Publication: Sunday Times Issued: Date: 2007-02-18 Reporter: David Bullard

I’m Getting In Touch with My Inner Black

 

Publication 

Sunday Times

Date

2007-02-18

Reporter

 David Bullard

Web Link

www.sundaytimes.co.za

 

One wonders why people bother to ask for arms-deal kickbacks (not that they do) when there are such rich pickings to be had from BEE deals.

Who in their right mind would ask for an illegal R21-million when all they really need to do is to put together a deal entitling themselves to a legal, risk-free R475-million shared between four people?

Much comment has been made by Leftie journalists and embittered letter writers about the recent Reunert deal.

All I will say is that I really wish I had been black and disadvantaged, because a R150-million payout would have made it all worthwhile. Personally, I wish Cheryl Carolus well and hope that the money brings her all the happiness she deserves *1. And Cheryl, ignore those cynics who tell you that money that doesn’t really belong to you only brings grief. You just go out and buy yourself some Jimmy Choos. You deserve it.

The best thing about the Reunert deal, though, is that my old friend Wendy Lucas-Bull also got a goody bag with R70-million in it. That’s in addition to the goody bags from Lafarge and De Beers.

I’ve known Wendy for 25 years now, and I have always admired her business focus and her undiminished appetite for money. Meet her at a social occasion and you immediately get the feeling that the conversation will be brief unless you can help her acquire more wealth.

Wendy gives all whiteys hope because she is neither previously disadvantaged nor very black. In fact, when I last saw her she was quite pale. And yet she has managed to crash through the cement ceiling of BEE like Wonderwoman, making us all realise that you don’t actually need to be black to be a member of a BEE consortium.

Some psychologists will encourage you to discover your “inner child” in an attempt to get you to lighten up a bit. In the same vein, I now encourage you to discover your “inner black” in the hope that, like Wendy, you need never again waste your money on a lottery ticket or contemplate entering a reality game show where the prize money is a paltry R1-million.

I have discovered my inner black and I’m hoping that one of those companies that PIC CEO Brian Molefe is targeting will treat my request for a free handout as sympathetically as Reunert’s Boel Pretorius did.

To be honest, with JZ still badgering me for R6-million, I could do with a “quirk of the structure” deal.

I was wandering around the National Air and Space Museum in Washington a few years ago, stroking the flanks of the Enola Gay and wondering what good use she could be put to just north of the Limpopo, when I stopped in front of the bust of a black man.

He was the first African-American combat pilot and his name was Eugene Bullard; born in 1895, he died in poverty in New York in 1961.

Obviously the Yanks didn’t let him fly because he was supposed to be picking cotton in Georgia, so he escaped from racial persecution in the US and flew for the French.

It was only when he made a name for himself with the elite Lafayette Flying Corps that the Yanks wanted to claim him as their own.

’Nuff said, homeboys.

Gentlemen, I await your telephone calls. (Fade column to chorus of Ole Man River)

With acknowledgements to David Bullard and Sunday Times.


*1       The money that Cheryl Carolus gets from these deals is not only for herself, but also for some of her struggle mates.