Different eyes

A friend of mine recently took a women's ministry meeting at my old church. She is black and she decided she wanted a white person's perspective on the topic too. I've lived in digs with her for about a million years, so she asked me to put something together for her to use as part of her talk. So here it is! Unpolished and unabridged. It was written particularly aimed at the white members of the audience, as I think that is what she wanted. So read it through those lenses.

I left my friend's name as M, to protect her identity! I'm not sure quite what bits of this she used, but here it is in its fullness. I warn you, it is long!



Different eyes

I went to my 10 year high school reunion a year or *ahem* two ago. I was chatting to one of the guys from my old class, when he said something that really struck me. He said that he has realised now, looking back at his school years, how oblivious he was to other pupils who were living through some really tough life stuff. And how in some cases he was even pretty mean to kids that he thought of as weird, but now that he looked back at it, he realised that they were going through horrible stuff at home and not coping with it.

It got me thinking about people I knew in school, and I realised I was also so often oblivious to the stuff going on in their lives. Looking back at it now, I remember kids I knew whose parents got divorced, sometimes in messy ways, kids whose families moved around all the time, kids whose parents died, kids from really unstable homes, where there was lots of fighting, parents with rocky marriages, kids whose parents battled financially...

But it is only something I understand in retrospect. At the time I suppose I sort of knew there were things going on, but I didn't think much of it. My childhood self just didn't really comprehend it. Only now can I look back and realise what they must have been going through, that I was oblivious to. It took ten years and an insightful comment from an old friend to make me look back with different eyes.

The reason I'm telling you that story is that we can be the same way now: getting on with our lives, oblivious to real issues that other people are coping with. And sometimes even causing more hurt to the people living with those issues, just because we are oblivious.

As a white person in South Africa, it is easy not to think about race too much. Because it doesn't feel like it affects us much, most of the time. It is easy to get on with our lives and maybe wonder from time to time why some people get to angry or touchy about race issues.

Unlike for most black people, who are confronted with race pretty often. In how they get treated in shops, in how people repeatedly forget their names, or possibly even forget who they are altogether, after having met them multiple times, in the places estate agents choose to show them (or not show them), in the life situations of their parents and grandparents and other family members, in the way the little old lady from their block of flats is suspicious of them, in assumptions people make about them...

I remember one day some friends and I were going to attend a wedding in PE. Quite late on the night we got there we had to drop one of our party at a block of flats, where she would be spending the night with another friend. Unfortunately when we got there there was a problem with the gate key (long story) and we couldn't get into the flat complex. So we pressed buzzers for the flat and waited and waited and that clearly wasn't working. I was being totally lazy sitting in the car, while the three black girls I was traveling with were at the complex gate trying the intercom, to no avail. Eventually a lady emerged from the complex and walked to her car in the complex parking lot. My friends saw her and ran over to her, asking if she could just let them in, as they couldn't get hold of the girl in the flat on the intercom.

The lady darted to the safety of her garage!!

It would have been pretty funny to see if it wasn't also quite terrible. My friends (one of them was M) called out to her but she was not emerging from that garage! I saw what was going on and figured I'd better put my lazy self to use so I got out of the car and went and stood with my friends and said in my best white accent "Excuse me mam, sorry to bother you, but we are locked out of the complex and we need to get in to our friends flat. We have the buzzer but it isn't working." - or something to that effect. The gate opened and we went in. She was still nowhere to be seen though... maybe she was still hiding out in the garage, in case I was a decoy :)

But anyway, the point I am making is because I am white, I can usually be happily oblivious to this kind of stuff, black people experience pretty routinely. And because I'm oblivious, I can downplay it. I'm like my childhood self. Sort of aware that my friend's parents are going through a divorce, but not really able to grasp how horrible it is for my friend.

And so we need some humility, to recognise that things that we have maybe never thought of as a big deal... are actually sometimes a pretty massive deal. And to recognise that our experience of life is maybe actually not so typical. And things that we can dismiss easily are actually really hurtful heart issues for others, and that they have good reasons to be hurt about those issues.

M has probably already told you about our potato peeler fight. Her take on it was probably a bit different to mine, so let me give you the short version, from my perspective. We had signed up to help out for a church cultural evening. As we were wont to do (and are still wont to do) we had completely over committed our digs and we have to make some truly absurd amount of potato curry. But really the conflict arose (I think) quite outside of the potato peeling for the potato curry. It was a South African themed cultural evening, and the menu included a host of South African dishes. Some of which I thought were quite revolting. So I had been complaining to M about how I thought it was unnecessary to include dishes that some people (like me) thought were disgusting. Why couldn't we just stick to things everyone would eat?

Now maybe if you're white you're thinking "Ja, good point!" or maybe you're thinking "Ouch, way untactful Laura!" But either way, you are probably not thinking "Wow, that was really really hurtful." But you know what, it was hurtful. I was completely oblivious, my metaphorically childhood self. But to look at something that is wrapped up with a core issue in someones identity, their race and culture, and calling it disgusting. Sheesh, that's awful. Imagine if someone told you that you are too fat for skinny jeans, that skinny jeans make fat people look disgusting. No okay. It is almost to mean to even say out loud!

Anyway, I made M cry and I didn't understand why it was such a big deal so I got defensive and angry and hurt and it all just degenerated into an awful fight about a potato peeler, which I am sure she has told you about.

Shame, poor M has been a guinea pig in my life!!

I remember one time M was reading a book about racial reconciliation in South Africa. I was chatting to her about the book afterwards. She said the thing that really hurt her the most that she read in this book was learning that in South Africa, white families used to make their black maids and gardeners eat with different cutlery and crockery from them. That they would often even keep a set of tin or enamel plates for their staff. She said she had just imagined that being her father. Imagine someone made her father eat of a tin plate because they somehow thought he would defile their own crockery. Like keeping a separate bowl for the dog.

And you know what? As she was telling me that, not only did my family keep separate crockery and cutlery for the maid and gardener, but something that is much worse: it had never even occurred to me how awful that was. But in that moment I realised. What a sickening thing to realise. I didn't tell her, wow that was just too shameful. I don't think I've ever told her actually.

But what that incident made me do was to really really properly and honestly reflect on some of the things I have participated in, as a white person, or remained silent about, and some of the attitudes I had. I remembered, for example, those old police demonstrations they used to do for us at school. Maybe you are all too young to have lived through this, but when I was in school we used to have regular demonstrations by the police. They would come and tell us not to talk to strangers and how to recognise a bomb (it was the 80's!) and teach us the child line number and so on. They they would do a demonstration with the police dogs. It was always just too exciting. They would strap some protective gear on some poor black oke and make him run, and set the dogs on him. Now I look back at it and, really, there are just no words. But you know what, I had just never thought about how terrible it was before them.

A friend pointed out to me a few years ago, also, the terrible double standards we have when it comes to people with accents. In his class he had some students from continental Europe and some second-language English students from South Africa. And he pointed out how terrible it is that we can sit through a talk by, say, a German person, and hear them battle through expressing themselves in English. And we will just think, ag, shame, here is this intelligent person battling to express themselves in a second language. But when it is a black South African battling through a talk in broken English, we somehow interpret it as... lack of intelligence? lack of capability?

Do you have any lecturers who are second language English? Do you have a tendency to assume that the European lecturer whose English is poor is really intelligent but bad at English? And the black South African in the same position, do you have a tendency to assume they are not much good at what they do, because of their poor English? Our unspoken beliefs can take us down some pretty awful paths sometimes!

So today we are asking you to start taking an honest look at your own heart and your own beliefs. Not to beat yourself up, not to make you feel bad about yourself. That is not the spirit of these talks at all. What we would like to do is make an honest assessment of the attitudes we have, the generalizations we make, and realise how they can hurt people. As David prayed in Psalm 139: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Let's ask God to open our eyes to the things in our hearts that we need to change.

Which is a scary thing to confront! Because race is a difficult subject that cuts so deep for us in South Africa. But like everything else in our lives, it is covered by the blood of Jesus. He takes away our shame and it will be his grace that enables us to change. It is part of our journey with Him.

Opening our hearts on this issue and allowing ourselves to see the gunky stuff in us is a good place to start. But introspection will only take us so far. For me, a large part of the way God led me through this was in relationships, and in me getting out of my comfort zone into situations which challenged my mindsets.

I remember the day someone in my digs came through to the lounge from the bathroom saying "eew, there is white people's hair in the basin!!!" and I thought "white people's hair isn't gross!!!"

Or on a more serious note, I remember once doing down to the beach front on new years day. I had to pick up a friend from the bus stop. If you live on the coast you know the chaos that is the beach front on new years day. The beach front was actually blocked off, I had to beg to be allowed in with my car. I drove down with a black friend of mine. And as we were driving back she commented that when they were younger, her family and extended family had often spent new years day there on the beach, having a great time. And a little light went on in my mind and I thought, wait, maybe all of these people down here are just mostly, you know, people have a good time at the beach. Chilling with their families, having a braai, whatever. That is certainly not the image I used to have in my mind!

A few years ago I dragged my brother to the ANC election manifesto rally in East London. It was that really intense time before the elections where Zuma became president, and things were quite tense in the country. I dragged my brother kicking and screaming, I think he only came because he thought I might be attacked or something, so he thought he had better come to protect me.

Anyway, it was massive massive massive, I have never been in a crowd that size before. And you know what, it was the most remarkably controlled crown I think I have ever seen. Mostly because these middle aged women would tell people off when the started getting rowdy. It was remarkable. People were chilled out, having a good time, doing some singing of revolutionary songs, and some listening to speeches.

And another little light went on, that when you see those images on the news of ANC rallys, where people are dancing and singing and it looks kind of scary and aggressive... well, what is making me think it is scary and aggressive? Because now I had been there, with the mass of people in yellow T-shirts, with the singing and the dancing. And it wasn't scary or aggressive. People were pretty nice actually.

So the next time I saw those images on TV, I could sit back and evaluate my thoughts. And realise that I had often been interpreting those images incorrectly, because of the wrong beliefs I had.

You know one of the reasons I am such good friends with M today is from that first year we were in digs together, the potato peeler fight year. At the end of the previous year, M and two other friends of hers had been looking for a fourth digsmate. They decided that it was important to them to have a racially diverse digs, so that meant they needed a white person as the fourth person. And, wonderfully, they chose me. And today I have such a diverse bunch of friends that I have learned so much from, which all started that year.

Now I am definitely not suggesting that everyone aims for racially demographic digses! But I am suggesting that we all get out of our comfort zones a bit and put ourselves in situations where our ideas about people will be challenged. Lets hang out with some different people. Read some Steve Biko, or some Albert Luthuli. Go to some events where you know you will be in the minority, racially.

And the great thing about all of this is this: It is good to make sure we have pure hearts before God, it is good to make sure we are not hurting the people around us because of our obliviousness to these issues. But it is *exciting* that we can be part of fixing one of the biggest problems our nation has...

I have a white friend who went to another university (which shall not be named!). But at this other university, when she first went into res they were still dealing with desegregating the reses. She was put into a previously coloured res.

(Actually, as an aside, she says one of the best things about it is that she learned what it was like to be in the minority. To be the odd one out. Obviously white people are the minority in SA, but so often we stick to our comfort zones and hang out with mostly white people.)

But anyway she loved her res. And she tells the best story: one day she was in a mall and she overheard two white guys talking about which reses to apply for. And they were dissing her res and saying, no way, they'd never ever want to stay there. And to paint the picture for you: she is beautiful and very outgoing, one of these full of the joys of life type people. So she bounded up to them and said: "Actually, I am in that res and is is the BEST res on campus, I love it and it is the most wonderful place to stay!!"

And she said it was too funny because these two guys were just dumbfounded. She could just see them not knowing what to make of that at all - was she serious? How could she think it was a great res?

I think that's the loveliest story because in a very easy way she challenged their mindsets.

You know, there is no law government can pass to sort out race problems. There is not even a set of rules to apply to fix it. Or some demonstration we can do. The main way things change is with a million little moments, little interactions that make people rethink things. Like my friends moment with those guys. And we can all be part of that.

An appeal

I was going to do a blog post about Gadaffi's female bodyguards. (He is such an odd man - on the new yesterday he was quoted as saying that Somalian pirates are just protecting themselves from the greed of the west... see here.)

But instead I put to you this semi-urgent appeal...

My church is having an "African fusion" evening this week. Which should be much fun. We did it last year too and the theme was "telling our stories" and it was great.

Anyway, one of the organisers of this years event asked me this morning to participate, to share some funny stories about race.

So I impulsively said yes.

Eeek. Silly silly of me.

Now I am completely blank. And I have to stand in front of a crowd of people and tell stories about race that:
a) Make people laugh.
b) Don't offend people and ruin the evening.

And there are few more sensitive issues than race. Eeek. So I'm really not sure what to do.

So yes, I call upon you all, gentle readers, to help me out. Please, any ideas? And stories? :)