The Coming of the Dry Season by Charles Mungoshi a renowned Zimbabwean author penned this book during the 1970s shortly afterwards and the book was banned by the Rhodesian (now Zimbabwe) government prior to independence. Although the black experience is not a monolithic experience the experiences that black people share under oppressive systems regardless of location are similar.
The story that will resonate with every black person who lives in America is the Ten Shillings. It tells the realism of what it meant to be black in Rhodesia that being good was just not enough. Here was a man who had gone to school and yet with all his education could not find a job. Some even other blacks mocked him for trying to better themselves. Every black person living in America can relate to this phenomenon especially in the American South of the United States.
The American south has no place for mediocre blacks either you are at the bottom or at the top. Many Euro-Americans can afford to be mediocre because the system still has hierarchy based on race, which is why even in 2011 legislation in the US Congress that would have companies to publish salaries would not pass. There had to be a system that could guarantee discrimination in corporate America. The US Federal and State governments publish salaries so this is not a foreign concept to the United States. So the book asks what good is an education? Does the education that blacks have prepare them for the world that they live in? Will they education make a difference? Then of course like all black Americans he gets unexpected kindness from a European which reminds us that men should not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
Article Courtesy of Anna Mosi oa Tunya 2011
“Every morning in Africa, a Gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a Lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest Gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a Lion or a Gazelle… when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.”
Like this:
Like Loading...
Related
1 Comment
by Anonymous
Anna i could not have said it better myself. this is true so leave their countries seeking higher opportunities only to find that it is a white man’s world in the south states of America. the guy here was fortunate to have a good white come to his rescue. in the american south they are few and far between.
Uncle Grey Bonzo
Comments are closed.