Tumelo Motaung > Status Update

I've heard people say something to this effect before:
"One day when I'm older I'm going to be string and rich. You'll come to me for help but I will turn you away."

A guy I used to know slept on the library benches in variety because he couldn't afford a room. He went on to be successful but won't help others. He feels they should also suffer like he did and work hard to make it. I find this to be retrogressive.

I also turned to books because I was bullied as a child. They were to me what Zahara's guitar was to her, I keep saying... a comfort. It's deeper for Thuli, I should think. She was searching for her own truth in all those pages.

"Quietly, I started reading every book I came across ... I was hoping somewhere someone might mention the word boesman. I wanted so badly to know the meaning."

"Mother didn't see a lot of things that happened to me. Even if by chance she saw the blood she was not going to believe me. But if she did, for a change, she would report the matter to her husband, who would say I was lying."

I've have a feeling something is off in Thuli's relationship the "father", and I'm crossing fingers that something bad didn't happen while Mother feigned ignorance.

Having watched a friend of mine and his then wife go through a phase where they accused each other of witchcraft and work hard to either retailiate or protect themselves, I cringed at reading this:

"Many say that if witchcraft runs in the family it's almost impossible to break the spell. That's information I should have researched more thoroughly. But, better late than never, I know that now."

"'Yoir father used to have lots of girlfriends,' Mother would say proudly. ',He liked girls very much but he chose to marry me out of all those girls."

How the mother, who is a house wife, attributes her societal success explains why she would go to the grave with the secret than jeopardize her standing. She has sacrificed her daughter's truth and identity to protect her standing.

I can understand trying to keep the names of your family members from the public, but reading a text that presents characters as proper nouns creates a block in flow, see the difference:
"Paternal Grandmother had two boys. The older one was quiet and gentle and the younger one was Father, Mother's husband."
Sindile had two boys. The older one was quite and gentle and the younger one was Marothi, Lesego's husband."

"I learned to get everything right the first time to avoid being called yellow. As a result of trying to never be wrong I became very quiet and I never spoke unless I was spoken to. When answering, I would speak as softly as possible to make sure that no one noticed me. I even took up as little space as I could, trying to make myself invisible."

This is how Thuli learns as a child to deal with Gifted Trauma.

Why do you think black people treated coloured folk with such disdain as Thuli was when she was a child? Could it be because they saw then as being closer than them to the benefits of an oppressive state?

I'm reminded of what C.L.R James wrote in The Black Jacobins: "As [Mulattoes] began to establish themselves, the jealousy and envy of the white colonists were transformed into ferocious hatred and fear."

"My not weeping actually has nothing to do with my feminine side but with the scary possibility that if I start crying what happens when I find I can't stop? Who will be called to calm me down? The onmh mM, if not the only human being who ever loved who loved me unconditionally - my maternal grandpa - is no more."

This puts a lot into perspective. She doesn't feel anyone has a cup big enough to hold all her pain.

Thuli's refusal to call her mother "mother" in real life but is using it in the text is a catch-22, because although she describes how she didn't feel mothered or cared for by this individual, she uses the word for someone who is meant to do just what she missed.

I would have felt better if she named the woman, even using an alias, because this makes me wonder if she longed to use the title but just never could.