There is something that has been bothering me lately; I kept talking about it to a friend of mine. Until he suggested that maybe I should write about it, because I was nagging him...he didn't use those words but I figured that’s what he meant. Anyway, back to what has been bothering me; I have decided to christen it intrinsic racism.
I come from an all African country, and by all African, I mean mostly dark skinned. The issue of racism had therefore never really been a point of discussion for me. The only white or colored people I ever saw while growing up were tourists. So I've always been part of the majority. I have never questioned being dark skinned; I've always known myself to be that way. Of course I often stared at white people and wondered what it felt like to be white, but it never went beyond an idle thought.
Fate has recently led me to a mixed race country. At first I was excited about seeing the new culture, learning a new language, making new friends; I bet everybody who has moved to a new country can understand what I'm talking about. Unfortunately, things have not quite turned out as I'd expected. I found something that I'll call Intrinsic racism.
See, I'm in South Africa; a country well known for its apartheid regime. Although apartheid was abolished over a decade ago, there's a new kind of racism. It’s not an obvious kind of racism, the kind where you tell someone I hate you because you're black or white. No. This is a different kind. The kind where school kids only make friends of their own race (consciously or unconsciously). Where grownups of a certain race tend to go to a certain bar and not another, where neighborhoods are predominantly white or black. There are really no rules about who goes where or who makes friends with whom, it is all intrinsic. I think people here have grown so accustomed to racism that it’s viewed as normal. I guess it take a while to erase the past.
It’s been two months since I came to South Africa and during that time I've only seen two mixed race couples in public (You can’t imagine how excited I was when I saw them). I do see mixed race kids (mostly teenagers) but rarely do I see mixed race couples. I wonder why. On the surface everything looks ok, but probably if one dug deep, they’d find festering wounds that need to be healed and scabs that keep being picked. A couple of times I have been to events and I was the only black person. I wondered if I had made a mistake to attend. Why didn’t any other black person come? Am I ignorant of what to do and where to go? Or am I thinking too much into the situation? It is all so confusing. I must admit I haven’t experienced any racist treatment. All the people I’ve met are extremely nice but I’m not sure how they feel deep inside, I keep wondering if they are thinking “ok, we’re just being nice because we don’t want to look racist”. I’ve never been as self aware (of my race) as I am in South Africa. South Africans pride themselves in being friendly; If only they were friends with their own countrymen, the pride would be well deserved. How do you expect me to think you’re friendly if you’re only friends with your own race? Is this conditional friendship? I’m still trying to figure it all out. I hope that at the end of my stay here, I will have found my place.
