I find it exhausting to write about race in contemporary South Africa but that does not mean that it’s something I don’t think about continually — unfortunately one confronts issues of race daily.
But there is no better way to explain South Africa than by demystifying its “favourite” pastime. Last Friday afternoon I had a business meeting at the restaurant George’s on 4th in Parkhurst with three women. Behind us sat a table of four twentysomething white women who looked, at a quick glance, like typical Jo’burg kugels.
I didn’t actually notice them until I overheard what they were talking about. In a high-pitched nasal twang, one of them was explaining her frustration with a black female work colleague: “I just can’t take it any more. I mean apartheid is over. They must just get over it —”
At that point I turned around to look at them, wearing a dry grin on my face and a silent expression saying, “Do you perhaps want to repeat that?” I was hardly surprised that such a conversation was taking place given the location — that group of moronic individuals didn’t even realise they should be embarrassed about their hateful attitudes.
Needless to say one shot me a dirty look, while another gave a “how dare you?” sigh, and I turned around to continue my meeting. I think it is unfair for racist white people to think that black people should get over apartheid when an untold number of whites haven’t overcome their racism.
Honourable cross
One would need to write a shelf of books just to cover the basics of why black people can’t get over apartheid and slavery — not because it’s an honourable cross to bear but because, unfortunately, at the helm of black people’s regression there is still a white face.
Racism is deeply entrenched in all of our South African bones, like an iniquitous family member who won’t die. But what good is pointing fingers and stating truisms? I think it’s great that we are living in a time when all of us can express our frustration with one another, our history and the way things are.
I think the more we exercise those rights, whether it’s by throwing a public tantrum or letting inconsequential issues slide, we will ultimately get to a place — even if it’s in a thousand years’ time — where we all realise our skin colour has no bearing on the humanity that connects us all, as glib as that might sound.
But until we get there, we have to live with each other. It would be unfair if either race expected the other to get over the past when, in the present, there is still so much that resembles the past.
Ultimately, I didn’t say anything to the women at the next table because their conversation was none of my business and because I also believe that black people are not the only ones healing from the past — all our skins carry scars.