Servants in Old England
Being a servant is not a race thing. That is why it is disconcerting that in this century, publishers still insist that maids, drivers and building caretakers should be black.
Being a servant is a class thing. Television series such as Upstairs Downstairs and Downton Abbey have white servants, but we don’t regard them as white.
They are workers born in a particular period in England, a class society divided into families related to the Queen, and masses of underlings born to ‘serve’ that upper class, hence the word servant.
Being a servant became a race, when England changed to Great Britain. It became great after the royal family stole countries known as colonies, and decided that the colour of defeated nations is inferior, and as such should be servants.
Richard Pryor, the American comedian said white people arrived as people from Europe, then decided they were white when they saw black people. This resulted in the great travesty that men and women who were servants in England, because they belonged to a class lower the Queen’s became the new class, the white class.
They had land and servants for the first time in their lives. That is how South Africa became a race state. Great Britain and other robber nations waged war against Germany to punish Hitler for institutionalized racism. Apartheid rulers were not.
Being a servant is not a race thing. The servant became black after land theft that made him a British ‘subject.’ That is why authors of all races still make characters perpetuating the lie that being a servant is intrinsic to the black race.
By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.
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