On Caster, castes and testosterone

Somewhere in the world this past week congregated a group of men (majority Caucasian) whose mission is to strengthen their hand in the application of the global matrices of power that target the people of the global South and women in particular – trapping them into objects of gaze and subjugation.

In the so-called civilised world, a young woman from South Africa is being stripped naked and paraded to the indifferent world audience, for she is regarded an oddity who must be examined by “scientists” in order to conclude “she is a man!”

One of the body-shamers is reported to have said Caster must show her boobs in order to prove her gender. Yes, he wants to see her breasts. Can he lead by example and show us his testicles?

And thus the spectre of slavery and colonialism is relived by body-shaming of Caster, dissecting the black woman’s body in broad daylight. She doesn’t own it; it doesn’t belong to her! Patriarchy owns it. Show us your boobs, they dare her.

We dare not forget the centuries of “scientific research” meant to justify racism. If Caster isn’t a woman today, Africans were not human yesterday. Just here at Stellenbosch “scientists” have “proven” that black women have cognitive disabilities — they think below humans, Caucasians. Darwin lives!

Caster Semenya, the 21st-century Saartjie Baartman; the Herero woman from Limpopo. She, whose natural disposition fascinates the Euro-American, sending him into a frenzy of fear of losing. And so she must be genetically modified so that she must lose whatever natural advantage she was born with.

Oh, the spectre of patriarchy and bigotry... using civil institutions to commit uncivilised acts. Born into a caste system that dehumanises and dismembers you from the human race so that you run no race.

Just the other year they were policing another black woman’s body, Serena Williams, telling her to dress up because she is too muscular.

Banished into the zone of non-being. If sexism and racism don’t work, they resort to genetic modification — continuing the long line of a biological war against the people of the global South.

But you were born to win, Caster, caste systems of race, patriarchy, racism and capitalism notwithstanding. Your talent and resilience re-members you into the human race — a wholesome individual who wins, feels, smiles, loves and cries.

From you, the best is yet to come, Ms Champion, just do it! DM