FOR A BLACK (read: AFRICAN) STUDENT, EVERYDAY IS A STRUGGLE

By Samson `Chessa" Zondi

In the Nux publication of May 2007 an article entitled “Equality among students” submitted by Andrew Wright, which attempted (although with little, if any, success) to respond to T.Dladla’s thought-provoking and progressive commentary, left me with no alternative but to respond to Wright’s article
Perhaps, I must mention that by virtue of the fact that we are academics in a pot (i.e. still studying); one would expect that whenever we engage in the festival of ideas or debates, we would at least demonstrate that we are indeed university students. I mean that, it is becoming common within academic environment that in some intellectual wrestling (for simplicity sake) debate, you will find contention/s that have no reference to actual debates being justified to make certain misleading views, Mr. Wright article demonstrate this clearly, and is therefore tantamount to a fairytale.


However, one must pardon him because-as I have previously indicated-we are, in the ultimate analysis, academics in the pot. My brother myopically argues that race has nothing to do with any students’ academic performance. He bases this on his past failure of which, he says, would not have occurred if race (white to be specific) has any influence in the lecturers who assess our (students) performance. Irrespective of whether he once failed or not, it is shortsightedness of the worst form to attempt to dispute the fact that race has no influence in students’ performance or arguably anything the former (students) does......More