To be a young, tired and 'angry African racist'

I was neither hurt nor surprised when an ill-advised young, gifted and African film director condemned me as an “angry black racist” in the company of a white female colleague at John Matshikiza’s memorial service recently.

Of course, it is a dangerous political activity bordering on career suicide for an African artist to confront white hegemony of the creative and performing arts in this country — be it movies, journalism, book publishing, visual arts, theatre or comedy.

This white control and domination in the creative industry is an ever-going process to keep Africans dependent on white generosity and approval for them to be big names in places like Hollywood or arty-farty cultural circles.

In fact, privatisation is nothing but the white gangsterisation of the creative and performing arts in this country.

As a result, it is not surprising when a politically naive young African filmmaker hurls insults at those who dare to contest white hegemony and call for cultural self-determination and liberation for Africans.

It is his gesture of self-preservation and allegiance to white bosses for an African creative to condemn another publicly as an “angry racist”.

This is what makes it impossible for African creatives to break from dependency on whites for validation, opportunity and economic self-determinaton.

In the case of whites, this makes it easier for them to retain their mental control of African creatives. In fact, this facilitates their African subjects to internalise and perpetuate racist perceptions, misrepresentations of the African experience and distortions of our historical reality and past.

It is a tragic situation, indeed, when Africans make themselves useless and irrelevant for failing to stand up for their right to define who they are and how they are represented.

In fact, if we start looking at the movies that have been made about Africans before and after Nelson Mandela came out of prison, especially for the big and small screens, we see that whites are the dominant creative force when it comes to representing African experiences and realities.

In the movie and television industry, for instance, Africans have made very little progress, if any.

These frustrated egoists have nobody but themselves to blame for failing to stand up for their rights. They know they should refuse to collaborate with their oppressors who have a tight grip on an industry that should set the soul free.

Of course, they are free to delude themselves that Africans have equal opportunity and should now see fellow white creatives as equal colleagues.

But the fact that you are on the roll scroll or your name is flighted as “co-director” or “co-producer” does not make you a co-owner of a production company or co-creator of the African image.

To paraphrase Malcolm X, if a white man invites you to dinner, has laid out the table, cooked the food and asks you to help yourself to his buffet, that does not make you an equal dinner. You are only a guest on his terms.

We must be very clear about this fact because there are far too many self-important Africans who hang around white creatives and thus think that they, too, are white creatives.

If you watch Yesterday, Yizo Yizo, Hijack Stories, Tsotsi, TshaTsha or even Jerusalema, you will most see images of African people and their experience that have been created by white people.

It was the same case with Ngwanaka, U-Deliwe, Mapantsula, Dingaka and a host of others.

What makes the situation worse is that African people not only serve as marginalised consultants on how they are portrayed or projected on screen, but also support, reinforce and encourage their depiction through white eyes.

They uphold an unjust status quo.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with whites — who are presumed to have the skills, experience and knowledge just on the basis of their skin colour — making films on African people and their experience. Let them enjoy freedom and democracy.

In fact, its their right to freedom of artistic expression, which they can easily practise because they have money and the banks are always eager to give them support.

It is, of course, debatable whether white creatives in film and television industry have divested of racism.

However, it is worrying that there are far too many African creatives who, now, see the world through the lens of white supremacy.

In fact, they have internalised racism to such an extent that they call fellow Africans “angry and racist” for raising legitimate concerns.

Clearly, it continues to be treason in this country not only to be committed to African cultural freedom and self-determination, but also to express concern about the distortion of the African reality.

Look, Africans in the film and television industry have made very few, if any, revolutionary interventions.

In fact, they have abdicated their obligations to African people by allowing themselves to be messengers, over-eaters, “fronts”, translators and pseudo-co-directors, producers and writers to misrepresentative stories told by their white bosses.

Of course, talking about the role and responsibility of African creatives in the film and television industry is a very difficult and sensitive task.

It is for this reason that Africans have learnt to accept and live with the fact that a legendary playwright and writer like John Matshikiza will only be remembered for playing a stereotypical stupid role of a “Zulu on my stoep”.

What this confirms is that Africans in the film industry are still unworthy of complex roles and avoid sophisticated critical self-analysis.

Africans will not be allowed the freedom to pursue truth and critically reflect on themselves when it comes to writing and telling their own African stories. Instead, they are willing to accept any stupid role as long as it puts food on the table and gives them a job that makes them VIPs.

When one watches some of the roles that Africans play about themselves, one fails to be convinced that they are creative intellectuals who are not only supposed to be the soul of the nation but also hold the responsibility to “represent” the African experience.

There is no language to describe how so-called African creatives betray their people’s image and perpetuate white stereotypes about this continent and its people.

The best — which is ironically the worst — is for Africans, including in the diaspora, to allow themselves to be recreated in the white image. This is what has happened with Steve Biko, for instance, in the movie of the same name.

Without any voice in the mainstream to name African pain about how Africans are represented, there is false comfort that Africans are happy with the way whites make them appear.

But the fundamental task of so-called African creatives in film and television is to break with the white hegemonic mode and predictable way of defining the African experience.

Without Africans who are willing to challenge how Africans are portrayed and projected in movies that come out of yesterday’s, today’s and tomorrow’s South Africa, the contribution of creative African intellectuals will always be highly questionable.

Whose agenda do they serve?

In fact, without a revolutionary attitude, African creatives in the film and television sector render themselves useless and irrelevant.

Perhaps the time has come to challenge Africans in the film and television industry to look for more than just money, fame and white partnerships.

Somebody needs to get Africans to look at themselves differently and thus break the colonising white gaze that only shows the monotonous and predictable side of the African experience.

We must understand that films such as Yizo, Hijack, Tsotsi, TshaTsha and, of late, Jerusalema are not, in the true sense of the world, what we can present as models of African filmmaking or reality, methinks.

If Africans in the industry want to be considered “creative”, they are called upon to give us the human side of the African experience and not just crime, black-on-black violence and misrepresentation of history.

In fact, African filmmakers must rethink and recreate the African image, history and heritage through film and television.

It is not enough for them to call critical fellows “angry racists” haunted by a dead past.

We need to understand that the African continent and its people, like everybody else, are very complex.