That's Racist?
So someone just decided to fuck with me today, right? I’m all for celebrating your cultural heritage. But are these two people actually getting married in South Africa, in a Colonial Africa themed wedding, with Union Jacks displayed on the walls?! Are these British people waving Union Jacks and posing with guns in the same place where their ancestors forced apartheid on South Africans?
This all led me to the conclusion that some White people just don’t give a fuck. And why should they? If I were born with privilege that protected me from being affected by such things, I probably wouldn’t give a fuck either.
Take Dave and Chantal for an example. Here they are celebrating what must have been the happiest day of their lives, and sharing that joy with the world by allowing their wedding photos to be published on a website. All of the comments are only reaffirming what they already feel, that their wedding is beautiful. And then comes the barrage of comments pointing out what should have been obvious: that a “Colonial Africa” themed wedding is at best distasteful and at worst blatantly racist.
I’ll be honest, I hesitate to call it racist because in my opinion, a racist act requires malicious forethought and it might be possible that Dave and Chantal think that their wedding was just a beautiful celebration of South Africa’s history.
What is more likely is, Dave and Chantal are so shrouded in their privilege that they simply don’t understand, or care to understand, the pain that this time period still inflicts. We all have habits of romanticizing some of the darkest moments in our history but something about this…the literalness, the actuality, goes beyond.
While the newlyweds and their guests might have enjoyed a beautiful Colonial Africa themed wedding, this is yet another discouraging example of how the history of race and racism continues to affect us and how some people just don’t give a fuck.