Behold the greatest mistake in human history; the classification of humanity by the pigmentation of their skin. In a world where we can be anything, we can choose to be one race that is the human race. Color has no effect where people unite in solidarity for one purpose that is the greater good of humanity. We are fighting a battle that we cannot yet claim victory upon, our war cry is “no to racism” in its many forms.

The funny part is that the enemy is actually you and me. Racism takes many forms, the likes of: Structural Racism, Chronic Disparity, Institutional Racism, Individual and Interpersonal Racism. The purpose of this writing is to correct, educate and make sure that we learn about Racism so that we can become more human, more gentle, more caring, more compassionate, valuing every person as a being of infinite worth so precious that we know such atrocities will never happen again and the world will be a more human place.

Racism is any attitude, action or inaction which subordinates a person or group because of his or her race, color and ethnicity. I take it as an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand without knowledge or thought it’s very stupid and it has no class. There is potential in all of us regardless of what race or ethnicity one belongs to, we are humans first before we are black, white or brown. The problem lies on how we raise our children, for all I know parents are the first teachers. When a child does something good, the parents are accredited with the child’s successes. If the child misbehaves, the parents get discredited. So, it always comes back to the parents as the first teachers.

‘First teachers’, are you doing your best? If you encourage your children to see all that is not the same as their skin color as inferior then you are contributing in building a racist society as parents. In order to fight racism I urge our parents to educate their children to love and care only for one race that is the human race.

We all cry with one voice, saying no to racism. Yet there is no point in being in solidarity with the motion without starting with the man in the mirror. All of this positivity starts within one self and spreads. If, as humans, we take ourselves as a band that has to perform one song, our anthem would be, “no to racism” and our motto would definitely have to be, “one band, one sound”. Should one person fail we will all look and sound bad.

The point I am trying to make is that when we cry we have to cry with one voice, one purpose, one will to fight, stop and vanquish racism period. We need to understand that some things that lead to racism as a problem are the likes of, colour painted crimes, colour supremacy, etc. there is no such thing as black on white crime, crime is crime; it has no color, nor boundaries. As we are all equal the white supremacy is crooked and backward thinking to subdivide us as people of the human race to undermine one another and it’s pathetic.

If we are to call this nation a rainbow nation we should at least lead by example and condemn racism and xenophobia all together. We must learn to exercise the concept of ‘Ubuntu’ if we are to eradicate this plague planted by colonial forebears. This is a call to all of South Africa and those who dwell in it to show it to the world what is the message behind our national anthem, the very meaning of our flag and what is meant by the term ‘Rainbow Nation’.

I compare this to “The Jungle Book” story. This is the law of the jungle, “as old and is true as the sky, the wolf that keeps it may prosper but the wolf that breaks it will die like the creeper that girdles the tree trunk, the law runneth over and back, the strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack.”

We can only do this and prosper if we are to stand in solidarity as a nation, which has only one race, which is the human race. A nation is only a nation by its people and a person without a nation is lost, one cannot exist without the other. We can adopt the law and use it wisely for it is the way of life we must core exist equally. We might be different in color of the skin yet we all still bleed red and we all face the same doom of death one way or another. I deem it wise if we can spend our energy building a better future for our civilization.

“If the infinite had not desired for mankind to be wise He would not have bestowed upon him the faculty of knowledge.”

These words are what kept me at ease so that I do not cross over the wicked side of humanity. No one is really perfect the least we can do is be good to ourselves and others. Do to others as we would like it to be done to us .We should stand and walk tall in this land and remember that humanity comes first before all these racial diplomacies.

In time of the breaking of nations we must stand united and defend the humankind whether we like it or not for we cannot exist without each other. Now this is the baseless fabric of this vision: a picture of a lost generation, people without hearts, racial indifferences, blame shifting the list goes on. We must free our minds from the colonial way of thinking. We must be known as the nation that took the bull by its horns and twisted the iron feet of oppression. With this mental picture I say to you all, ‘no to racism, it must be condemned’.

Tell us: How issues of race has segregated us as a nation and prevents us from being one?