I was nine years old when my school principal made me feel inadequate for my shabby looking tracksuit top.
I guess parents who approached Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga, calling for the sector to do away with school uniforms, didn’t consider the higher price of buying ‘enough’, - if ever there is such a thing - casual clothes for the year.
Or perhaps they turned a blind eye to the fact that removing school uniforms would only highlight the massive inequalities that exist in society.
But this does not justify schools forcing parents to buy uniforms at exorbitant amounts, from exclusively selected suppliers.
Perhaps these parents were just being human. By human, I mean selfish. By selfish, I mean ignorant.
Poor bliss, always taking the blame for ignorance.
Many times we hide our scars. You already think us broken, we don’t want to show you the same.
Even though these inequalities are curbed by school uniforms, they don’t care if learners are in unison or not.
This is a story of how these inequalities are persistent. How young black boys and black girls stay in the mercy of shame whether they are in uniform or not.
It is a story about time. When it heals, it simultaneously wears off your clothes.
I guess poverty is synonymous to scars. Imagine the cuts in the mind of a child who grew up with an inferiority complex, purported by peers. Or worse; purported by a school principal.
In 1997 when I was a boy of about nine years old in Grade 5 at Itemogele Primary school in Protea Glen, Soweto, I was gaslighted by my principal.
I had joined the school choir of which he was the conductor. It was an honour to be a part of that choir – so fierce, and relentlessly won competitions.
It was my primary school principal’s pride and joy – I guess I forgot his name.
He covertly sowed seeds of doubt in me, making me question my worth, perception and judgment.
I remember he was hesitant for me to join, and a bit dismissive about my request for the same and I didn’t know why.
But I did make it into the choir. And when we went to a competition he took me outside from backstage; “you are not going to that stage wearing that tracksuit top,” he said to me.
The entire choir wore gray pants with green and gold school tracksuit tops for the performance.
I have had my tracksuits for over a year at that point and my top was worn out.
The gold was dull. The green was bright.
My top was lighter, both in colour and texture.
My top was a dead plant. The chlorophyll could no longer soak up energy from sunlight.
Thank goodness for melanin, I didn’t rely on my faded top to help protect my skin from UV rays.
I borrowed a new looking tracksuit top from a boy who later became my childhood best friend.
I can’t recall if we won the competition or not.
Removing school uniforms would only highlight the massive inequalities that exist in society.
It is heart-warming to know that hard-pressed families could soon be saving on school uniforms following the signing of a memorandum of understanding aimed at stopping schools from forcing parents to buy from exclusive suppliers.