A South African Summer: Racial Tensions

I have spent a good amount of time in South Africa wondering what true race relations are like. Much as described in my earlier post, I am often left confused, and sometimes angry. It is a complicated and long history, and one that would likely take longer than 3 months doing research to understand. Nevertheless, the juxtaposition of viewpoints I have encountered continues to shock me.

I actually wrote this post a while ago, and doubted posting due to its length and my lack of understanding of the many contexts in which race enters into daily life here. But after yet another racist experience today, in which my proclamation that all people are equal resulted in a person simply walking away from me, I took another look at what I wrote and decided to post it. What follows are two stories demonstrating the difficulties this country still faces. I hope they also reflect the amazing nature and resiliency of the South African people.

For my final dinner during my initial safari, I found myself eating alone with the hostess of the lodge. Fortunately, during my time on safari, in only the few days of my presence, I had grown quite close to her. Amidst fears of leaving vacation for work, leaving the countryside for a big city, and leaving a place of surreal comfort surrounded by amazing animals for reality, I decided to learn a bit about the country in which I was to spend the rest of my summer. I knew she was approximately 30 years old, and I knew, therefore, that she had experienced the transition from apartheid to the new constitution of South Africa. I decided to ask her what that was like, and her response is something I will never forget…

I’m not sure how the conversation began, though I know I had been anxious to learn the reality ever since my visit to the well-done yet almost too composed apartheid museum in Johannesburg. So I asked Pretty, my host, what it had meant for her when apartheid ended. She said, “I remember being little, and thinking that white people were more clever than me. I thought I could not be clever. Then apartheid ended, and all it meant was that I could be educated. So I got educated, and I always cared. Then I still had a piece of my childhood when I started working. I got my job, and I was well educated, but white people didn’t like it. One man took over. He told the boss I shouldn’t be running the place and took my job one day. But he was white, so I thought he would be clever, more clever than me. Then I found he could not even write his name! He was rude to everyone, but could not do anything! So he was fired, and I realized that I could be clever, and that black people could be clever too.”

We talked a bit longer, and I was astonished at her knowledge of the situation. The girl who once thought that due to her skin color, she was simply not clever, now understood and was willing to speak out against racial payment injustice within her country. She was only 4 years older than myself, yet she had grown to understand how to better herself via education, and how to value herself for her own capabilities and hard work instead of her skin color. She continued speaking of the injustices still at the table in her country, but boasted of the many successes and abilities of South African women. She was proud of her job and her life, (rightfully so as she was likely one of my favorite hostesses ever!), and thankfully, had grown to appreciate herself as a capable human.

Living in Umhlanga has been interesting. The bars, although having epic music, are quite white. In a sense, it is nice. I fit in, and can dance and dance like nobody is watching. Unlike many parts of Latin America, where ridiculous dancing tends to attract onlookers if blonder hair is involved, here it does what it is meant to do, and wards off unwanted attention.

But, in a moment of overheating, my friend and I stopped grooving to the beat, and headed to the porch for a breath of ocean air. As we chatted about the week, a man approached us with his friends and asked where we were from. We told him that we were from the US, and he asked what we thought South Africa would be like. “Expectations were few,” we explained, “but people here are very nice, and we are loving it!” we said.

The man seemed shocked, and asked if we had really been a lot of places (I think he assumed we meant people in Umhlanga were nice). We told him that we spent every day in the townships. (Townships are areas outside of Durban known to be poor, and generally not white). Shocked he asked why we would go there, to which his friend retorted, “White South Africans don't go to townships,” they then quickly walked away. When I saw them later, I was ignored. Apparently we crossed a line.

Suddenly, despite being ignored all night for fitting in, I felt like the odd man out. My frustration grew. Summer research is a new experience for me. Previous surveys were my own, done in a language I spoke, and in a country with far fewer historical complications than South Africa, I never felt like I didn't have a place. Townships get excited and want to touch my shoe or my hair, and local bar clientele near my home don’t care to say hello when they find out I have been to the townships. It’s a new place to be, and it’s not ideal. It’s confusing, and complex, with a long, complicated history. I do not know what it means for this country, but I do know that on any given day I would choose the townships.