Plight of young black men ignored

A group of pupils visit an office during the Take a Girl Child to Work Day. In this context, the writer asks, what about the plight of young black males. Picture: Nigel Sibanda

A group of pupils visit an office during the Take a Girl Child to Work Day. In this context, the writer asks, what about the plight of young black males. Picture: Nigel Sibanda

Published May 20, 2015

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We dismiss unresolved issues, that created males like gangster ‘Geweld’ Thomas and the youngsters who killed Emmanuel Sithole in Alex, at our peril, writes Fikile Moya.

 

Durban - Last week, a relative called me to see if I could help our younger relative, a teenage girl, find a mentor for her Take a Girl Child to Work Day.

In the same week Cape Town gangster George “Geweld” Thomas was convicted of 53 charges including murder, racketeering and theft, some of the offences including the murders, committed while he was already in prison awaiting trial.

Around the same time, two of the four young men accused of killing Mozambican national Emmanuel Josias (also known as Sithole) were denied bail.

At face value the three incidents were unrelated yet they are part of the same narrative.

I have written about it before that it pains me that South Africa ignores the plight of its young black males.

We hope that they will sort themselves out that is why we have a day dedicated to showing young girls that a different world exists but hardly anything of the same magnitude for their brothers.

Many of the boys we assume have the future figured out for no other reason than that they are boys, grow up to be “Geweld” or the Alex youngsters.

Let me hasten to say that I support the principle of exposing girls to possibilities that exist.

Patriarchy is too entrenched in South Africa to not recognise that many young women have been raised and still believe that their role in life is to be subservient to men.

I just believe that they ignore the reality that in South Africa historical marginalisation by class and race is as real as keeping some on the peripheries on account of their sex.

“Geweld” and the Alexandra youngsters have more in common than even they probably appreciate.

They were all raised in poor communities where violence is the norm and where the majority of victims of this violence looked like them. They are part of an unending cycle of poverty, violence and where the few positive male role model figures are judged by the consumables their cash can buy.

Pictures of “Geweld” and his gang published in the media showed the group as enjoying their moment in the sun with some making the 8 sign to emphasise their membership of the 28s criminal gang that operates in and outside prison.

Their lives epitomise the tragedy of being black and male and poor in a country where being all these means that life’s dance is loaded against you.

I get the impression that we avoid peeping into the world that created them because we fear we might be accused of trying to justify their dastardly acts.

Unfortunately, to minimise the likelihood of another “Geweld”, we have to understand the streets that made them. We have to understand what is it about a community that makes young men merrily stab another in full view of others, regardless of whether it was robbery or a xenophobic attack.

I am afraid we fail future “Gewelds” and Sithole killers because we have accepted the plight of our young men as ordained from up high and poverty and hopelessness as standard.

It is as if we no longer had communities such as those where “Geweld” and the Alex boys grew up we would no longer have “authenticity”.

Whoever said “keep it real” had no love for those whose reality is the violence and easy death that Bishop Lavis and Alex have witnessed for generations.

Many feminists will argue that being a woman under the same situations is far worse. I beg to differ.

The majority, if not all, of “Geweld’s” victims were young black males.

One of the reasons the likes of “Geweld” continue to exist is that we have normalised poverty and lack of opportunities for the majority of our youth.

Many of us say with displaced pride that we grew up in rough neighbours.

Rough neighbourhoods are extended prisons.

One does not need to go to a museum or to see a statue to be reminded of the extent of apartheid’s impact on its victims. You only need to take a walk around any township such as “Geweld’s” own Bishop Lavis or the Alexandra streets where Sithole’s drops of blood were let.

We can jail as many “Gewelds” as we want.

He was convicted along with 17 members of his gang. That, however, has not solved the problem of gangs and crime in the Cape Flats.

Mothers will continue to have to pray and hope that their sons are not seduced to the world of violence and youthful corpses. The same applies to Sithole’s killers. We can jail and condemn the Alex boys as much as we like.

But unless we are honest with how the gender-race-class nexus in this country creates individuals like “Geweld” and the Sithole killers we will continue treating the symptoms and calling the jailing of such figures “justice”.

Come next Thursday, May 28, South Africa will celebrate the the 13th time that young girls have been shown that a better world exists out there.

They might as well warn them to be on the lookout for the many “Gewelds” and the Alexandra boys with unresolved social issues waiting to prey on them and on all of us.

 

* Fikile Moya is the editor of the Mercury.

Pretoria News

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