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THE 20th year of democracy – it should be a time of rejoicing, of mellow, lazy long weekends spent in parks with our fellow citizens wallowing in our own music, afternoons at sports stadia cheering South African colours, retrospectives on TV that raise a happy tear or two… but it isn’t.
And that’s not because of election venom, Nkandla, the mining strike which looks as though it could go on until after 7 May or the Farlam Commission. Or not just because of those things.
No, for me this already sour time has soured further, thanks to a little story I heard. A friend took her two kids and two friends to a coastal town for a break on the Human Rights Day long weekend. They were stocking up on juice and veggies in a classy retail store when my friend heard an announcement over the intercom, requesting security to follow her kids.
She’s white, as it happens, and her adopted children are dark-skinned. Middle class. Bright. Beautiful. Dressed in colour co-ordinated outfits. And the only dark-skinned kids in the shop – and since the intercom announcement mentioned skin colour, she had every reason to know it was her children being targeted.
She then became aware of a security guard very obviously tracking the children (who are not even teens yet). The children, too, noticed they were being watched. Which meant she had to deal with it: get hold of the store manager and demand an explanation and apology.
And, worst of all, try to explain to her innocent, happy little girls why some manager, on the strength of nothing more than skin colour, should see them as potential thieves – this while white children of a similar age were no doubt thumbing through the choccie racks and sucking on juices they couldn’t wait to drink till mom had paid for them.
It took me right back to a few years ago when I, too, was in a coastal town on business and popped into the shops for some provisions. (Coffee! Why on earth do our hotels provide such dismal coffee?) As I passed a large clothing chain’s entrance, a heartbroken wail burst from a colourfully dressed toddler, his little bum plumped out by a nappy, his eyes huge as he suddenly realised he was alone.
“Maaaaamaaaaa!” I looked round for his mother, but I could see no one was about to come running. I looked at the (black or African, whichever you prefer) security guard at the door; she paid no attention. I looked at the (black/African) sales assistant stacking T-shirts; she paid no attention.
I went on my knees and tried to talk to the baby, but of course his first language was Zulu and I’d never got to learn an Nguni language. I took his hand and asked to see a manager. A tall South African Indian woman appeared; she seemed indifferent and puzzled that I was concerned, but agreed to take the baby to the office and make a call for his mother.
As I walked away from the entrance, I noticed two (white) middle-aged men sitting on a bench. They’d been watching the show and said to me, in Afrikaans: “Why didn’t you just use him as fish-bait?”, then roared with laughter.
Why is racial profiling still the order of the day in this country, 20 years on? It makes me furious when I am waved through a roadblock (even as the adrenalin ebbs and I offer up thanks) plainly only because I am white. (All the drivers at the roadblock are black, while whites in skedonks and Beemers alike are waved through – yes, I think it’s racial profiling.)
Why, when someone (black/African) who works for me needs answers from a (black/African) lawyer does she get zilch for weeks – but when I put on my plummy colonial voice to tackle the issue I get bowing and scraping?
Why have we allowed the training, the indoctrination of apartheid to spill over and sicken our freedom, so that even black people don’t think it matters that a little black baby is in trouble? (C’mon, if that toddler had been white he’d have been swept up and cossetted, you know it and I know it!)
Why do black (or Coloured) security guards not question why they are told to follow children who are suspect because of their skin colour alone? It is surely the responsibility of retail stores and security firms, of us all, to make a clear effort to live up to our freedom and end racial profiling, now.
Do you remember the film, A Time to Kill, based on a John Grisham book? Matthew McConnaughey plays Jake Brigance, the lawyer who defends Samuel L Jackson’s character, a black father in the USA’s Deep South who shoots the men who raped his ten-year-old daughter, Tonya.
In his closing argument, Brigance asks the jury to close their eyes and imagine the story: the little girl coming home from the store, the men and what they do to her, in awful detail. And then he says: “Now, imagine she’s white.”
Now I challenge you, business, government, South Africans: let us all, for once in our lives, imagine that all our children – all of us – are neither black nor white, but precious… “Imagine she’s precious.”
Yes, I’m a dreamer. But please tell me I’m not the only one…
- Fin24
*Mandi Smallhorne is a versatile journalist and editor. Views expressed are her own.
And that’s not because of election venom, Nkandla, the mining strike which looks as though it could go on until after 7 May or the Farlam Commission. Or not just because of those things.
No, for me this already sour time has soured further, thanks to a little story I heard. A friend took her two kids and two friends to a coastal town for a break on the Human Rights Day long weekend. They were stocking up on juice and veggies in a classy retail store when my friend heard an announcement over the intercom, requesting security to follow her kids.
She’s white, as it happens, and her adopted children are dark-skinned. Middle class. Bright. Beautiful. Dressed in colour co-ordinated outfits. And the only dark-skinned kids in the shop – and since the intercom announcement mentioned skin colour, she had every reason to know it was her children being targeted.
She then became aware of a security guard very obviously tracking the children (who are not even teens yet). The children, too, noticed they were being watched. Which meant she had to deal with it: get hold of the store manager and demand an explanation and apology.
And, worst of all, try to explain to her innocent, happy little girls why some manager, on the strength of nothing more than skin colour, should see them as potential thieves – this while white children of a similar age were no doubt thumbing through the choccie racks and sucking on juices they couldn’t wait to drink till mom had paid for them.
It took me right back to a few years ago when I, too, was in a coastal town on business and popped into the shops for some provisions. (Coffee! Why on earth do our hotels provide such dismal coffee?) As I passed a large clothing chain’s entrance, a heartbroken wail burst from a colourfully dressed toddler, his little bum plumped out by a nappy, his eyes huge as he suddenly realised he was alone.
“Maaaaamaaaaa!” I looked round for his mother, but I could see no one was about to come running. I looked at the (black or African, whichever you prefer) security guard at the door; she paid no attention. I looked at the (black/African) sales assistant stacking T-shirts; she paid no attention.
I went on my knees and tried to talk to the baby, but of course his first language was Zulu and I’d never got to learn an Nguni language. I took his hand and asked to see a manager. A tall South African Indian woman appeared; she seemed indifferent and puzzled that I was concerned, but agreed to take the baby to the office and make a call for his mother.
As I walked away from the entrance, I noticed two (white) middle-aged men sitting on a bench. They’d been watching the show and said to me, in Afrikaans: “Why didn’t you just use him as fish-bait?”, then roared with laughter.
Why is racial profiling still the order of the day in this country, 20 years on? It makes me furious when I am waved through a roadblock (even as the adrenalin ebbs and I offer up thanks) plainly only because I am white. (All the drivers at the roadblock are black, while whites in skedonks and Beemers alike are waved through – yes, I think it’s racial profiling.)
Why, when someone (black/African) who works for me needs answers from a (black/African) lawyer does she get zilch for weeks – but when I put on my plummy colonial voice to tackle the issue I get bowing and scraping?
Why have we allowed the training, the indoctrination of apartheid to spill over and sicken our freedom, so that even black people don’t think it matters that a little black baby is in trouble? (C’mon, if that toddler had been white he’d have been swept up and cossetted, you know it and I know it!)
Why do black (or Coloured) security guards not question why they are told to follow children who are suspect because of their skin colour alone? It is surely the responsibility of retail stores and security firms, of us all, to make a clear effort to live up to our freedom and end racial profiling, now.
Do you remember the film, A Time to Kill, based on a John Grisham book? Matthew McConnaughey plays Jake Brigance, the lawyer who defends Samuel L Jackson’s character, a black father in the USA’s Deep South who shoots the men who raped his ten-year-old daughter, Tonya.
In his closing argument, Brigance asks the jury to close their eyes and imagine the story: the little girl coming home from the store, the men and what they do to her, in awful detail. And then he says: “Now, imagine she’s white.”
Now I challenge you, business, government, South Africans: let us all, for once in our lives, imagine that all our children – all of us – are neither black nor white, but precious… “Imagine she’s precious.”
Yes, I’m a dreamer. But please tell me I’m not the only one…
- Fin24
*Mandi Smallhorne is a versatile journalist and editor. Views expressed are her own.
