When I told people I’d be living in
South Africa for a semester, I received a very wide range of responses. Some of
my friends and family were concerned about my safety and access to clean water;
others (many of whom have visited as tourists and absolutely adored the
waterfront and the safaris) assured me that South Africa is a highly developed
place, Cape Town is a modern city, and it’s no more dangerous than any large
city in the United States. I chose to believe the latter, mostly out of desire
to seem like a worldly person who had made a competent decision about studying
abroad.
I had known that poverty and
inequality were rampant in Cape Town, and that gangs were a large threat in the
townships, but given my forced optimism about the safety of the city, I was
still surprised on the first night when we were told that we couldn’t walk
around our seemingly safe and affluent neighborhood at night, even if we were
in large groups. On the surface, Rondebosch is a pretty, well-to-do, and
moderately diverse neighborhood. However, I’m still used to the United States
definition of moderately diverse, which usually means a handful of people of
color in a sea of whiteness. In a country where white people constitute a small
minority, I was surprised by how many white people I saw in the first couple of
days. I knew that many black, Indian and coloured South Africans were forced
onto the Cape Flats during Apartheid, but I guess I didn’t understand just how
few of them were able to move back into the downtown or the nearby suburbs.
It’s a little overwhelming to see all of the informal and seemingly inadequate
settlements in the Cape Flats, to know those conditions only exist because of
hatred, and to realize that we might now be living in homes or spaces that were
formerly occupied by black or coloured families in Rondebosch.
There have been many times when I
have felt like a fraud here. In the United States I argue with other white
people about why it’s necessary to say that black lives matter and I try to
correct misconceptions about undocumented immigrants, but I have never taken part
in a march or protest, and only rarely do I try to reach politicians with my
concerns. I don’t see myself as an activist at home, so why should I be an
activist in a place where I hold less influence and have even less words to say
in support of the oppressed? How do I act in a supportive role for refugees and
for those whose rights have been stolen while I’m living comfortably in
Rondebosch, benefiting from the inequality? I hope that more time in Cape Town
and more conversations with Capetonians will help me reflect more on these
questions and on the role I play as an American, a university student, and a
Well-meaning White Person in Cape Town.
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| Molly & Mary |
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