Honorary White by E. R. Braithwaite Page A

your country?White newsmen and writers fly here regularly, write their pieces and fly out again. Do you warn them that they’re being used?”
    â€œFuck them.”
    â€œAnd fuck you, too, mate. What gives you the right to be so high and mighty? Your years on Robben Island? Okay, I sympathize.”
    â€œStuff your sympathy. Hell, man, you’re beginning to sound like Whitey. Cool down. I’m only trying to help you. And don’t hand me that shit about Paris and London. Over there they might hate your guts, but the law limits what they can do to you. Here Whitey is the law. Blacks can’t command the law because it was not intended for them. They can’t demand justice, because it was not intended for them. Justice and the law are concepts which apply to men. To humans. In this society Blacks are not considered human so they are not sheltered by those concepts. Did you know that, in this society we have no vote? We’re not even on the official census. Shit man, we’re not here. Don’t talk to me about Whites in Europe or America. These here are different. They’re fascists of the worst kind.
    â€œLook,” he was leaning forward, tapping on my knee with a long finger. “All I’m begging you to do is think. I’m black. You’re black. I published a few newsletters which nobody outside this town ever heard of and they threw me into jail. You’ve written books which have been read by millions. Attacking the very policies they live by. Okay, they try to keep those books out, but they’re brought in anyway and read, so to save their own fucking face, they lift the ban. That makes this a liberal society. Right? And to cap it all, they let you in. Man, they used you before you stepped into that airplane.”
    The logic of it hit me hard, killing my anger and stirring up the fears I’d earlier had about making the visit. The visa was five months in coming. Perhaps all that time was necessary while the design was worked out. Christ, I was beginning to think like him.
    â€œOkay, you made your point. Now I must be running along. I’ve a few things to do.” I wanted to be out of this.
    â€œLike a dinner engagement, maybe? With some of your white friends?” Grinning.
    â€œPerhaps.” He had the knack of finding the nerve.
    â€œDon’t worry. They’ve enough black slaves to keep it hot for you. Okay, man. Like you say, you can see and hear and think for yourself, but I tell you they’ll use you. They do it all the time. Among us. Even out there on the Island. Can you imagine that? Even out there where you’d think we were all brothers, all there for the same reason, all united against the fascist bastards. Even there they managed to use some of us against others. And for what? Some fucking little privilege we’d already learned to live without. After all we’d been through, to sell one’s soul for shit like that! So you see man, telling me that you can see and hear and think for yourself doesn’t mean a damn thing. Anyway, while you’re thinking for yourself, think about us and remember that in the eyes of these fascists you’re no better than the rest of us.”
    â€œI’ll remember,” I said. I’d come to this house with a gutful of goodwill toward this man. Now all I could feel was a nagging suspicion that somehow I’d been trapped into betraying him and others like him. Just by being in their country.
    â€œIn prison the payoff was some worthless little privilege,” he was still with it. “What are they giving you? The ‘Honorary White’ bit, so you can believe yourself different from the rest of us? Fancy hotel, your face in the white newspaper, moving around freely? Same thing, man. Privileges bought—”
    â€œNobody’s bought me,” I said, lamely.
    â€œâ€”And paid for, man. And when you think you’re moving about more freely than the