BOOK REVIEW: The Way I See it: Musings Of A Black Woman In the Rainbow Nation
WRITING about race relations is a tricky challenge. More so when you take sides — and are seen as depicting one race as more desirable than others in certain aspects.Former magazine editor Lerato Tshabalala must have wrestled with this dilemma as she penned her controversial new book, The Way I See It: Musings of a Black Woman in the Rainbow Nation. But she went ahead, risking making enemies.Her publisher, Penguin Random House, has come in for a beating, being accused of publishing material that conforms to white people’s unpleasant view of black people. Not that Tshabalala hasn’t written about all SA’s races, nor angered her own.One chapter that has not gone down well with her racial peers deals with the poor service Tshabalala has had from black providers. So she "switched races" and brands black providers as unprofessional, uncommitted, and unworthy of her business.Several people have argued the book is fuelled by Tshabalala’s own self-hate.The problem, obviously, is painting an ...
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