“In our future you wouldn’t look twice”

By Rose Molefe

Eighteen years of democracy and all we are is a country who is obsessed with race. This is the first thing that came into my mind when I laid eyes on this controversial poster by Democratic Alliance Student Organisation (DASO). The second was; do I have wait for the future to live in a society that does not drive racial concepts to the ground?

DASO is said to have caused a stir with their recent poster, portraying a portrait of a naked white African gentleman with arms around the waist of a black African lady (as displayed in the poster). The intimacy in the image suggests that the two are romantically involved and the strapline reads; “in our future you won’t look twice”. The issue at hand; of mixed race dating has been a topic since Yunus Valley filmed a documentary; The Glow of white Women, which focused on segregation of societal perceptions of beauty under Apartheid. When does the interest of inter-racial relationships end? How long will we shun the romantic relationships of people from different ethnicities?

In the Apartheid era, black African males would steal glances at white African females; this was done in fear of their inferiority complex in society. However, if we have overthrown apartheid and are living in a free democratic society where people are allowed to engage as humans in whichever way they please, why are we still carrying the nature of such a relationship as a taboo? This is not to say that DASO is imposing or suggesting that it is a taboo, but for the mere fact that it is a campaign, it shows that they feel it to still be a rising issue in our country.

I feel our country needs to move away from racial topics, as this perpetuates the segregation in society. And although the poster might have been an innocent display of reality, it’s an overrated reality, which does not solve the issue if all we do is focus on what the challenge is.