Black middle-class can no longer breathe

I recently went to buy groceries for my family. Every month, I buy groceries for two households – mine and my family’s.

I live in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg while my family lives in Soweto, where I was born and raised. I have been buying groceries for years and have always been conscious of how steadily the price of food is rising.

But last week, the sting of paying for groceries was so severe that as the cashier was rounding up my purchase, I stood there paralysed with shock. I could not comprehend how such basic food items could amount to so much money.

The groceries did not even include meat, which is bought at a butchery in the far west of Johannesburg. They did not include fruits and vegetables which are bought almost weekly. They did not include bread, which is bought daily at the spaza shop not too far from home. And yet, they cost thousands of rands.

The reality of black tax means that being the sole university graduate in my family, I am also the only one with gainful employment. The only other employed person in the family is an artisan who earns a meagre salary that does not stretch far enough.

For years, I have borne the brunt of an unjust system that is built on the foundation of structural inequalities. I, and many young black people like me, have always understood that we were not going to university to pursue personal interests, but to acquire the necessary qualifications and skills to enable us to break the cycle of generational poverty. It is a responsibility I take very seriously.

I understand the foundations of black tax and I recognise its many humane aspects. Collectivism and humanity are a core element of who we are as an African people. Looking after our families and broader communities is an expression of the humanity that is inculcated in us from a young age. It is a philosophy that distinguishes Africans from individualistic Western societies where it is “all man for himself and God for us all”.

But the reality is that black tax is also a burden that we did not choose – and it is killing many of us.

The rising cost of living in SA is making it impossible to not feel burdened by family responsibilities. Many people argue that the black middle-class is self-centred, but this could not be further from the truth. The black middle-class is carrying this country on its back, with minimal assistance from a government that is failing dismally to provide quality services.

From the exorbitant personal income taxes that we pay to the historical debts that result from persistent generational poverty and race-based inequities, we are barely able to keep afloat. It stands to reason that those who earn over R20,000pm are the most indebted people in our country.

And in a country where millions of people are unemployed, the black middle-class is shamed for speaking about its challenges. The sentiment is that we ought to be grateful for having jobs and being able to afford what the ordinary South African can only dream of.

But this is problematic reasoning that seeks to delegitimise the very real struggles that we are confronted with. It is not self-indulgent to speak out about how the economy is choking us to death – literally. It is not an accident of history that so many black professionals are checking into psychiatric facilities with mental health problems or dying by suicide.

Black tax is killing us.