Germany rejects my use of the word 'darkies' and race relations in South Africa

I share my office with three darkies. They are Ntoks, the darkie female anchor of the show, Fortune, I don't know exactly what Fortune does, but he is the only darkie follower of my blog and he laughs a lot so I quite like him ... and then there's the Erudite Mister Zee.

They are all much younger than me and probably earn much more money than I do. (There is a reason I mention this.)

Mr Zee is the marketing manager of 50/50, the environmental show that I work for. He wants to be called only Zee but screw him ... he is a Mister.

The reason for this is that it was him who helped me through my ordeal of the first two weeks in my new job.

I once told him in that time: "Zee if you cheat on your wife ... just tell her that you have a helpless Boer in your office and he is taking up all your time with ... well requests for this ... HELP! And Mr Zee saw my pain and helped.

So after Gabrielli complained about my usage of the word 'darkies' I felt that I needed to consult them before writing this.

You must remember that I worked for a blue-collar working class newspaper, Daily Sun, where the word darkie was common currency as in: "Hey Temba is this a darkie word?" Meaning will darkies understand it ...? That is how we speak here.

You must also remember that English is the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 9th, or 13th language for most people here.

So I poll my three darkie office companions about Gabrielli's complaint.

Ntoks says no it's not offensive.
Fortune says no it's not offensive.

The Erudite Mr Zee is on the phone, so I wait for him to be done before I publish the result of the poll.

Finally, I get Mr Zee's erudite attention about the question in question and he explains to me thus (and I paraphrase): "I don't find it offensive in itself ... that's how we speak here. But you must remember where the Germans are coming from ... you know the holocaust and so on ... but their collective feelings of guilt is for a past sin that was committed by their forebears with very few of the victims still in evidence. Germany has apologised and that was good.

"But here in South Africa the former oppressed and the former oppressor are dealing with each other on a daily basis... in your face ... and we must just get on with it."

Mr Zee also pointed out to me that it would have been offensive if I wrote about 'white people' and then 'darkies', but since I talked about whiteys and darkies in the same sentence ... it is how we speak here.

Meanwhile I trained Madelein to do my job because they need a back-up for me because the program (computer programs are spelled like that ... even in non-American) that we work on is full of snags and i don't want anybody to go through the same ordeal ... being dumped into a very deep pool of not knowing anything. The worst fate possible with tight deadlines.

Madi is full of nervous energy and she has not had a structured job for a long time ... she calls Zee... Doctor Zee ... you see ... race relations in South Africa ... they are really relations ... not issues.

And then again I spotted 34 flags on cars today ... I do not count those covers on the rearview mirrors of cars ... just flying the flag and more and more people are flying the flags of their 'other team' because the consensus is that our team ain't gonna makew it past the first round.