In Cape Town and Still Black
Miraculously I made it through all that needed to be done and arrived in Cape Town on Tuesday. Still going through the settling down motions. It's a bit cold and it's been raining a lot but it's still gorgeous. It truly is a beautiful country. Even in the suburb, the landscape is extraordinary. My colleague has been showing me the City. The waterfront is very familiar cause my friend and I spent a lot of time around there when we visited in 2002 but a lot of the City is new to me.
My organization is putting me up in a converted hotel in Bellville. Bellville is a white and coloured northern suburb (will get into the racial issue later) It's a lovely, spacious room and very safe. The University of Cape Town is renting the hotel to house about 20 graduate students sponsored by the World Bank to attend an International Trade in Africa course. I'm staying in an extra room. The room is so nice that I would have considered staying here long term but I'm not too crazy about the communal kitchen. I tend to be a loner around living spaces. I don't like being compelled to be friendly all hours of the day. It's become pretty clear that we're going to need a car. It's really difficult to get around without a car and the public transit system is not great and definitely out of the question in the evenings.
It's funny cause I had no qualms about walking around when I was here in 2002 but I've heard so many stories about how unsafe Cape Town is these days that I've been weary of walking alone. I had to channel some warrior energy before I decided to take a walk yesterday. You should have seen the major strategizing. Credit card in the left pocket of my jeans; cash in the right; two 5 rand coins in my left jacket pocket (in case I get accosted by someone wanting money - apparently someone in this building was held up with a knife on a street close by a couple of weeks ago); a 20 rand bill in my right pocket with my cell phone. My purse in my bag strapped around my body. I was all geared up and ready for war. Needless to say, my walk was without incident. Went to the Nandos chicken (kinda like a swiss chalet but with spicier and healthier fare) and had lunch. I wondered if my Nandos chicken bag would make me more vulnerable on my walk back home but noone paid me any attention...lol.
Apparently, the fact that I'm black is a big advantage for me. It means I'm less likely to be a target for muggers etc (provided I don't walk around alone at night). That brings me to what I anticipate to be the biggest challenge I'll have here: race. I'm in South Africa so I didn't exactly expect to see whites and blacks hanging out together everywhere. In fact, I think my friend and I were always the only black people at the restaurants we visited while we were here in 2002 (except when we deliberately visited black restaurants). However, I was oblivious to the black-coloured divide.
Well, what an awakening. I thought I was imagining the strange looks as my colleague showed me around town but it quickly became clear that I wasn't so I asked him if he had noticed. Well, he explained to me that the looks are because he is coloured (In Canada he'd be black or maybe mixed race) and I'm black. Here, anyone with a drop of blood that isn't fully black is elevated to the coloured status. According to Reuben, Beyonce, Missy Elliot, Queen Latifah, Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell etc are not black, they are coloured. South Asians and other non-white or black people would also be coloured. The aparthied government intended Cape Town to be a coloured settlement so it has the highest population of coloureds. One of the other legacies of aparthied is that there is still very little mixing. So, coloureds hang with coloureds and blacks hang with blacks etc. Now, everytime I see a group I look to see if there's any mixing and every time I think "there's a black/coloured group over there" I look closely at the person I think is black and inevitably I notice there's some feature that'd entitle them to be "coloured", maybe an otherwise inconsequential wave in the hair texture, or a pointier nose or some other feature. I know this probably sounds ludicrous but trust me it all matters.
So, here I am thinking I had the whole thing figured and I decide to ask a woman that looked black to me where I might find a black hairdresser or a salon that does black hair. She gave me a really strange look like "How would I know?" and said she had no idea to ask someone else. And then she asked me where I was from, cause I'm sure a black SA would never have asked her that question. In the middle of this exchange I suddenly notice that her hair texture is a little straighter. So, I have to hone my skills a bit better before I get myself slapped... Actually, I wanted to slap the insulted look off her face.
But, I am happy to declare that I am still black even in Cape Town. The bridge of my nose might necessitate a closer look from someone who's not as sophisticated in the art of distinguishing but I've been confirmed black....YAY.
I'm kinda worried about Jean. I suspect she'll be considered coloured and overnight we'll be transformed into an interracial couple, worthy of stares... Welcome to beautiful SA.
My organization is putting me up in a converted hotel in Bellville. Bellville is a white and coloured northern suburb (will get into the racial issue later) It's a lovely, spacious room and very safe. The University of Cape Town is renting the hotel to house about 20 graduate students sponsored by the World Bank to attend an International Trade in Africa course. I'm staying in an extra room. The room is so nice that I would have considered staying here long term but I'm not too crazy about the communal kitchen. I tend to be a loner around living spaces. I don't like being compelled to be friendly all hours of the day. It's become pretty clear that we're going to need a car. It's really difficult to get around without a car and the public transit system is not great and definitely out of the question in the evenings.
It's funny cause I had no qualms about walking around when I was here in 2002 but I've heard so many stories about how unsafe Cape Town is these days that I've been weary of walking alone. I had to channel some warrior energy before I decided to take a walk yesterday. You should have seen the major strategizing. Credit card in the left pocket of my jeans; cash in the right; two 5 rand coins in my left jacket pocket (in case I get accosted by someone wanting money - apparently someone in this building was held up with a knife on a street close by a couple of weeks ago); a 20 rand bill in my right pocket with my cell phone. My purse in my bag strapped around my body. I was all geared up and ready for war. Needless to say, my walk was without incident. Went to the Nandos chicken (kinda like a swiss chalet but with spicier and healthier fare) and had lunch. I wondered if my Nandos chicken bag would make me more vulnerable on my walk back home but noone paid me any attention...lol.
Apparently, the fact that I'm black is a big advantage for me. It means I'm less likely to be a target for muggers etc (provided I don't walk around alone at night). That brings me to what I anticipate to be the biggest challenge I'll have here: race. I'm in South Africa so I didn't exactly expect to see whites and blacks hanging out together everywhere. In fact, I think my friend and I were always the only black people at the restaurants we visited while we were here in 2002 (except when we deliberately visited black restaurants). However, I was oblivious to the black-coloured divide.
Well, what an awakening. I thought I was imagining the strange looks as my colleague showed me around town but it quickly became clear that I wasn't so I asked him if he had noticed. Well, he explained to me that the looks are because he is coloured (In Canada he'd be black or maybe mixed race) and I'm black. Here, anyone with a drop of blood that isn't fully black is elevated to the coloured status. According to Reuben, Beyonce, Missy Elliot, Queen Latifah, Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell etc are not black, they are coloured. South Asians and other non-white or black people would also be coloured. The aparthied government intended Cape Town to be a coloured settlement so it has the highest population of coloureds. One of the other legacies of aparthied is that there is still very little mixing. So, coloureds hang with coloureds and blacks hang with blacks etc. Now, everytime I see a group I look to see if there's any mixing and every time I think "there's a black/coloured group over there" I look closely at the person I think is black and inevitably I notice there's some feature that'd entitle them to be "coloured", maybe an otherwise inconsequential wave in the hair texture, or a pointier nose or some other feature. I know this probably sounds ludicrous but trust me it all matters.
So, here I am thinking I had the whole thing figured and I decide to ask a woman that looked black to me where I might find a black hairdresser or a salon that does black hair. She gave me a really strange look like "How would I know?" and said she had no idea to ask someone else. And then she asked me where I was from, cause I'm sure a black SA would never have asked her that question. In the middle of this exchange I suddenly notice that her hair texture is a little straighter. So, I have to hone my skills a bit better before I get myself slapped... Actually, I wanted to slap the insulted look off her face.
But, I am happy to declare that I am still black even in Cape Town. The bridge of my nose might necessitate a closer look from someone who's not as sophisticated in the art of distinguishing but I've been confirmed black....YAY.
I'm kinda worried about Jean. I suspect she'll be considered coloured and overnight we'll be transformed into an interracial couple, worthy of stares... Welcome to beautiful SA.
posted by omoplusjean at 11:37 AM
3 Comments:
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Fantastic blog Omo. I just finished reading a book called "A State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence". It had chapters on virtually every country in Africa - the chapter on South Africa made it sound like the freeing of Nelson Mendela solved all of South Africa's problems and everyone now lives as one big, happy, mixed family. It is amazing to hear about the reality of the situation from someone who is actually living there now.
Keep up the entries .....
Illuminative comments Omo and thank you for them. (I am a friend of Chris from your workplace.) I too am black but perhaps morphing into "coloured" according to your blog. Your comments remind me of the stories my parents told me about Montreal during the 1940's when very light-skinned black people would "pass". They would pretend to be white and while outside on the street, would walk by their very own relatives (that they had known since childhood) as if they didn't know them. Of course, those interracial marriages produced some very interesting children, often resulting in a very quick divorce!
Racism in Bermuda was alive and well during my mother's time (she's 80 now). In the black-only schools and classrooms, the light-skinned children sat at the front, and by hue, the children were sorted until reaching the back row, which held the darkest-skinned students.
"Good" hair was hair that was curly and didn't really need to be permed. (An explanation for white folks; a perm means to straighten the hair, not make it curly.) These are just a few instances of what it was like during the forties and apparently are not far from 2006 in SA.
I look forward to seeing more comments about SA.
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