On rugby and colour blindness – whether political or not – and all the moaners seeing red

Johan de Meyer explain: Colourblindness means I identify colours by what I have been taught it should be - grass is green, the sky is blue - rather than what it really is. I can appreciate a beautiful sunset, for example, without being able to identify the colours, shades of colours or undertones. (Photo: iStock)

By Johan de Meyer

18 Sep 2023

Those fans who object to the rugby kit redesigns need to get over themselves and remember that without even realising it, they have benefits over so many others.

Way back in the Eighties, colour blindness was not a political term, just another thing to make one the laughing stock of the jocks.

It sadly did not get me out of national service (remember that?) and was not seen as a disability. Just like mental health and suicidal thoughts were a so-called female problem treated by psychologists that dutiful husbands silently paid for but refused to attend.

Post-traumatic stress disorder did not exist and, well, to be diagnosed with a disability one just about had to lose at least two limbs, cut one’s wrists (and be sent to a mental institution commonly called Groendakkies in Pretoria) or go the “malhuis” – the permanent treatment centre for anything from depression to Down syndrome.

It was with a good measure of surprise when I realised a few years ago that I have a disability. Nothing to write home about because nobody notices it, and I function normally. But I would love to paint (canvases not walls), to be creative and design.

Until I tweaked a photograph on Photoshop and my wife dutifully pointed out that I made the white faces as green as could be. Then the penny dropped.

I don’t make a fuss about it. But for me colour blindness is a metaphor for all those very real conditions ordinary people suffer from because nobody ever told them that the world could be different. Like a friend who, at age 30, got her first set of glasses and went through weeks of trauma. For 30 years she thought everybody saw the world through blurred filters. She felt cheated.

The whirls of colour turned out to be individual flowers.

The horizon was not a swathe of blurry blue, it was range upon range of different hues of coloured mountains disappearing in the distance.

What do I do when the teller tells me to press the green button; when the electrician giving me advice on connecting a device tells me the brown wire goes left?

My condition is called red-green colour blindness, or red-green colour deficiency (CVD).

Turns out that colour blindness is political after all. It affects about 8% of males of Euro descent (compared with 0.5% of women). So, colour blindness is a white male problem, in this case. What can I say...

It is caused by a problem in the functionality of some of the cells in my retina, which mediate colour vision. If the cones lack some of the wavelength-sensitive chemicals, they are unable to distinguish the colours red, green or blue.

Sidelined by default

My three brothers have the same problem to some degree – except that they do not work in creative industries where colour is sort of one of three main ingredients, besides texture and form.

In our family, when it surfaces, it makes for good jostling and jokes. However, since my awakening that what I see is not what I get, I have started to notice the small ways that I am sidelined by default.

Colour blindness means I identify colours by what I have been taught they should be – grass is green, the sky is blue – rather than what they really are. I can appreciate a beautiful sunset, for example, without being able to identify the colours, shades of colours or undertones. (Photo: iStock)

What do I do when the teller tells me to press the green button; when the electrician giving me advice on connecting a device tells me the brown wire goes left? I caused my father endless frustration because the earth wire in a normal plug (back then) could be brown, brown/green or black. And the live wire is red. I mean really? It was a colour nightmare.

Traffic lights are easy, at least, because the green is so bright. When it comes to amber and red, I read the light by where it is on the pole, not by the colour.

My wife, gracious angel that she is, has learnt to say “yes dear, it is lovely” with no hint of sarcasm whatsoever when we drive through the Western Cape’s valleys and I comment on how peacefully green the restios and grasses are. She has long since stopped telling me that we are in the middle of summer and they are as brown as can be.

Same goes for the lovely blue (pink) flowers or the purple (blue) paint on the houses.

I am 51. I have multifocal glasses.

Even at school matches I first have to find the right place to look through the glasses to focus. Then I try to make out which team is which. (Tygerberg, green and white stripes; other school, white and other-shade green/purple/brown).

At heart the issue is whether rugby supporters love their game enough to share it with others.

I keep my eyes squinting in the right direction because I don’t want my son to look around and see me looking somewhere else. But until the ref blows the whistle and I can ask someone next to me what happened, I am snookered.

So, what does all this have to do with rugby? you may ask. Frighteningly few comments on social media are sympathetic with the decision by World Rugby to get teams at the Rugby World Cup to wear kits that are more contrasting in colour to help people like me.

I assume these people love the Eighties and can’t wait to have their burnout being labelled “yuppie flu” – the rich man’s excuse not to work.

At heart the issue is whether rugby supporters love their game enough to share it with others.

It took years for white South Africans to love it enough to accept transformation, after years of denial that there are probably more black rugby supporters in South Africa than whites.

Boks and bonding

So, here I am with my disability that registers so ridiculously low in the bigger scheme of things when it comes to people with needs, special needs or social injustice.

But I love rugby. I watch the Springboks’ and the Stormers’ games casually to stay more or less in touch. I am crazy about sevens, though.

Covid ended my first son Edja’s aspirations to become a Springbok. He used to explain things to me when I could not figure it out. For now, my second son is my eyes and ears.

He knows every World Cup team’s players by name and position; he knows the words to every national anthem and can tell you the game plan of every team. He aspires to be the first black World Cup referee (Go Siphs!).

The point is, watching the Springboks play is how I bond with my family. I don’t know all the rules and my sons have to explain the (constantly evolving) rules.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Springboks’ and All Blacks’ new kit designs create a dazzling stir — just as intended

So, naysayers, do you want me to support your sport, or move on to another? Remove 8% of white male rugby supporters and see what the advertisers have to say...

Sadly, when my sons are not with me, very few people have any consideration for this. When there is a ruck or a maul and my eyes jinx my colour recognition, I simply can’t follow the match. I have to stitch together the parts that I can follow and fill in the blanks.

It forces me to be a half-hearted supporter, watching the score instead of the game. When I was a teenager, I remember wishing that they would indicate the direction each team is playing by switching the little window indicating the score – so if the score is on the right, I would know that team played right to left.

Alas, World Rugby did not read my thoughts.

So, Springbok management, I salute you for going all the way in your creative redesign of the jersey – even if the colour looks a bit too much like our beloved supermarket chain. Thank you for including me.

Besides loving the Ndebele-inspired geometric patterns, I could totally enjoy the game.

In our first World Cup match, it was so much easier to follow. When Steven Kitshoff, loosehead prop, was offside during a ruck and received a penalty against him, even I could identify him and his error. Before, I would have to ask somebody why the penalty was awarded, and against whom. When the ball was held up and a try was not awarded to South Africa, I could clearly see the action because I could identify the arms by the colours they were clothed in.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Springboks and All Blacks can never meet again in their primary kit – new World Rugby regulations

When lineouts turned into mauls, it was so simple to identify team players as the maul spiralled forward.

So, for the moaners and groaners, get over yourself and remember that without even realising it, you have benefits over so many others. Don’t opinionate about my experience of the game, without walking in my shoes. I recall the Springboks playing in white before and there was no outcry.

If colour blindness is such an issue to you, I wonder how you respond to income inequality, poverty and some of the other serious issues in our nation that do not affect you directly.

Perhaps you suffer from colour blindness after all – the social and political kind. DM

Johan de Meyer is a freelance writer.

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Sidelined by default

Boks and bonding