Anyone who knows me, especially those at Duke, know that I talk about race and privilege quite a bit. As someone whose daily life is affected by my race coupled with my gender, I really cannot afford to do otherwise. So, until the day that my race no longer dictates how I am treated and how hard I have to work, I will continue to unapologetically talk about it. This first week that my group spent in Johannesburg has been centered around various museums that tell the story of South Africa’s history and listening to the different accounts of those both involved in the struggle for freedom and those affected by the aftermaths of that struggle. One of the biggest and most important observations that I have noticed, particularly as a black woman, is the many similarities between apartheid South Africa and current race relations in the United States. As a black woman, I have spent close to my entire life learning to not only accept my blackness, but to also embrace the history and culture that comes with that. It has taken me many painful years and the help of the amazing students I have met at Duke to learn how to let go of my obsession with clinging to whiteness and European centrism to get to where I am now. While I have no doubt that my ease in being able to navigate white spaces and others’ frequent outward perception of me as a “black girl who is basically white” from a “respectable” family have influenced my success and opportunities, I no longer base my self-esteem and self-worth on my proximity to whiteness.
Navigating blackness as a privileged, but also oppressed black woman in the Caribbean, the United States, and now South Africa has made me think a lot about how others’ perception of me transforms depending on where I am, how I am dressed, and who I am accompanied by. Initially, I had planned to focus this first blog post on these historical similarities between South Africa and the United States and these shifting perceptions of blackness. I wanted to explore what these observations say about the shift in racial rhetoric since the days of apartheid and segregation and the world’s current racial climate; however, after more thinking, I realized that this is a very complex topic that would both require more time, analysis, and experience in South Africa, as well as less frustration on my part. I definitely see myself addressing this in a future article when I have more time to assess how exactly this complicated puzzle fits together.
To move on, in our first reflection sessions, Hannah, one of my peers, made an important observation about how interesting it was that despite having lived through the same event of such cultural importance, each person remembered the event quite differently and how varied their interpretation of the significance of that event was. Our very first trip was to the Vortrekker Monument in Pretoria. It is essentially a dedication to the Caucasian, Dutch migrants that participated in The Great Trek of the early 1800s that eventually gave birth to South Africa’s Afrikaner population, and I must say that our tour guide has to be one of the most perplexing people that I have come across thus far on this trip. In one way, I admire and respect the genuine interest, pride, and vast knowledge that she clearly had in her people’s history and the work that she was doing. On the other hand, it was quite disturbing to listen to her overly simplified, rosy picture of the relationship between the Dutch migrants and the South African tribes. She painted the Dutch pioneers as a courageous people who braved dangerous conditions to create a better way of life while completely ignoring their hand in what was essentially colonialism and the beginning of the discrimination and destruction of an entire race. Dismissively comparing the native South Africans to America’s “situation” with the “Red Indians,” she droned on about ancestors’ successful triumph over the natives. Everyone in our group picked up on this and was equally disturbed. Her very one-sided understanding of these events as our first real taste of South Africa was something I will never forget.
On a somewhat related topic, visiting the Vortrekker disturbed me to my very core for a different reason. As I was watching this lady trace her lineage and describe the history and culture of her ancestors, I felt sadness at the fact that I myself wasn’t able to do the same. If you were to ask me how I identify myself, I would say I’m a black woman of Afro-Caribbean heritage. While I take immense pride in my Jamaican heritage, I have little idea where my people were originally from. In school, I was taught that the majority of African slaves brought to Jamaica were taken from West Africa, but that is a big region made up of many countries with distinct cultures. While I would not try to lay claim to whatever countries those are that I am now so far removed from, it would be nice to have the opportunity to potentially learn more about those mystery cultures. It is because of the forced removal and enslavement of my ancestors that I do not have access to this information, and coming to terms with this while listening to this lady glorify the land capture and murders of native South Africans was frightening. In fact, once a year on that fateful day, thousands of Afrikaners venture out to the monument to celebrate this history and keep the promise that their ancestors made to God at one of their bloodiest battles of the time against the native South Africans. In addition, the monument was constructed under the reign of one of the country’s presidents and certified architects of apartheid. In a country that it is still healing from and struggling to create equality after apartheid, I find it difficult to understand how this reconciliation is supposed to continue with the celebration of such a dark time. Furthermore, this begs the question of what exactly is the difference between memorializing for the sake of acknowledging one’s past in order to prevent future generations from repeating the same actions and glorifying the actions of past generations under the guise of mere remembrance. It is important for South Africans to know the story of The Great Trek, but I believe the monument is counterproductive if its narrative does not apply equal focus on the Afrikaner’s violence towards the natives and what this meant for future generations of black South Africans.
On a separate note, not counting visits to Jamaica, for the first time in the near decade since my family’s migration to the United States, I was back in an environment where most people looked like me. Living in Connecticut and attending Duke, which are both predominantly white, I tend to be hyper aware of the fact that I am usually the sole person or if it is a good day, one of few, black people in the vicinity. In my short time here, I have experienced quite the opposite depending on the area we are in, and it has been such a freeing experience. Of course, as soon as I open my mouth and my American accent flies out (sadly and what is apparently an anomaly, I never developed a Jamaican accent), it becomes quite obvious that I am a foreigner. While this probably changes their perception of me, for those few seconds that my blackness is recognized without me having to rush to its defense, as I have gotten used to doing, means the world to me. In fact, in our visit to a school for refugees in Johannesburg, this tenth grader ran up to me, grabbed my hand, and exclaimed, “You’re so beautiful! I love your hair!” Her friends soon rushed over with questions of if they could give me hugs and kisses and even more questions about my long crochet braids and my real hair braided underneath. In a world and a country that has and continues to value whiteness over blackness rather than recognizing the values of all races, I felt a lot of joy in these young women’s ability to have true pride in their blackness – something that I was not quite able to do at their age.
Moreover, this visit was remarkable and transformative for a few other reasons. I have had an interesting relationship with education my entire life. While my parents never put direct pressure on me to do well academically or even really spoke about it, as a child, I was really perceptive and understanding of the opportunities that I was being given. In Jamaica, I drove past people living in zinc shacks and selling goods on the side of the road every morning on my way to my expensive prep school. I regularly traveled to the United States for vacations when others in my country lived their entire lives without ever even owning a passport. This was my life because of my parents. See, my parents grew up in extreme poverty in Kingston, Jamaica. In my opinion, growing up poor in a third world or developing country can be a different experience from growing up poor in a first world country. My parents had it drilled into their heads that education was their one and only true ticket out of poverty, and they took this to heart. In fact, my Common App personal essay was about how important education was to me because of how it and my parents’ determination to ensure that I had everything that they never had were the reasons I now live the life I live. While I live a privileged life, I am painfully aware of the fact that my parents, that one-degree of generational separation, are the only things that kept and still keep me out of poverty. This is the main reason I deathly fear academic mediocrity and mediocrity in general. My parents are my heroes, and they instilled in me an appreciation and value for learning that I do not think I will ever be able to fully communicate. The kids I met at the Albert Street School were so inquisitive, intelligent, eloquent, and insightful. They wanted to know about our experiences at Duke and what they needed to do to attend university in the States. In exchange, we asked them about where they were from and where they wanted to go in the future.
It reminded me of Viola Davis’ acceptance speech where she mentioned that the only difference between white women and women of color is the opportunities we are given. I am so tired of the world’s portrayal of black people as an unintelligent, lazy people that just want everything to be handed to them. I find it hilarious that this was only said once we decided to stop working for free (read: slavery). I am tired of the portrayal of a desolate Africa with no hope for a better future (read: I specifically said Africa because people refuse to acknowledge that Africa is not a monolithic country). These kids are part of the reason that I feel black problems need to be solved by black people, including that African problems need to be solved by Africans. Even though I connect to these kids on this level, South Africa is not Jamaica. I will never fully understand what they have experienced and are currently experiencing, and I know this. I acknowledge this. These children have the ability to change their country for the better, and all they need is the opportunity and support to do so. I do not want to be what has become to be known as the typical foreigner that visits African school children, praises them for their courage and shining attitude only to leave them behind and never return. I certainly do not want to speak over South Africans or any other Africans. Nevertheless, I cannot deny the impression they left on me. Whenever I complained about anything minor growing up, my parents would always scold me about how they grew up happy with a lot less. While I understood what they were saying, I often contradicted myself by brushing their comments off. In these kids, I saw my parents. Talking to these schoolchildren, who were so open and happy to see us, I finally understood the depth of what my parents said to me and why education meant so much to them. It is time to stop degrading Africans and Africa as a whole for problems that they did not cause.
“If Africa was not beautiful, the white man would not want it.” – Malcolm X
