In the words of Bobby Kennedy, there’s nothing like a good old-fashioned race riot. No sir, said Bobby one day while we were dynamiting for trout in the Oswald Pirow dam, you can’t beat watching tolerance-mongering New Englanders give in to the overwhelming urge to leave tyre-iron-shaped depressions in ‘fros, or iron-willed Nation of Islam acolytes renounce their pacifism just long enough to perform avante garde rhinoplasties on smug beaky Caucasian noses with baseball bats.
Not that Bobby would ever take part in such barbarism, mind you. He understands that violence inspired by racial intolerance is a stain on humanity and besmirches the other, far more honourable, motives for violence, such as oil, land, water, religion, and the slope of eyelids. Indeed, it has also curtailed by association all violence inspired by racial tolerance, derailing many admirable ambitions to invade and annihilate aggressively sanctimonious countries such as Belgium and the Netherlands. Not that one should need an excuse to obliterate Belgium, but one doesn’t want to be called a racist when the napalm canisters start raining down on Brussels.
No, what Bobby means is that race-based hoedowns have always been with us, and since they’re a fact of life, one should take advantage of them as spectator sports. And Boxing South Africa agrees entirely. This week it revealed that black-versus-white bouts put bums on seats like nothing else, and bemoaned the dearth of toned white bums being put on the canvas by beefy black champions.
But what do the fans really want when they demand black-white bouts? Are they interested in contrasting styles, or are they getting a tiny vicarious race-riot kick? And if it’s the latter, why box at all? Why not formalise the whole thing by simply putting two blokes in a ring and handing them microphones? Go the whole hog, roll out a farm-fresh white boy with sandy moustache, watery blue eyes and shorts worn under his armpits, to face up to a gunmetal-blue bro from ekasi, fro standing up like an Ethiopian space helmet, his banter quick and deadly as an AK?
”Ladiss and jennilmin! In the white corner, weighing in at 120kg, nursing a chip on his shoulder and favouring the right, it’s Gerrrrrie ‘Crunchy’ Poggenpoooooooel! Annnndinow, in the black corner, weighing in at 121kg, sporting a previous disadvantage and able to flip-flop between his left and right depending on prevailing economic policies, it’s Sipho ‘Spade’ Vilakaaaaaazi!”
Crunchy gets in the first jab. ”Blacks always walk in the road with their backs to oncoming traffic and then get a huge fright when you hoot, as if the last thing they’re expecting is a car.”
A cut opens up over Spade’s eyes, but he rallies. ”Whites always wipe their hand on their pants when you’ve shaken it.”
”Blacks don’t understand queues.”
”Whites don’t understand ubuntu. You don’t need queues with ubuntu.”
”Blacks can’t define ubuntu, which is very convenient for point-scoring rhetoric.”
”Whites can’t understand ubuntu because they’re not African.”
”Not African? We’ve been here for 350 years! That’s 10 generations. That’s eight generations more than a lot of Indians, who call themselves black.”
”And in 10 generations you couldn’t get around to learning a single indigenous language?” Crunchy goes down in a heap, and the crowd gasps. The fighters retreat to their corners, revived, respectively, with biltong and samp. Round two …
”Blacks blame their helplessness on apartheid.”
”Whites blame everything on blacks blaming everything on apartheid.” A cautionary word from the ref — wise-ass conundrums will not be tolerated. Another angle is required. ”Whites have horrible dress sense and no innate style.” Crunchy reels, clutching at his long sideburns and handlebar moustache as his head rings.
”Blacks all have little scars on their shins that look like cigarette burns.”
”Bald whites look like butternuts. Bald blacks look like supermodels. And speaking of which, whites don’t have shoulders or stomach muscles.”
”At least we’ve got calf muscles.” A gasp from the crowd as Spade’s knee buckles. ”B — blacks can harmonise,” he gasps.
”Ja, because all traditional black music is in C-major and a combination of five notes. White music is Mozart, Bach, the Beatles. White music is bliss.”
”Bru,” says Vilakazi, and the stadium falls silent. ”Five words: Helmut Lotti, Liberace, Richard Clayderman.”
Crunchy hits the canvas like a sack of koeksisters. It’s all over.