Sixteen years and a bit of education later, those years seem so preposterous. The feared Communists, for whom we waited in vain, were the African National Congress. They were making door-to-door visits in our area, which was an IFP bastion, and so in an effort to secure our votes, the IFP ran a very successful propaganda campaign against the ANC. So successful was their propaganda, that they have never lost the majority vote in that part of KZN.

I have never experienced apartheid in any form. I don’t even know what a dompas looks like. I grew up in a world where the ANC was the enemy, for crying out loud! I grew up amongst white people. Some of my best and most loyal of friends are white. I never ever got the feeling that I was supposed to be inferior to anyone. And even in school, when the other black kids used to mumble about ‘discrimination’, I had no idea what they were on about. I have an academic knowledge of what racism is, but I’ve never emotionally identified with the notion. I’m a black South African, but certainly not “formerly disadvantaged.”

This presents me with a dilemma. A few weeks ago, a white friend of mine called me ‘boy’ on my blog. I took it as a joke, made a snappy comeback and thought no more of it. Apparently the word ‘boy’ is laden with racial connotations, and another blogger rose to my defence and viciously attacked my friend for daring to insult me. I was flabbergasted. In the ensuing debate some bloggers lambasted me for refusing to take offence at this obvious racial slur. But the plain truth is that I certainly didn’t feel like an affront had been committed, chiefly because I knew my friend wouldn’t do such a thing. But I also didn’t feel racially slighted because I didn’t grow up under apartheid, have never been told that I am less than anyone else because of my skin colour and have never been discriminated against for being black. I have no experience of apartheid, petty or otherwise.

Apparently this is very difficult for older black people to understand. They don’t understand why I don’t read into every word that comes out of a white person, they don’t understand why I see nothing wrong with relationships across “colour lines” and they especially don’t understand why I think they are wrong for being so suspicious and sensitive. Don’t get me wrong. I’m in no way diminishing people who went through the horrors of apartheid. I am very proud to be a black South African, partly because of our struggle heritage. And I’m not saying that racism is now completely dead in South Africa. But I certainly don’t accept that I should now carry the pain of an apartheid past simply because of my skin colour. It is very painful for me when I experience “discrimination” from my own people, because I’m too young to have gone through apartheid.

Isn’t this what the struggle was all about? Isn’t that why Nelson Mandela spent all those years in prison, so that one day there can be people in South Africa who have no painful memories of apartheid?

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.