Racism Tastes Sugary
It’s the little things that get me.
For the last fifteen years we’ve heard all about Apartheid. In fact, I’d be willing to wager a small amount that in the last decade and a half, people have used every possible medium to spout the varied evils of the previous administration. From the Newspaper headlines screaming “Third Force at work!” to flowery speeches on the television assuring us that the new administration is diametrically opposed to every single nuance of governance that came before, a lot has been shoved in our faces about how evil Apartheid was.
Even the rest of the world has been brought into the inner huddle to whisper in darkened rooms about how racist South Africans are (most of them with bloodstained hands from their own very recent racist romps) and it’s often the first thing someone asks me if they find out I’m from South Africa; “Why did you hate the blacks so much?” “Did you support Apard-hide?”
Even my United States born-and-raised word processor recognises the word without a hitch. That tells me something, it really does. Whichever poor schmuck it is within the monolithic Microsoft that handles Spell Checking had to at some point make a judgement call over whether to include Apartheid as a viable word. Because of the widespread knowledge, I imagine the call was an easy one. Score one for the liberals I suppose.
In many ways, Apartheid is and was more evil than the other regime it’s often compared with – Nazism. Before I’m lynched by the new age boeremag I suppose I should probably explain.
As ideologies go, Nazism was at least constant and unbending. Hardly any of the SS troopers would have said “Some of my best friends are Jews but…” or “Yes, some Jews are ok but it’s those damned kykes you have to watch out for.” No. They were unbending and unrelenting in their hatred and although evil, at least it wasn’t petty.
That’s at the root of the evil of Apartheid for me; the sheer pettiness of it all. It’s not the grand things like segregation, “dom pas” or even the no-mixed marriages thing. It’s the “Some of my best friends are black but…” and “Yes, some blacks are OK but it’s those damned k****s you have to watch out for.”
And that includes the senseless and utterly petty things that we as kids were bombarded with and never even realised.
You’re a South African – you remember buying a ton of those little sweets from a tuck-shop don’t you? You know the ones. Those ones you suck and they turn different colours? What were they called again?
These days they’ve fallen under the purview of the PC crowd and they’re called “black balls” but you remember them being called “nigger balls” don’t you?
What about eenie, meenie, mienie mo? How does that one go? Catch a what by his toe? Oh tiger you say? Really? Always?
Don’t think I’m unfairly dumping all of this on South Africa. The reason I mentioned the other side of things at the beginning was that it’s not just our side of Apartheid that’s petty; it’s the others as well.
Every American that hears South Africa and wonders about Apartheid while not caring about “Indian Casinos” or the British guy with the stiff upper lip who asks me why I hate blacks (while forgetting his own fairly recent colonial past) supplies the mindfield with more than enough explosive for the whole damned thing to come full circle one day.
I don’t mean to rain on anyone’s parade but petty apartheid is still out there – mostly alive and well in the minds of the over 20s around the world. To pretend anything else is just naive. I’m sure over the next twenty or thirty years it will die down just like every other stupidity that mankind comes up with but for now the small things live on and on and on.
I probably shouldn’t forget to mention that perennial South African favourite “Ag pleez daddy” with the charming chorus belted out by almost every South African boy of a certain age:
“Popcorn, chewing gum, peanuts an’ bubble gum
Ice cream, candy floss an’ Eskimo Pie
Ag Deddy how we miss
Nigger balls an’ licorice
Pepsi Cola, ginger beer
And Canada Dry”
Like I said, it’s the little things.
not sure racism will ever die down
I’ve never been asked why i hate blacks? Perhaps that’s more a question asked by naive foreigners?
We are by no means past racism nor will we probably ever be as there will always be individuals who are racist. But it’s certainly not as ‘in your face’ as it use to be.
That’s gotta count for something surely?
not sure Carla. Just cos not in your face does not mean gone.
Too true but i don’t think every person you encounter these days harbour racist feelings either.
Great entry Rob. No beating about the bush.
@Carla Nunes
I don’t think everyone one encountered in the old days harboured racist feelings either Carla.
Anti I was just going to say, I love that song and I never considered nigger balls to be derogatory, I never associated them with black people though I know of course now that the word is supposedly derogatory. I simply liked the song and the sweets!
Just the other day I asked a colleague of mine whatever had happened to niggerballs. He said that they were now simply called gobstoppers.
I think that in the past, when we were less sensitive to other people, we used words that were derogatory and insulting without thinking about it. I remember picking up a book to read to my son and stopping because one of the dogs in the story (a black one) was called Nigger. My mother used to lovingly call my father (who was quite dark of complexion) ‘K*****r’ and his friends called him ‘Koelie’. Nobody batted an eyelid. It was not strange or rude. Not today though. I would never use those words in front of my son. I am quite glad that that has changed. We need to be more sensitive towards the feelings of others.
I think it’s easy to use a word that has no direct connotation to your own culture. People wouldn’t pay much attention to it. Although even with that said the need for everyone to be politically ‘correct’ is also disturbing. Guess as with everything in life balance is key. Everything has it’s rightful place in the appropriate conversation.
@colleen
Indeed, guess it was just more prevalent in terms of the signs etc.
I think one of the huge problems we face is that the bits of us that are so blase about using words like nigger or k****r are often totally subconscious. So what are we actually thinking deep down when we look at someone who isn’t our race?
Sure, it may not be so “in your face” but it’s there and it’s insidious so we never really get rid of it. It’s easy to stop saying “I hate blacks” but perhaps not so hard to stop tiny bits of yourself thinking it…
Rob, your frankness is refreshing.
Good piece, too.
It’s the little things… But I believe we will eventually close the chapter on racism in South Africa. Who would have believed in the 1960s that just 40 years later, the USA would have a black president? Things change. So will South Africa.
Good Charlie´s last blog ..Children of God repost
It’s quite possible that we will eventually overcome those little inside voices but I don’t think (even with a black president) that the US has overcome theirs. I think part of the problem is that people expect it to happen overnight. We’ve only had “democracy” for 15 years, that’s nothing when compared to the world stage.
Rob´s last blog ..Enough with the camera shake.
Good piece, Rob. Quite hard hitting, but accurate.
I’ve also never been questioned on apartheid in my travels, but I always expect to be. I feel like anyone I meet who is even vaguely clued up might challenge me on it, so I constantly expect the question. Probably my own issues talking (ref: my article on 1st Sept) .
I think its probably unrealistic to think that racism will ever be completely obliterated. However, I do think it is realistic to think that many, many people in South Africa (and indeed the world) can positively adjust their mindsets to, at the very least, think before speaking.
How often I’ve said, or heard someone say, something totally un-PC without even thinking. There was no intention to be racist in the statement, but the words came out wrong. Experiences like that show just how deeply embedded it is.
So, yes, its in the little things. But anyone knows that if you’re going to facilitate change of any sort, you have to start with the little things…perhaps there is hope after all.
I will never give up hope. Rome wasn’t built in a day.
DOnt blame the candy.
I don’t blame the candy – I blame the people who popularised the name
Besides, it’s not about the candy – it’s about the little things.
Rob´s last blog ..Enough with the camera shake.
@ Good Charlie – Are you saying one day we might have a black president all of our own?
Rob, lovely piece.
@ Michelle – you need to come to China. I have been questioned quite often about apartheid, by my kids and my colleagues. It’s ok, never in a nasty way, just questions about what it was like living under it (I don’t remember, I was too young), and about what’s happening in South Africa since it ended (wicked awesome for the most part).
Zak Wood´s last blog ..Belated
@Zak – do they ever insinuate anything when asking you?
I found that when living in London, I got quite a bit of “so you must be racist then” comments
but in the US, I get more inquisitive questions about what South Africa is/was like. I’d like to hope that I’m contributing to tourism.
I have to say that the accusatory bits have died down a little from previous years – now it’s more a general questioning. I think a lot of that has to do with South African penetration of the internet – more SAfricans out there telling our story.