Race thinking!

Posted by Mikkel

I’m back again…and this time it will probably end up quite serious. Don't take it as me trying to educate you, but just as an attempt to make you understand what I'm working with. At the end there will be photos!

You will find that in 3 weeks time I have already learned the South African language of race and colour. For those of you who are not familiar with this, here is a bit of background information: During Apartheid the people of South Africa where divided into 3 major racial groups - whites, coloureds (mixed race) and blacks. A hierarchy was established with whites on top living in the nice areas of town, going to the best schools and having the best jobs. Take the allocation of school money pr. pupil as an example: a black pupil being allocated 10 times less than a white; and a coloured pupil 4 times less than a white).

Since last time I wrote you I have been installed at the City of Cape Town’s Employment Equity Department, where I have my own desk and computer. We are around 9-10 people in the department which is about half of what there should be, but unfortunately this country seems to be notorious about not following policies up with adequate funding. The department is, among other duties, supposed to bring all municipality staff (23.000 employees) through a two day Diversity Management Workshop. They have been busy for around a year and have so far managed a bit less than 2000! So far I have attended one workshop (and had two cancelled the very same morning they were about to take place). The plan is to attend more workshops, conduct follow up interviews with the participants as well as the facilitators and basically participate in what else the department is involved with from recruitment interviews to "Employment Equity Awareness Sessions".

I can tell you that it is heavy stuff they are tackling at the workshops. It probably doesn’t come as a surprise to most of you that a storytelling session about racial relations and prejudices brought about some rather sad stories. There were stories of inferiority and discrimination; of special toilets for white, coloured and black people; of you Grandmother threatening you with the “black men who will come and take you”; of being put to prison for being out in the street after nine in the evening or for not having brought your “Pass”; and most of all: stories of lost opportunities when the school was too far away from home or you had to work instead of going to school in order to get food on the family’s table when Dad died or disappeared.

These lost opportunities of education are to me some of the most important issues here. Many whites and coloureds tell me that they do understand the need for affirmative action (positive discrimination) as a way of addressing past discrimination, but that it has gone on long enough and it’s now the time “to wipe the slate clean” Addressing past injustices seems to be acceptable as long as it does not affect your own opportunities or those of your children! But blacks are still the people with the poorest education and therefore lowest in the job hierarchy. The majority of blacks still live in the worst areas, in the worst houses and often attending the worst schools. A collective feeling of guilt which for instance still marks a country like Germany does not seem to be very present. And many people do not acknowledge that their superior position in the competition for jobs is a product of many years of oppression, which does not change when the discriminatory laws are uplifted.

Race matters in South Africa! That is a fact I was prepared for, but after 3 weeks I notice how I have already begun adopting the South African way of speaking about race as the most natural way to categorize people. It is both telling and deeply ironical that a Diversity Management Workshop begins with all the participants filling in their name, phone number, department, gender and race. And in the last rubric you sign!

I know this was a lot of serious stuff, but that is the realities here. On the more funny side I can assure you that we had some good parties, that we have encountered wild penguins, that we have been to church with a lot more singing and clapping than at home and that I can now say for sure that Table Mountain is truly flat as a table on top. Parties, penguins and mountains are mostly reserved for weekends, which can become a bit of a puzzle because everyone is so nice to invite us out for this and that. During the week I’m at work more or less every day. Tuesdays I have now started coaching a group off teenagers in football and I’m also maneuvering myself into position for a team to play with a couple of days a week. Tonight will be my first match.Take care all of you.

PS: I’m posting a couple of photos from a Global Action Day demonstration we attended organized by TAC in order to get the Health Minister fired. All the comrades were singing and dancing for hours (so I was told by Janine, because this activist had to get back to the office!) Take a look at the photos and I’m sure Janine will tell you some more later.