{"id":542,"date":"2019-03-22T20:53:15","date_gmt":"2019-03-23T00:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/socialimpactblog\/?p=542"},"modified":"2019-03-22T21:07:56","modified_gmt":"2019-03-23T01:07:56","slug":"racism-is-alive-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/socialimpactblog\/2019\/03\/22\/racism-is-alive-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Racism is alive in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kathryn<\/em><\/p>\n

[I]t proved to me the way that outward actions and conscious thoughts don\u2019t always match internalized ideas of \u201cother.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I hadn\u2019t expected the racism. In hindsight, it seems obvious \u2013 apartheid was not that long ago, only officially ending in 1994. Many of the people living in South Africa today have lived through apartheid.<\/p>\n

And recent years have shown us the prevalence of racism in the United States. So again, I\u2019m not sure why I was surprised. But I was.<\/p>\n

Our tour guide, an older white woman who was a self-proclaimed \u201cliberal\u201d clearly held internalized racist views that had not ended when the government ended apartheid. Again, the fact that the end of racist laws does not magically end the racist lens through which people were taught to view the world, shouldn\u2019t be a surprise. And yet, for some reason it was.<\/p>\n

The guide made a point of letting us know that in this post-apartheid era, people had the freedom to choose where to live. During apartheid, the government forcibly removed the people they classified as \u201cblack\u201d – the South African government used the labels \u201cblack,\u201d \u201ccoloured,\u201d and \u201cwhite\u201d to describe its citizens – from their homes within the cities, relocating them to the outskirts, and in some cases, across the entire country. Once apartheid ended, when people had the \u201cfreedom of choice\u201d once again, many people moved out of these poor townships. Our guide explained to us that some people then moved back to the poor shanty towns because they missed their former way of life \u2013 they missed living in close physical proximity to their neighbors, where it was nice to live with friends and \u201cborrow sugar whenever you\u2019d like.\u201d Some white people even moved out there, she told us.<\/p>\n

Now, this argument is a common one, it seems, for the wealthy and privileged to rationalize the living situations of those in poverty. Many slave owners in America used to tell themselves that their slaves preferred slavery to freedom. Living in my bubble of liberal Boston, I\u2019ve never had someone tell me that party line with a straight face.<\/p>\n

At the professor\u2019s request, the guide let us know she was going to share a little bit of her personal experience with apartheid. The ensuing story let us know that her daughter, living in England, made a special point of flying back to Johannesburg for the memorial service of Nelson Mandela. As soon as the young woman landed in the city, she went to the family home to pick up their \u201cdomestic helper,\u201d and then they both visited the Mandela home with flowers. The president meant that much to her.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure you can sense my skepticism. While I don\u2019t doubt that Nelson Mandela does mean a lot to the family, it proved to me the way that outward actions and conscious thoughts don\u2019t always match internalized ideas of \u201cother.\u201d It reminded me of the rationalization that often accompanies acceptance of the status quo.<\/p>\n

Now, these are two of the tamer anecdotes from the week, but serve as a starting place for discussion.<\/p>\n

In many ways, I do think racism is discussed in South Africa more bluntly and more actively than it is in the United States, and this can be a positive thing. In the US, we\u2019ve only just come to acknowledge, as a nation, our internalized fear of otherness and how it to affects our day-to-day interactions. We all have a lot of work to do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kathryn [I]t proved to me the way that outward actions and conscious thoughts don\u2019t always match internalized ideas of \u201cother.\u201d I hadn\u2019t expected the racism. In hindsight, it seems obvious \u2013 apartheid was not that long ago, only officially ending in 1994. Many of the people living in South Africa today have lived through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12084,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/socialimpactblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/socialimpactblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/socialimpactblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/socialimpactblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12084"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/socialimpactblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/socialimpactblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":543,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/socialimpactblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions\/543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/socialimpactblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/socialimpactblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/socialimpactblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}