Jozi is my city, and I like to think I’m
worth something here but with local reality bubble gum television shows like
VUZU’s Running With The Reps and it’s newest edition to popular visual culture,
Forever Young, every Tom, Dick and Sipho in Jozi has been allowed to convince
themselves and us of their pseudo-celebrity, but who actually runs the place,
who’s the puppeteer?
As the epicenter of what has been a
political tornado for the last 50 years, one could argue that Johannesburg is where
the big dogs come to play, where leaders take their places, and you’d mostly
likely be right…but come down from your social mezzanine and bring it down to
ground. Who runs these streets? She’s a seductress, alluring, and a snake charmer
if you will. She is perfectly coifed and manicured and dressed head to toe in
glitz and glamour. She may not be the wittiest, but she knows how to play you
for everything you’ve got. Like sea nymphs and mermaids of fable, she is the
beauty that will lure you to your demise…ok maybe not that dramatic, but these
women are the new elite fraudsters exploiting our burgeoning economy. She’s not
afraid to set a standard and will dangle her good in front of you to make sure
you give her what she needs.
Take sports Minister Fikile Mbalula for
example. He is a 40 year old high profile husband and father, entangled in a
heated sex scandal with 27 year old model Joyce Molamu. With heaps of evidence
backing the fact that she consented to her illicit affair, her victim angle
falls short of inspirational. Or Chomi, ANC promotional pop puppet and the rumors
of her pregnancy by our very own president Jacob Zuma. These woman however has
successfully helped flipped the moral foothold of the political authority, and
given new fame and fortune to women labeled ‘extortionists and home-wreckers’,
abusing her youth and beauty like her biblical namesake. 2Kings 9:30, “Jezebel
also used the spirit of domination and seduction to get her ways”.
In a society powered by culture and
politics, the key figures as voted for by popular consent would likely come out
as the rich and famous. You think lifestyle tycoon, Kenny Kunene comes to mind.
You think gold digging socialite and Khanyi Mbau can’t be beat. You know what
they say, this is a man’s world, and women just live in it. Does that really
still apply? I’m thinking this is a Jezebel’s world and men just fund it. I
know too many black women who climb corporate, social and influence ladders by
dating the right people and releasing the right scandal…the funny thing is, we
love it. We disregard their confluence over consumer culture and brand
recognition. We undermine their consumer capacity not only personally but also
in the greater scheme of our political economy. ‘On the one hand, we have the
young ones who study – and I use this term loosely – at institutions of higher
learning. Heck, some are even in secondary school still’, writes Silindile
Nyathikazi of City Press Online. A BEE baby that I know from high school shed a
little light on the demise of ‘elbow grease’, I’m thinking he’s met a couple
such femme fatales…
BEE Baby: ‘With women you have the
intellectuals, the creatives, the opportunists and the settlers. The intellectuals
and creatives are easy to identify, it’s with the opportunists and settlers
that it becomes tricky. If you do not come form money or have the means of
supporting yourself, your list becomes limited and as shallow as it seems, you
have to make a decision; this is the part where you distinguish yourself. If
you realize you don’t have the intellectual or creative skills to support your
lifestyle, you search for someone who does. This is where rich and powerful men
come in. If you realize this “way out” before the age of 21; you distinguish
yourself as an opportunist. You can hate on the Mbaus of the world, but in all
honesty you have to work with what you have, and if you were blessed with
beauty and charm, do your thing.’
Me (Kenny): ‘Yoh’
But realistically, in this world only the
smart survive. If you are in a position to give yourself and your family a
better life and affect some kind of change somewhere, who’s to say that the
Mbau way of life is wrong? Yes these women represent and perpetuate the gender
ideals that society has been forcing down our throats for ages, but can we
really berate them for it if they have blue cheese with their croissants (Mbau)
and we have toast? Can we really degrade their violent repossession of female
sexuality and the overt exploitation of it (because what man in his right mind
would say know to what they got going on)? Behind every strong man is a
stronger woman in a pair of platform Louboutins and Brazilian weave. Jozi was
built on jezebels, and that foundation looks rock solid to me. At 19:00
tonight, 10 000 runners will take to the back streets of Johannesburg CBD on a
10km run inspired by Nike’s new fitness campaign, Run Jozi. But we know already
who’s running this city.
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