
pandering to rainbow nation rhetoric do not detract from the fact that
“Houston, we have a problem” and race relations are not anywhere near
normal just yet (according to my finely tuned race-relations barometer
at least). Take a look at the furor over the guilty verdict handed down
by Judge Hillary Squires in the Schabir Shaik trial. Middle aged
African National Congress Youth League president Fikile Mbalula and
newspaper columnist David Gleason have laid into the judge, labeling
him an “apartheid judge” and highlighting his service in the repressive
Ian Smith regime of Rhodesia as factors which might’ve influenced his
“guilty” verdict. Whether there is any truth to this is another story,
for me it just emphasizes the fact that in South Africa, we have a long
way to go before we can stop with our schizophrenic obsession with
race. Take the opinion of callers to radio stations discussing the Zuma
/ Shaik saga, viewpoints are clearly divided along racial lines. The
funny thing about White-media “curve balls” is that you never know
you’re being thrown a “curve ball” until after the fact. Black people
gracing the covers of magazines is nothing new in the new South Africa.
Not in this, the 10th year of our freedom? But are we honestly that
racially aware? Or am I just the abnormal one?
that sparked this soapbox tirade in the first place. I turn the front
page and I see a white lady in an athletic stretch advertising POLAR
digital watches.
Diligence? Hard-headedness? Discovery Health’s
white Group Marketing Director Neville Koopowitz’ challenging glare? Or
is it the Land Rover advert on the opposite page telling me to “GO
BEYOND”? Either I’m a sucker for challenges or the most obedient
conduit of instructive advertising, I “go beyond” my saturated
post-apartheid emotional racism. I turn the page…heck, I turn 2.
white Engineers, advertising Mecer computers. Mecer – “Experience
IT”…yeah…I’m experiencing it, I just wonder how many others are
experiencing it too?
I turn
the next page and see a white collar worker sitting in the lotus
position. Nothing strange about that right? Only white collar in this
case is actually depicting a wit-ou.
picture of a white boy swimming. My over-calibrated racially
hyperactive mind springs into gear thinking…it’s winter…the pool gotta
be heated…and this wit-ou…can only be rich!
another page, Page 13…and my first glimpse of a non-white in today’s
issue of DISCOVERY! My rapture is short-lived. 2 Pages later reveals a
smiling white lady advertising PHONAK hearing systems. The ad reads:
“I’m a web designer (*me too*). I’m a runner (*me too*). I’m a mom
(*I’m a DAD!*). I’m hard of hearing, but I’m definitely not hard of
living”. The opposite page reads ironically, “Eye to Eye”…I have so
much in common with this lady, but by now, I am unable to properly
reconcile myself with this distant imagery.
sparkling blue eye greets my next turn of the page and I am greeted
with the double-vision treat of 2 dentally superior Caucasian females
advertising OPTI-FREE Express. Surely my deep brown eyes can never be
as photogenic? Surely brown eyes would’ve detracted from the
effectiveness of the advert and only blue eyes would’ve been capable of
properly conveying the advertiser’s message?
turn of the page and I see the picture of innocence. A young white boy
chasing seagulls on a calm, placid beach. Surely this must be serenity
personified, for had it been a non-white, my enquiring mind would’ve
wondered which depraved person was chasing him. Crime and
prejudice…MMmmmm?
offers no help to my clouded vision and distorted racialism as I turn
the next page. Surely, only a white lady with a smile worthy of prime
space on a dentist’s wall is capable of distance learning? I continue
traversing the pages of DISCOVERY magazine and besides minor pictures
of White people sprawled all over the Medi-Clinic advert, the next page
forces me to stop.
picture of a young white girl. Not just any white girl, but a white
girl who appears to be the same age as my 3 year old Coloured daughter
Chloe (I say the word “Coloured” like my daughter can racially be
anything else ? ).
This
infuriates me because I begin wondering if Chloe or her ilk will ever
grace any pages of a national magazine in as significant or comparable
numbers as white kids do, or is this the sole domain of white
offspring? History has shown through the media, that white children
dominate all things cutesy, cuddly and innocent. We all know that in
the media, the white male dominates the financial services and high end
vehicle market, and the white female, the shampoo and cosmetics market.
And while we’re at it, let’s not forget the virtual monopoly which
white people have over infomercials and voice-overs. Except for the
odd, white-media “curve ball” of course.
I reached the end of Discovery Magazine, the score according to the
Charles Ash patented media scorecard is Coloureds = 0; Blacks = 5;
Whites = 100+; Indians = 0. The score on the scorecard being simply a
tally of the number of times a person of each race group appeared in
the magazine and gives a simple indication of how heavily skewed our
media is in favour of white folk. I know, the Charles Ash patented
media scorecard is a crude system for gauging racial representation in
the media. It’s nowhere near as polished, refined and clinical as the
BBBEE (Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment) scorecard used by
government to calculate your BEE points. Still though, my scorecard is
effective in helping me spot that dreaded white media “curve-ball”.
with all modern scourges, the white-media “curve-ball” has mutated into
something far more sinister…the White “corporate-curve-ball”. From the
white companies that employ the token Black receptionist; to the white
company boards that shamelessly front token Black directors in order to
swing lucrative BEE deals. Chess grandmaster, Gary Kasparov
would feel very much at home in South Africa, what with our White-media
playing black tokens; hastily assembled company boards and poverty
stricken pawns.
quotas in sports and rather have race quotas in the media. That way, we
can all keep scorecards…and maybe all be winners? I gotta admit though,
when that Mecer Computers advert says “Experience IT”, I gotta say that
for now, I do experience it…pure, undiluted DISENFRANCHISEMENT!!
This piece was written entirely in my personal capacity as somebody
with neither academic credentials; street credentials or even armed
struggle credentials. If your knee-jerk response is to say “this guy
has a chip on his shoulder”, I’d like to take this opportunity to point
out that I have a chip on EACH shoulder…much better balance.
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