Sihle Khumalo writes
Black people and reading just do not mix. First things first: before anybody tells me about the string of degrees they have. I am talking about general (i.e. non-academic) reading. In this country, with almost 50 million people, a book has to sell 5 000 copies to be regarded as a bestseller. That can only mean one thing: South Africans – of whom almost 90% are black and about 95% of those African – just do not read. I have often wondered why blacks do not read.
I have narrowed it to two reasons: Firstly the inferior Bantu education – which most of us were exposed to – never, ever encouraged us to read. The last thing the National Party wanted was vast number of knowledgeable blacks. Go to any black household and you will find lots of music tapes, LPs, CDs and DVDs and a handful, if any, of general books. That, by the way, includes blacks in the suburbs. The lack of reading is the black thing, irrespective of where you live.
It is way more fashionable to have loads of music than to be truly knowledgeable. The second reason why black people do not read is, admittedly, because reading is not a basic need. So as long as they have to worry about basic things like where they are going to sleep and where the next meal will come from, the last thing on their minds will be: “what book am I going to read today?”
Another reason (read: excuse) for lack of reading is that most books in this country do not appeal to a black audience; and thus the vast majority of people cannot relate to the products on offer. Bullsh*t! The fact is there are countless books written by black (and white) South African, which an average black person can relate to, but those books never seem to crack it in the market. Why? Because the vast majority of black South Africans do not even know that such books even exist.
Another famous excuse is that there are no bookshops in the townships. Well, the only bookshop in Soweto – a location with more than a million black people – closed down at the end of August because: “Eish, business was very slow.” A friend of mine forever tells me that the reason we darkies do not read is because hardly any book is written in our language. It might be a valid argument, but let’s look at the facts: former President Nelson Mandela wrote a bestseller, Long Walk to Freedom. This award winning book was subsequently translated into Xhosa by author Professor Peter Mtuze. Did it make it into the Sunday Times Top 10, which tracks sales in more than 120 book outlets nationwide? No, of course not. Not even for a single week.
You can defend the indefensible as much as you like, but the facts are there and they all point to the same thing: black people just do not read. As a black person, when was the last time you bought a non-academic book, started reading it and finished it? When was the last time your black friends did? When last did you spend at least five minutes reading something to your child, niece or nephew?
There is so much more in life than being vuvuzela-blowing-soccer-mad people who can dance until sunrise. Our past is not ideal, but we can our future far better by doing one thing: reading general books. After all, oppression, just like freedom, is mostly a state of mind. As darkies we need to collectively take a quantum leap and free ourselves from ignorance and the slavery of the mind.
While you scream and shout, please excuse me; my black arse is feeling kind of itchy.
Khumalo is the author of bestselling book Dark Continent my Arse, and Heart of Africa which is his second book.
Adapted from Sunday Times – 13 September 2009
