I know that almost all of my recent posts have been about race and some readers may be beginning to tire of my discussions of Black-White relations. The fact of the matter, though, is that this is South Africa and one simply cannot go through the day without constantly being confronted by situations that are affected by the color of people’s skin. It is the proverbial elephant in the room (unless you go to other parts of the country where there could actually be an elephant in the room).
Two recent experiences have made me acutely aware of what would be termed by many my “white privilege”. I probably enjoyed the pleasure of a braai with the Afrikaners last week as a result of the fairness of my skin, but it was not something where I was quite obviously selected from a crowd because of my European ancestry. Within the past 3 days, however, I got a positive benefit when others around me did not because of a recognition by another of my whiteness.
The first event occurred as I was walking from the location to town to buy some groceries. All of a sudden, an Eskom truck heading towards town stopped (Eskom is the local electrical utility), and the white driver yelled something at me in Afrikaans. I promptly responded that I did not speak Afrikaans, so he made a motion with his hand for me to jump in the truck. I graciously accepted the offer, and he drove me into town, dropping me off at the grocery store, saving me 10-15 minutes of walking not to mention alleviating the discomfort of the blazing sun. It was not until after I had been dropped off that I realized that I was not the only person that had been walking on that road towards town. The Eskom employee had driven past several Black people but had stopped to offer me a ride. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
The second occurrence came about as I was helping one of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers get back to their site, which is relatively close to my area. In order to get back to their site, you have to catch a kombi a.k.a. collective taxi. To do so, there is a section of road near the edge of town where you wait until a vehicle comes by. I was standing there with the other volunteer, who is also White, alongside two other Blacks also waiting to catch a ride.
While we were waiting, I noticed a nice 4x4, filled with a White family, stop on the other side of the road going the opposite direction from where my friend needed to go. He yelled something in Afrikaans, but I got enough of it to see that he was offering us a lift. I motioned the other direction and said where my friend was going, but he persisted in making gestures for us to hop in the truck. I finally ran across the street to talk to him, so of course he began speaking in Afrikaans.
After apologizing for my lack of Afrikaans on account of being American, he asked me in English where I was going. I told him that I live in Warrenton but that my friend was trying to get back to their site. He had never heard of the place, so I mentioned another area close to it, which he did recognize. He then asked if my friend was the one holding the umbrella, which happened to be a Black girl waiting for a taxi. I replied that no, my friend was the one wearing the South Africa rugby jersey. With this, the man duly said the volunteer should hop in, and, judging it to be a safe situation what with the family and all, I motioned the other volunteer to come over. My friend explained the site to the Afrikaner, and the man said it would be no problem for them to offer a lift. With everything apparently sorted, the other volunteer hopped in the truck, and I headed back to my house.
As with the ride into town given by the Eskom worker, it was only afterwards that I realized the full story of what had just unfolded. The man had probably never heard of my friend’s site because it too is a township. Perhaps even more certain is that the Afrikaner asked if my friend was the one holding the umbrella because he was not going to offer a ride to a Black person. It was only after confirming that my friend was White that the invitation was made.
It only got better when my friend gave me a call to tell me they had arrived home safely. Apparently, the family had a million questions as to why White people were using “Black transport” as they called it, and as to whether we worried about the safety of it all. Generous as they were, the family drove my friend right to the doorstep without asking any compensation, even though, come to find out, they were traveling to Christiana, which is a town that is by no means on the way. They basically drove 40 kilometers out of their way to ensure that my friend got back home safely. Very nice, of course, but it also makes you feel a bit weird because of the underlying reason.
Whatever the case, while I most probably have gotten many advantages as a result of being White in the United States, I can never remember an event that highlighted such privilege as distinctly as these two South African experiences did. It makes clear that many times it is helpful to be a White person in South Africa, though the benefits obtained make one feel weird, even a bit guilty. These experiences made me wonder whether my friend and I should have accepted the rides at all given that such a ride was denied to the other Blacks around us. In the end, I came to the conclusion that by accepting the rides we avoided offending the Afrikaners, were offered an opportunity to perhaps diminish some of the myths with Afrikaners regarding the danger of all Blacks, while not diminishing my standing among the Blacks in my community. Had we been with my Black South African friends, however, where accepting a ride would have meant abandoning my colleagues, I most certainly would have declined the offer.
The interesting thing is that when I was given a ride into town to buy groceries, I also received a ride when heading back to the township – this time by Blacks. While heading back into the township on the same road where the Afrikaner had given me a lift into town, a group of guys I had met before and who had been very impressed with my ping pong skills on display one night, gave me a lift back to my house. I figured that ultimately, that is the way I want it and which it should be. I want to be on good terms with both the White and Black community, so that both offer me lifts, and both I accept.
Today’s South African English word of the day:
kombi – a large van or minibus, usually used as a kind of taxi where passengers pay a fare to the driver to get to a certain destination.
My Oxford English Dictionary tells me that the word was derived from the name of Volkswagen’s German name for the vehicle of this type, Kombiwagen, meaning “combination car.”
Example: You could hitchhike to Kimberley, but it’s safer to take a kombi.
I wonder how much we make choices according to race? Not so obviously, maybe. When I go to a football game I make a point of sitting in between whites and blacks because they choose to sit in separate locations (not the SA meaning). They sit separately because they sit with their friends. We need to make sure we have friends from all races and then we will all sit together.
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