Moments of Whiteness

Being a white person in South Africa, I am the racial minority as opposed to the United States where I am the racial majority, but in my neighborhood I am the racial minority. To be honest, I feel more comfortable when I am the racial minority. I think this is because of my growing up experiences. Walking through the streets of Cape Town, I often forget that I am one of the few whites on the street. During the first week that we were here, one of the Bethel students pointed this fact out and I was forced to recognize this. I find it funny that being one of the few whites on the street had not crossed my mind. One of the things that I do notice is when I am in situations where there are a lot of white people. One of those situations was at the rugby game. Rugby is followed mostly by whites and coloreds, and has a large white fan base in the stands. I swear the entire white population of Cape Town showed up at the stadium for the game…it was a weird feeling. The other time where I was the racial majority was when our group went to Moyo’s (an expensive restaurant that serves traditional African food) with our trip director, Rev. Dr. Curtiss DeYoung and the Bethel Dean. The food is mostly African game and other side dishes (I ventured outside the box and had some ox tail, which was not that bad). I found the atmosphere and interesting one. It romanticized the African culture as if there was not a problem in the world. The staff was black and the majority of the customers were white. About halfway through the evening, some black performers took the stage dressed in traditional African garb and performed a traditional song. I felt like I was taking a step back in time (back to Apartheid and Slavery) and found this environment uncomfortable and fake. I spent most of the evening engaging in conversation with our taxi driver, who was sitting next to me, and hearing his opinions about Cape Town. The openness of people in Cape Town in something that I enjoy and wish many Americans would adopt it into the culture. A couple times people have spoken Afrikaans to me (a language that is tied to white Dutch South Africans) and I had to tell them I don’t speak Afrikaans. These are always interesting experiences.

I realize that being white here seems to have more negative strings attached to it then in America. I think this is because Apartheid has only ended 20 years ago, and many whites still control the majority of the wealth. There is still white privilege, but it is not the same white privilege as in the United States. White privilege is always being challenged in the United States, but here it has not reached that stage.

This past week was the last week of classes, making the next week finals week. Hard to believe that school is coming to an end. I am looking forward to seeing how Easter is celebrated here, but will be missing the food from back home.~Shalom