Racism- REVISED!!!!!

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This is an UPDATED Version with the story clarified and what is going on now.
Finally, this week we were brought to our attention that racial tensions are still highly present and will even affect the American lives first hand. You notice racism every where you go but on a different level. There are certain parts of town that blacks live, whites, and colored (it is not used as a derogatory term here, but rather a mix race), live and they don’t tend to mix too much. However, that does not mean I couldn’t live in a black neighborhood. In addition it is not whites working the manual labor jobs it is blacks and colored. In a sense it reminded me of Mexicans in Colorado, or illegal immigrants and the types of jobs they typically have. However, to a more extreme level because in the United States you do see whites doing their jobs as well, you do not see whites doing that type of work here. That has been my experience since I got here, and although I believe the country has a long way to go still, I had thought it had come further then it actually has. With my limited experience I have always had fairly liberal professors, and it was not different here. They are all very vocal in expressing the wrongness and their shame for their fellow south Africans when it came to dealing with Apartheid. They see it as something wrong, and that should not happen again or anywhere. I have not gotten the impression that any of them would like to return to the “good old days of Apartheid” despite having willingly, or unwilling benefited from the separation of races. However, these are just my personal professors and I have the impression that this is not how all of the universities professors, staff, and especially Alumni Feel. As stellenbosch was an Afrikaans university and in return had some strong promoters of Apartheid.

My Reasons for giving that background is because of a serious incident with three AIFS (the company I am with ) students. I was not personally involved and I don’t know all the details but I will share what I do know because I feel like it is an important story to be told. On a Monday night 3 American students were at a bar trying to get a drink, there were 2 white students and the other was a black girl. A White South African with his friends began yelling at the White American male in Afrikaans, at which time the American turned to one of the South Africans friends and said that he didn’t speak Afrikaans. The response was then “get your kaffir girlfriend out of here.” There was a few more comments and a punch was thrown by the White South African. Another comment and the White American punched back. At this point the South Africans were thrown out of the bar and the White American asked to leave. The 3 Americans left and were met by the White South Africans who started to scream at the girls. They essentially told them we have a gun, and we’re going to use it on your friend. The girls told the American boy to run, which he did and the South Africans got in their car and chased after. They caught the American and got into a physical fight on the street- it was 4 on one, The American was relatively unharmed although he did get stomped on. There seemed to be a break in the fight to get re-situated or something (I'm not exactly sure) but to continue the fight- at that time a police car turned on its lights (it had been sitting there the entire time, but was presumed to be empty) and the South Africans ran over to it and began talking quickly in Afrikaans. The American Boy followed and could obviously not understand what was being said. They police officers told the South Africans to get out of there and let them go. The American was of course shocked by this and asked why they were allowed to go and the response was they couldn’t do anything because they were White South Africans. The police officers were black. The police car then left. 2 ADT (security people who ride around on bikes) then approached and asked if they could help, the story was told and again there was nothing they could do because they were white south Africans. In addition, there was a restaurant and some bars in the area and in the Americans frustration I think he began to yell if anyone had seen to go on and essentially the response was this happens all the time and nothing can be done. Later that night the South Africans approached some other Americans at a bar and under the pretense of friendship found out where the White American was living, after the information revealed (unknowingly to a person w/bad intentions) they told the Americans essentially they were going to use the gun on the American. In the morning the students went to our advisor and she immediately began taking care of them (she has been amazing). They were sent to some legal person at the University and sent to file a police report. The police did not want the report filed because they didn’t believe anything could be done. They filed it anyway and were told to follow up on it the next day. The next day the case had disappeared and there was no records of it and no one could recall anything. After our advisor got on the phone and made some threats (media I believe) the case turned up. We have been assured that there are now 3 investigators working on the case- I'm not sure I buy it but we’ll see.

So what do we do now? As A group we met and discussed some ideas. The idea that is case is not an isolated incident and that A) people, south Africans included need to realize that and b) that although we may not be able to change the country, or even the university perhaps we can do something. The student council has a great program they have just started dealing w/things like that and changing racist attitudes. Our group would like to work closely with them w/the activities they think are good. We met with the dean of students and he even suggested a march. We will see what all plays out but it seems that people are genuinely concerned and want to do SOMETHING even if it means only changing a few people’s ideas or changing one bars policy.

I also wanted to add that this does not make me feel unsafe here, or make me not want to stay. I AM HAPPY AND I FEEL SAFE! It does however makes me aware of my actions, and no I don’t feel that dancing with a black guy is wrong, but just being sensitive to that this is a changing country and not everyone is as comfortable of it, and to be weary of confrontation. To be honest I’m not sure if it had a been a different boy if it would of played out the same way, but I was not there so that is pure speculation. I don’t think that all the students here are like that and although perhaps many of them have underlying racial issues, they are not so open about it. Although perhaps not a good thing that happened, but it brings a light on the reality that still exists in South Africa and perhaps in America as well. If nothing else it will open up the eyes of many international students and we can pass that on in a hopefully beneficial way to those back home and perhaps other South Africans, that we do not support this and believe it to be wrong.

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Comments

[Mario Peng]

hi mary, very interesting article.