I am so depressed, I have tried and failed to cheer myself up this week, there are many reasons for this darkness, but it started with #TshegofatsoPule, I really cannot breathe.
Eight Months pregnant, stabbed and hung from a tree, the 28-year-old that pushed me to the edge of mental stability. Tshego’s story is not new, a woman is murdered by a man every 6 hours in our country. In #lockdown in Nigeria the “reported” rapes tripled. #WeAreTired and other hashtags poured out and did nothing. Not like #GeorgeFloyd, the world did not stand still. In South Africa we didn’t have a minute’s silence, we have a #ManHunt and we know what that means, another docket to add to the overflowing pile. #Femicide doesn’t count you see? We have accepted it as a part of our culture, just another woman killed at the hands of a man. You may say how can I say it is a man that killed her? No woman would hang a woman and her near-born baby from a tree after stabbing her and her unborn child to death.
This story sent me spiralling through my journey as a woman in a man’s world, how many times the size of my chest has been the top of the agenda in a boardroom before I get to present the contents of my brain, far too many. I personally know 5 women that were raped and not one of the perpetrators got their due. I know of many women who were raped as children, who thought it was culture in their infancy. And I know some who have died. My darling #Tshegofatso I am so sorry we women have not risen to lament our own rights. #ItsBloodyTime
#EnockMpianzi returned to headlines with a R10m bill to #ParktownBoysHigh, there should be no price tag to pay for a child’s life there should be a life to pay. The people responsible should be jailed for manslaughter at least and then we should talk about whatever compensation is possibly able to lull the pain of burying your own child. #Depression
The #EFF took #CollinsKhoza’s case on, and damn right! The world is screaming #BlackLivesMatter and we are shouting the loudest but #CollinsKhoza’s body is cold and there has been no hint at justice. “A black man is hated everywhere” read the #EFF silent protest in solidarity with #GeorgeFloyd and the images of #JuliusMalema and the red brigade kneeling with slogans on their t-shirts reading “We cannot breathe” was very emotional for me. #Depressed. I know I’m probably buying into nothing more than political opportunism but I don’t care, I also cannot breathe. Well I didn’t care until #Malema called #Ramaphosa a bastard without any justification at all, just that and I quote: “Ramaphosa is the bastard, and there’s nothing all of you, including him, can do.” Julius, you can really swing from high to low in a millisecond, what’s up with you dude? Ah wait, is it that set of WhatsApp’s that link you and #Shivambu to the #VBS scandal that’s got you all worked up? Nothing is what is seems. #StillDepressed
The ANC launched #BlackFriday and the President compared #GeorgeFloyd to #SteveBiko, even I’m pissed at this one, what kind of comparison is that? Why because they’re both black and were killed by police? That’s not enough to warrant a comparison to #Biko, I’m sorry, Biko, while in detention without trial, during apartheid, under the veil of secrecy, fighting the oppressor with every ounce of his existence, was murdered. Not to detract from the awakening that is #GeorgeFloyd, but #Biko’s name stands on its own in my opinion. #NotHappy
#Superbalist, what the hell are you doing? If you missed it, firstly they “have no stance on Black Lives Matter” well no wonder, as they sell lithographs saying W is for White and I quote “colour of milk, snow, innocent, unstained, pure…..” and then B is for Black and I quote: “opposite of white, dirty, messy, without light, dark, illegal, dim…” I can’t even unpack this story, please don’t make me, just stop shopping there.
And then I read about the school curriculum and how Umlazi, Parklands College and Midstream College all held a “fun exercise” that made children fictitiously auction black humans in an attempt to educate?! the kids on the American Slave Trade. Who is in charge and can Karen please have a word? #MoreThanDepressed
Big news came from the left field yesterday, we can now vote for individuals and not just parties, what a novel idea, I like it. Someone let me know when #CyrilRamaphosa for President flights without the #Top6, I may cheer up then. #electoralAct
Apparently #Mazotti has never met #NDZ properly he just asked to pose for a picture! Hey Mr M, did you read #PresidentsKeepers? There’s quite a bit more than a picture in there, in fact there is a big picture and it’s not pretty. #NDZ’s court defence was poor and used manipulated statistics, apparently 88% of smokers not being able to find cigarettes to buy (true statistic) turned into 88% of us smokers gave up. I’m going to hedge my bets and say in a government survey you probably won’t admit to breaking the law. I don’t know a single smoker who has given up, they’re just risking their criminal records to get their fix. #TobaccoBan. Here’s an interesting fact out of all the WHO countries, SA and Botswana are the only ones to introduce prohibition and surely we must be one of the longest #lockdown countries in the world, we are almost on the 80 day mark with no #Level2 in sight, in fact we are only now making regulations known for #Level3, a place we have been for almost two weeks. Everyone I know is carrying on as if it’s all over, haircuts, coffee with friends, family reunions and yet we are still not allowed to buy sandals. I really don’t get it. If the purpose of lockdown was to fix our medical system then tick tock, time’s up guys. We need to eat. It feels like we became a communist country, I jest of course, in a communist country everyone will eat.
The infection rates in school children and their teachers sends a chill across my body, #ourChildren are in the frontline and all for an education that is quite frankly a hot mess. Several teachers died this week from #CoVid19. If I saw #Angie once this week I saw her 40 times, all of it chaos, no sanitation, no space to social distance, there were interviews with Maimane on his high horse, calling for MEC #PanyasaLesufi to appear on an already planned visit #CovidElections. I spoke to a friend yesterday and she told me her son (10) hasn’t seen his friends for three months and now they’ve been told the earliest they will return to school will be in September. We counted the months he has not been at a school facility and realised it is over half the school year.
The hospitals and their precious staff are in a warzone with #CoVId19 as ICU beds fill up in the Western Cape and across the country staff start testing positive at these critical institutions. Medical staff walk out due to lack of PPE and some hospitals are ghost towns, question, where did all the other sick people go? We hit the 1m CoVid test mark and our death toll exceed one thousand, they are referring to these as “landmarks” while I just feel exasperated.
The taxi prices rocketed overnight and then that was scrapped, is it a bit like petrol where we put it up by 3 rand to drop it by 30c next week? In my last business most of my colleagues spent 60% of their earnings just to get to work. Tell me what should they do now?
And then just in case you wondered if #Afriforum was racist, they are, they’ve now launched a case against #MandelaFoundation for inciting violence because of #BlackLivesMatter, have we not grown at all? I’m glad to tell you that South Africa has grown despite this horror of a report. We are way ahead in the conversation about racism, when I look at the world taking down statues of the genocidal terrorist that was #Leopold, (in case you didn’t know he killed 10 million people and then sold the country afterwards. He is the biggest mass murderer in the world’s history). I was astonished to see the number of statues of him in the DRC? Seriously? Don’t just tear those statues down, smash them to ribbons and then dance on the remains. And for those of you (unbelievable there are many) that say we shouldn’t destroy history, read a bloody history book, don’t build a monument. #RhodesMustFall resulted in #StatuesMustFall all long after we changed our apartheid linked road names that were revolting. South Africa should be leading this conversation, we know more than most and we have waded through so much hate to get to this point.
Panic buying on alcohol again this week as rumours were rife of a reinstatement of the #AlcoholBan. Prohibition doesn’t work, just ask the people who died in the #JoziniCrash.
#BeauBrummel died, #Eusebius left 702 but everything is ok because #Devi is back tonight. Thank you Luvvy!
US has insisted that Prince Andrew step up for questioning for the #Epstein sage. Let’s be serious here, nothing will happen to him because #RoyalsMatter
Oh, my word I haven’t even mentioned him in this report, see how depressed I am? Even Trump can’t cheer me up. He did however justify a 75yr old being shoved to the ground because he had a phone in his hand (according to Trump the phone was a police scanner widely used by Antifa) are you kidding me? Maybe that 75-year-old should run for President, because my mom can’t even find the green phone icon let alone work a police scanning system.
There is nothing to cheer you up this week I’m afraid, but there is for me, apparently diving opens in Sodwana Bay next week, there is NO news 18m under water! #JustSaying #SaveMyMentalHealth
