Day 30, You can’t really get away from the issue of race in South Africa. After so many years of people literally being defined by their race it should probably come as no surprise. It seems fascinating that in urban areas it is a melting pot of races with origins from further afield, but all have adapted an identity unique to their community in this country.
I got a breakdown of the four main groups; blacks, whites, coloureds and Indians. Just saying these out loud pangs on my “western” sensibilities. Even after 15 years of post apartheid democracy the divisions are still present. The neighbourhoods, the nightclubs people go to, even the foods they eat. However the Rainbow Nation is moving on; my course was been lectured by a black woman who was head of her research department on TB and HIV whilst outside there was a middle aged white man begging on the Durban beach front. These would be unheard of under apartheid.
Being lulled into a false sense of optimism, I wasn’t really prepared to see my first display of genuine racial derision. I will be vague about the context but I was in conversation with a white gentleman in his sixties. He was originally from Northumberland but had been here since the 1970s, his accent did not give him away at all. I was on the beach front in Durban and as we were discussing a matter a local hawker, a black guy, kept interrupting us to try and sell his wares. Particularly he was trying to peddle black leather belts. After a few cursory “no thanks” from me, the man I was talking to was getting very frustrated. He snatched at a belt from the hawker and glared at him with genuine disgust whilst holding the belt threateningly.
“This’ll be round your neck if you don’t go away”, he snarled in his rolling Afrikaaner accent. The hawker was perhaps as stunned as I was to hear what he said and kept repeating “what did you say?” The man just looked at him and slowly replied, “you heard what I said, now go away”. The hawker gave me a knowing glance, to suggest this was not the first time he was looked at like that, and the reality is it probably won’t be the last. He muttered something about “you can’t be like that”, before taking his belt back and moving off.
The man then turned to me and continued his conversation. He seemed unperturbed by the fact that I was not white. I went straight back into conversation however reflexively I was now speaking with my most enunciated and pristine English. Perhaps this was a subconscious effort on my part to show him that I should not warrant a similarly hateful manner.
For some, hopefully a minority, the old sentiments seem to bubble under. It is genuinely ugly when these spill over to the surface and I truly hope that I never have the capacity to look at another human being in that manner.
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