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Radical Middle | 71<br />
nachas when he made space for a Henry Nxumalo or a casey<br />
Motsisi to appear from nowhere and write words of genius.<br />
rational judgment is that Harry was the success and Jim the<br />
prodigal, but I appreciated Jim’s one-man extremity on the<br />
compass of human diversity.<br />
It was a pity that his world divided into blue-eyed boys and<br />
snakes in the grass. every new “Drum Man” was a blue-eyed<br />
boy until he became a snake in the grass, and when I went off<br />
to america I was snake, undiluted. Which made the trip quite<br />
a con. I travelled under the style of “Group assistant editor,<br />
Drum Publications”, which sounded better than “Guy trying to<br />
establish Outlandish Magazine”, but was in truth past-tense.<br />
I took a prospectus for the outlandish magazine, whose<br />
working title was Africa Vision, and got to feel like Dick<br />
Whittington wondering what happened to the gold on London’s<br />
pavements. america was supposed to be full of zillionaires<br />
burning to support noble ventures like raised thinking in africa<br />
and the breaking of the chains of race, but the zillionaires didn’t<br />
seem to have read the script.<br />
One foundation listened as I explained the need for whites,<br />
too, to see a future in one-man-one-vote, and then said: “aw,<br />
shoot. You guys had your turn for 300 years. Now just give over<br />
and get out of the way.”<br />
My biggest hope was a bank in Wall Street, and this visit<br />
I planned to a T. I examined the map and calculated. I was<br />
sixty blocks away. I’d go to the terrifying expense of a taxi, to<br />
eradicate the possibility of erring on public transport. I worked<br />
out the time a six-block drive would take in rush-hour Joburg.<br />
I multiplied by 10. Then I added a whole 50% margin. and it<br />
wasn’t even rush-hour. I was buttoned-up. I looked forward to<br />
impressing my dad with the tale; his view of my time-planning<br />
skills needed correction.<br />
except, the rules don’t hold. I now know that every hour is<br />
rush hour in Manhattan. I now know that taking a taxi for a<br />
60-block trip is like choosing a teaspoon to dig a ditch. I learned<br />
those things on one taxi trip.
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