Dear Mr President - A Winford Collings Original Version

Child in a South African township

Previously I have featured quotes so well known they have become hackneyed and clichéd; poems by poet laureates and funny things children say (by kids who may well be famous one day too.)

But today I am featuring lyrics written by a pupil from my alma mater – Pretoria Boys High School. I have never met the boy, and I possibly never will. He describes himself as follows:

“Basically, I’m just a guy who was born and raised in Bloemfontein and then, through the grace of a scholarship, I am able to attend Pretoria Boys High School … I was born into a world where my skin wasn’t the right colour or my hair the right texture … I’m not a psychiatrist, I’m just a teenager sharing his thoughts.”

This isn’t written by a boy who has grown up steeped in privilege. It’s written by a boy just trying to find relevance and sense in his world. It’s by a boy who has been given a chance to get a better education than many of his primary school peers may have been given. He says it as honestly as he knows how, pulling no punches, with no airs or graces – and it seems to carry much more weight than if someone like I were to try to write something similar … You can read more on his blog.

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Dear Mr. President
(Adapted from the original song by Pink)

Dear Mr. President
Come take a drive with me
Let’s pretend we’re just two South Africans
And you’re not better than me
I’d like to ask you some questions
If we can speak honestly

What do you feel when you see
The country crumbling at your feet?
Which minority do you pray for
Before you go to sleep?
What do you feel when you see them praising you?
Are you proud?

How do you sleep while the rest of them cry?
How do you dream when your comrades don’t even
Blink while telling a lie?
How do you walk
When many can’t even stand?
All because your friends chose to ‘shoot to kill’?

Look me in the eye Mr. President
And tell me why?
Why you stand on our shoulders
And call yourself tall?
We’ve come a long way
From beetroot and separation

Let me tell you about hard work
Raising a child in a shack
Waiting for the coming RDP
Let me tell you about hard work
Fighting for a cause
That corruption leaves paralyzed
You don’t know anything about hard work

Dear Mr. President
You’d never take a drive with me
Would you?

Hardworking women. Just trying to make the best with the cards life has dealt them…

* The photos are mine, used purely to illustrate the young man’s lyrics.

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