It Was Just Petty
Growing up in the jewel of the east that is Benoni, I was never really aware of the petty apartheid laws that were in force during the 80’s. I lived to a large degree in a tiny bubble oblivious to the segregation, the brutal violence enforced by the SAPS, the overall disgruntled society and dictatorship that were the NP government.
Even now, as I sit here trying to write about it I find it hard to come to grips with. Perhaps it was due to the fact that I was not on the frontline. (For want of a better word.) Having graced the world with my annoying presence in 1983, I was a small toddler when apartheid was in full swing. As is typical with all toddlers I was interested in simpler things. My soft plush toys, terrorising our cat and my weird fascination with coins were the order of the day. (I’m still not quite sure what that last one was all about.)
However, back on topic – As I grew older and more cognitive, my naïve sense of the world caused me to not notice the fact that blacks and coloureds weren’t allowed at the same restaurants, shopping malls and parks that I went to. It was only later on in life that I realised things were very different. By that time, 1994 was just around the corner. It took this event to unfold to cause my metamorphosis to unfold. I emerged from my cocoon and soon realised the world really wasn’t such a nice place. It was anything but.
I still remember my early years of high school – Post 94 – The racial divides still in force even with the newly elected ANC in power. The black students would all socialise on the one side of the field and the white students would gather on the other side of the field. We didn’t mix. I didn’t know why really but it seems people just found it impossible to mingle. We were very different I was told but I didn’t understand why. They seemed to be just like me. In fact from an early age my parents had told me all people were to be treated equal. I just didn’t understand. What was going on? The signs I had heard of marking certain areas “WHITES ONLY” were long gone yet the feeling behind what those signs meant was still very much in play.
We might have all finally been allowed to be together yet at the early stages of this unison it was anything but harmonious. It was as though we were the oil and water. Trying to get us to mix wasn’t an easy task.
It was only towards the end of my schooling year and my progression into the working world that things seemed to make more sense. I began to notice that people were closing the gap and forming friendships across racial lines. Things for what I could see didn’t seem as awkward as it use to be. My original sentiments passed down to me by my parents, turned out to be factual. We were different at all. We were the same. It wasn’t petty apartheid anymore… It was just petty!
Petty to see colour in a country as colourful as the rainbow.
interesting perspective from one who was at school during ‘the change’
I remember a girl at my school. She was a pretty girl with a wide smile, but she was dark of complexion and she had ‘African hair’. Rumour started flying that her mother was black and from one of the black areas and that her dad was coloured. When this rumour started making the rounds many kids (this was in high school, round about ‘94) treated her differently, talked about her behind her back, etc, because ‘she was black’.
I was disgusted with them. Here was a girl we had known for a good couple of years. Someone many of us had considered a friend and now, because she was ‘black’, they treated her like an outcast. We had our circle of friends though and we refused to give into the racial-divide that was always there, even in the coloured community. We remained friends with her throughout. I feel bad for not openly standing up against those who turned their backs on her.
Even amongst those of our own race group we found reasons to segregate. It is rather disturbing to think about it. Race seemed to permeate every part of our lives.
The indoctrination was so ingrained into our society that it is very difficult to change. Just changing the political face of the country does not change the way we were brought up. It is incredbly difficult to admit, even to yourself, that these ideas are still deep in our psche, no matter how hard we try to change. I think our country will be divided culturally for a long time to come.
Unfortunately your’e quite right AnnB.
I do not know that racial integration is ever truly possible
Well look at America. The racial divides are still very prominent in some areas.
I would so in all areas. Is it a cultural thing? Because nationalities also stick together, as humans we split up and stick to our own.
To me the opposite of segregation is not absolute integration necessarily.
I’m horrified. Your terrorized your cat? shame on you!
I agree with Alex’s comment ‘absolute integration is not the opposite of segregation’
True but i wasn’t referring to communities living together in certain areas. More a case of different cultures getting persecuted because their mexican, spanish or black. The incident in LA is at the forefront of my mind. The police brutally assaulted a black man resisting arrest and the black community went on a rampage attacking everyone who wasn’t black. Racism still exists in America does it not?
haha yes i attacked the poor cat constantly. Eventually my mom gave her away.
@colleen
Who knows? It starts here – with dialogue such as this one!
Good Charlie´s last blog ..Pepper Spray – In the Spirit of Ubuntu
Good reading, Carla…
I had a similar experience growing up, albeit at a lesser level.
I just couldn’t understand why the kids seemed to be forming cliques. I was even more baffled when I realised that they were grouping according to skin colour…
In fact, I haven’t really understood racism, till today. i just don’t ‘get it’.
Good Charlie´s last blog ..Pepper Spray – In the Spirit of Ubuntu
I was also in high school when schools became integrated and saw the same thing. It wasn’t even a white vs. black thing; I just think none of us knew _how_ to socialise, so we stuck to what we knew. However, the kids that were integrated from grade 1 on, are a very different story. They’ve never had a chance to learn that we are different from each other. I’ve often wondered if integration straight across the board wasn’t more harmful; if it should only have started at the lower grades, rather than throwing a minority culture into a system that just didn’t know how to mix ‘n’ mingle properly.
Apartheid stole our innocence.
I also agree with Alex’s “absolute integration is not the opposite of segregation”, especially when it is forced. Freedom to go where you choose, at your choosing, is the solution.
@Charlie, I don’t think that groups being formed these days according to skin colour point to racism at all – I think it comes down to interests and commonality, which come from parents/siblings/friends etc… which all comes down to culture.
When I changed schools in std 9, my friends were instantly the other Greek kids, it was something in common to start off friendships.
That to me is normal, it’s human nature to not venture out of our secure bubbles.
@Carla – yes racism exists in America as much as it exists in South Africa and Europe. I believe the French are very well known for being racist, as are the English (this I can confirm).
South Africa was of course the country that decided to formalise racism and that’s what put us in the worst light and gave us the most attention.