Write a first person narrative of what it would be like to live under apartheid in South Africa as a black person. Your writing should cover issues such as police brutality, employment, schooling, housing, access to health care, and your feelings about the policy itself. You should use information that you have acquired on this topic from our classroom discussions, as well as research that you have done on your own. This assignment should be posted by midnight on Monday 17 January.
What do I do? Oh, if there is a god, help me. A sign? Some seed of an idea? Anything to let me know that there is some light in this unimaginably vast sea of hatred and despair that is black South Africa. We have nothing; no food, no access to medical care, no true home, no way to lift ourselves above the mire of poverty and oppression. My children have no father and they must cheat and steal because my wages as a maid are scarcely enough for one to live off. And yet, I know that we are four among countless thousands living in black South Africa.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I cannot say that all South Africans live this way, for they do not. For the white slavers, who stand with their boots on our necks, live better than the Bible says that angels do in heaven. While we, the sons and daughters of Africa, try to scrape livelihoods from their offal, they live as gods themselves. The white areas of Cape Town are bloated with palaces while I live with my three children in a squalor which would likely cause my white owners, or as we must pretend, employers, to suffer fatal heart attacks.
Even now, I fear that I will soon be deemed too disgusting and vile to live in the same town as their holinesses. I know of more families than I can count who have been forced from their homes to a Bantustan, a nation supposedly belonging completely to the Bantu people. I am tempted to say that nothing can be worse than the hell I now live in, but I know otherwise. The “nations” are tiny bites of the country the white man’s greedy fists grudgingly released so that the rest of the land would not be infected with the dark-skinned. The Bantustans are seething masses of Africa’s children, subsiding on even less than they had before they left their homes. Once they step off of the so-called “homelands”, they become foreigners in our land, and are stripped of every defense they may once have had to the white man’s exploitation.
I pray I will not be forced into a Bantustan, as millions before me have been, like cattle being driven into a pen for butchery. And a slaughter it is. The tales I have heard of the police make me want to maim my own daughter that she will not be a target. They make me tell my sons never to stand up to a white man, never to have pride in their beautiful African skin, though my words scald my throat as I utter them. In the part of my mind that is not numbed with the brutality, I wonder, how is it that we are the animals? How is it that our skin color is a greater sin than the way they torture our sons, beat our daughters, and rape our mother Africa? No, I do not mind the concept of separation between us and those beasts, but this? This is more than division, this is slavery.
Davis, R. Hunt, ed. "apartheid, 1950s to 1991." Encyclopedia of African History and Culture: Independent Africa (1960 to Present), vol. 5. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. Modern World History Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?
ItemID=WE53&iPin=AHCV0036&SingleRecord=True (accessed January 12, 2011).
Horvitz, Leslie Alan, and Christopher Catherwood. "apartheid." Encyclopedia of War Crimes and Genocide. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Modern World History Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?
ItemID=WE53&iPin=EWCG023&SingleRecord=True (accessed January 12, 2011).
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ReplyDeleteDillon Lerach
ReplyDelete1-15-10
Period 4
Our Shadow Society
Who are we? We are Zulus, but called Bantus. We are South Africans, but are not treated as South Africans. They tell us that we can clean their stoves, cook their meals, look after their children, and build their roads, but when the clock strikes six o’clock; we must vacate their lavish towns and gardened streets and enter our townships: disease is ubiquitous, crime commonplace, children run wild struggling to scrape out a live in the hell of black South Africa. We must learn to speak Afrikaans and act like “civilized white men,” but we will never be Afrikaners. We have built their beautiful schools with picturesque clock towers and lavish football fields and state-of-the art hospitals, but we will never be able to use them. For we are not South Africans, we are a stain on South African society; we are a useless filth that must be cleaned from this great nation. We have seen the torment of the white men on our brothers when they have resisted these policies. When we resist, we find trucks of soldiers descend on our children and wives, gunning down innocent unarmed people, but we must resist. As our leader Steven Biko said, the real genius of the white man is not that he set up these racist laws, but that they have convinced us that these policies are just. We act like South Africans, and suffer for our country every day, but the white man will always view us as a shadow on the flag of South Africa. Last week the Afrikaans police raided our township and shot 30 women and children when we were in the white part of town building a road. While their actions make us angry, the feeling that comes later is a feeling of immense disappointment, a feeling that South Africa shows the evil of mankind just like Nazi Germany and 1950’s southern America did. But we must not sink to their level; we must remember our anthem “Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika/ Maluphakanyisw' uphondo lwayo,
Yizwa imithandazo yethu, / Nkosi sikelela, thina lusapho lwayo.” If we are peaceful and persevere and do everything in our power to make Africa great, Africa will rise from the ashes of Imperialism and become great once again. If we are one, if we unite, not only as Bantus but also as South Africans then we can rise up, and make this nation great once more.
Ciara and Dylan, Both of your posts have been very impressively written and I thank you for setting the bar so high. Ciara, you piece is very powerful and seems to also be really authentic. You are definately on the corect track! The only thing that I would consider is mentioning the political affiliation of the person that you have created. Generally, oppressed people who would be willing enough to write about their anquish, might also mention an alternative. If you are writing about the mid 20th century, probably the ANC might be on her radar, or perhaps the IFP? Both posts are great, and exactly what I had in mind.
ReplyDeleteI am a South African. My family has lived in South Africa for hundreds of years. Who gave the whites the rights to put my people down? Why should us true Africans have to build THEIR schools, mine for THEIR gold, work on THEIR gardens? It makes no sense to me… It makes no sense to any of us. I should stand up for what is right; and I have. But the merciless beatings make me forget what I am fighting for.
ReplyDeleteI remember walking to work in one of the wealthiest villas in South Africa. It was a normal day for me. I woke up early to help my wife cook breakfast for our four children. We did not have much to eat but we ate it all for that was our only meal of the day. My jeans had developed an increasingly larger whole in the front pocket from a thorn bush I ran into at work. I did not think much of the hole because there was not anything I could do about it. Walking to work I came across a random police checkpoint. I checked my pockets for my identification card that also had my work permit on it. It must have fallen through my pockets. I begged for a second chance but did not receive one. I was beaten and put in jail for two weeks. My family ate very little because I could not pay for any food. My youngest kid died because of this incident with the police. It surprises me that such a small group of the current South African population can make all of the rules and none of us can say anything about it.
The white South African government spends no money on us. We get minimal schooling, and minimal healthcare. They might as well not spend any money on us at all. Should we leave our land because they are “bullying” us? Maybe we should try and move to a more advantageous place for my kids to grow up. The white South Africans would have a very tough time without us.
All of these ridiculous rules on where we can and cannot go needs to stop. We have had enough and it is time to change. “I dream of an Africa which is in peace with itself.” -Nelson Mandela
Day after day, month after month, year after year us blacks have to comply with the brutal force of the whites stepping on our rights and livelihoods. We struggle to complete the simple task of feeding our children, yet they still find it necessary to shove us beneath their feet. We try to live a happy life but how can we do so when we hold the same societal level as the untouchables in the Indian society? Even with the variety of black populations and cultures in South Africa, we all are seen as a single group since we all have the same colored skin. Whites do not see Germans and English people as the same, so why do they see Zulus and Sothos as the same? We have no true identity and are known now as Banthu.
ReplyDeleteEverywhere I turn I see Africa’s children being trodden on by our “superiors.” Police find pleasure in beating the “lesser” just because they know they will not be reprimanded. I once witnessed a black man being violently clubbed multiple times by the police and thrown into the back of a police car. This man had never learned to read Afrikaans and, therefore could not decipher the meaning of “For use by white persons” written on the back of the park bench that he was using. All of the whites passing by at this moment continued to walk past the abhorred scene like nothing were the matter. However, every black and colored person stared at the nauseating event trying not to image him/herself in that situation. Chills accompanied by frustration run up and down my weary spine as I remember this event and the consequence of being born as a true African.
If only that man could have received the education he needed and learned the “civilized” language of Afrikaans, he may not have been in that situation. I send my children to school everyday but still fear that they will not know enough for this white-superior South Africa. It is said that there is one teacher for every twenty-two students in the extravagant white schools while my little boy and girl go to school with about sixty other kids of all ages with only one teacher. The community has no money to build a schoolhouse, so the children squeeze into a small shack house made of old street signs and dirt that my neighbor so kindly lends while she scavenges for a paying job. Her house resembles how most of us live, in the shadow of the whites’ luxury palaces equipped with extravagant pools and the oblivious owners. I pray that we still will have the rights of education and housing tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteMy husband and I are the lucky ones in our community. I, at least, still am with my husband as he is not in jail or has not been killed as so many men have been. He has the job of a gardener who tends to the whites’ lavish parks that he will never be able to enjoy himself. I, on the other hand, am a nanny of a wealthy white family. I attend to the children like a mother would and am released from my duty only once a week to visit my own children. I am not appreciated by these people and am seen as a mangy mutt that is required to serve to all of their needs. They request everyday to see my passbook just in case they may have an excuse to turn me in. As I serve these repulsive people, I look around at their fruit orchard, abundance of food, and heaven-like rooms. I begin to wonder how they are so much different than I and why skin color is such a barrier. Have they not sinned more than I?
March 20, 1960
ReplyDeleteBlack: the notorious color. The color of no color. The color of emptiness, the color of nonexistence. Trash: the familiar medium. The medium of our homes. The medium of survival, the scrap of life we have to hold above our heads in times of rain. Pain: the accentuated emotion. The emotion we’ve learned to cope with, the emotion they inevitably force upon us. The abyss that we cannot escape. Discrimination: the wretched ideology. The ideology that has brought us to the lowest of the low, in the black shadows in which our forefathers had enlightened. The ideology that has brought about everything for them, and nothing for us.
Here I stand, in my township, with no job. A 28 year old Zulu Male, and also a target of discrimination. I was one of the most fortunate of my “race.” I am one of the most educated people. However, all the jobs I can do are “reserved” for whites, and senior-level jobs are not available to Blacks either. As the lowest labor heavy worker, and Black, I am not legally an “employee.” Neither am I protected by any labor laws.
Have you ever felt trapped on an island? Nothing, no one to support you. Encaged in blank walls, with the one thing you hate. My Pass Book. This is the lock on my cage, the reminder that I am forever bound to be the citizen of no respect. The walls only stare at me coldly, apathetically uncaring. Until my jailers come in. For no reason, they begin to beat me. I can do nothing but submit. For the sake of my future, for the sake of my family, and for the sake of my own and very hard life, I must sacrifice dignity. The pain is so accustomed to that I do not react. Instead, I stand, waiting patiently for the jailers to finish, hanging my head low and stare at my feet as they punch, kick, and taunt me.
Getting the education I had was difficult. I asked around, looked in every crevice of academia, fingers writhing in the crack looking for just another bit of knowledge. Starved to escape the life I was born into, to one day be on a beach with the whites, to walk around freely without the psychological chains of my disgusting Pass Book, the typed letters that labeled me as Black burning as I walked in the light. To finally explore the land of my fathers, and to look a white in the eye as an equal. Whatever way I could, I tried. I was beaten, constantly, and jailed.
The dirty homelands we were given were plagued with diseases, sicknesses, and the sadness that irrevocably accompanied. There was little access to a doctor, and even rarer could we see an accomplished one. Of course, death was prevalent and our infant mortality rates were high. We were struggling to survive the minute we were born... the time has come to change this. I will fight on behalf of my own, of the skin that many seem to despise. To fight back, to gain the rights we were supposed to be given! There will be a demonstration tomorrow in Sharpville. I will be there, to demonstrate peacefully my own opinions of the apartheid. It is peaceful, hopefully they will take notice of our pain and release us from these chains. At least they won’t kill anybody.
I will write again tomorrow... describing how the protest went.
March 21, 1960
March 22, 1960
March 23, 1960
March 24, 1960
.....................................
"South Africa - Employment and Labor." Country Studies. Web. 16 Jan. 2011. .
Am I not a person? Am I not a human? The white people look at me and treat me as if I am an uncivilized animal. But, when I look down at myself I see a human body similar to the white people, but tainted with my dark skin. Is this the life I am meant to live? Is this the way I am supposed to feel about myself? Is this the way I am supposed to be treated?
ReplyDeleteI am South African; I have lived here my whole life and so have many generations of my family. I deserve every right available here in South Africa, but the white people think otherwise. With their arrival, my peoples’ decline began. We went from South Africans to dirty animals that were made to serve white people. Though we live in the same country, we lead two very different lives.
The black and coloured population of South Africa caters to the white people. We make their schools, we make their hospitals, we clean their homes, we cook their food and do so much more for them. Yet, we do not get any access to these great things that we build or do for the white people. To them we are simply laborers that deserve nothing. Sometimes I feel that the only reason we are still alive is to cater to their needs. And when my work day is over, I am expected to vanish from their lives until it is time to once again begin my work. I must return to my little home where it is chaos. Segregation has crippled us, impacting every aspect of our society. While white people have enormous schools with an abundance of educated teachers and great dormitories, we have the exact opposite. This same type of comparison can be applied to our housing, healthcare and rights. While the white people have everything, we are left with nothing. While they live luxuriously, we struggle to feed our children and even to survive. For people who look like me, survival here is nearly impossible.
If I walk into a white only area, I could be beaten, arrested, or even killed. If I do not have my pass with me and/or a reason to be outside, I could also be beaten, arrested or even killed. The white people and the police show no mercy when dealing with us. I am no longer a majestic Zulu warrior; I am…apparently not human. I cannot get the same jobs as white people and definitely not the same pay. I cannot sit in the same spots that white people can, I cannot do anything that white people can. Curse all these laws that restrict my people! We have been stripped of everything and are not treated fairly. They tell us that we are not South African…They tell us that we are animals… And they justify this by skin color. And because of this physical torture and mental manipulation we have slowly come to accept our place in society. But no! I will not let this go on! We are South African and we deserve all the rights available! One day, we will gain our rights back! One day, we will be equal! One day, I can walk outside my home without being afraid. One day, South Africa will foster peace and harmony. But these days will not come without action, and they will not come through violence. Violence will kill us all and submerge South Africa into a condition worse than it is in today. If there is one thing I have learned through the segregation and oppression, it is to be smart. And this is how black and coloured people will gain equality and how South Africa will be a great country.
Tony Ibrahim
ReplyDeletePeriod 4
Professor Webber
January 16, 2011
Rising Up Against the Apartheid
Some call me Khulu, others call me Madiba. Whatever it may be, my name isn’t of importance. What is of importance though is my life story up until today, and this is what I am about to share with you. My trials and tribulations lay embedded within the following text as I tell you the story of living under the apartheid in South Africa.
I was born on July 18, 1918 in Transkei, South Africa. My mother is Nonqaphi Nosekeni and my father is Henry Mgadla Mandela. I received a primary education as well a collegiate level of education at the University of South Africa. It was not the greatest of educations but it gave me the opportunity to expand my knowledge. I then ran off to the town of Johannesburg to escape arranged marriages by my family and clan. This is where I ironically met the love of my life Evelyn Mase and we married years later.
I decided to join the African National Congress (ANC) in the year 1943. I then began to promote the movements of equality and multiracialism. After years of working and deciding that violent tactics were the only way to stop racism, the ANC was banned in 1960 and I was later sentenced to prison for 5 years with harsh labor in the year 1962.
When one lives a God forsaken life, it is the equivalent of not living life at all. From waking up in the early hours of the day to complete harsh labor, to going to bed late in the night only to do the same task over was tough. I wanted out, but I knew I couldn’t open my mouth. I wept behind those bars day in and day out for so many reasons. My family was at risk, my life was at risk, my race, my people, and my entire country was at risk, while I was living the good life behind bars. Harsh labor and scarce amounts of food meant nothing to me when my people were suffering. Being locked up in a jail was considered a luxury to me. Just the thought that I was a helpless being on this earth unable to protect my fellow South Africans was heartbreaking.
Instead of completing my term of 5 years, I was held for another trial of violence and was sent off to Robben Island with 8 other of my fellow activists. I was kept on this island from 1964 to 1982. During my life time, I was moved from prison to prison and served a total of 27 years out of my life behind cold and rusted metal bars that locked me in from the rest of the world, while at the same time locked me out from the rest of my brothers and sisters.
I was tormented, I was beaten, and I was held captive all against my will. I knew though that somewhere, somehow, in some way that the Gog of Gods himself, Jesus Christ, was looking out for me. I knew that whatever I faced could not stop me from my ultimate goal of freeing my people. With a heavy heart and enlightened soul, I marched on.
I was released from Pollsmoor Prison on February 11, 1990, but I knew I was not free. I devoted 24 hours of my time, 7 days a week to strategizing and executing decisions to help further equality and exterminate racism which was deeply rooted in South Africa.
I was a poor man in my day. Going from starving myself for a matter of days, to wearing torn up clothing for weeks on end, I never knew what it felt like to be at rest or comfortable.
ReplyDeleteHow was it humanly possible for me to be at peace with myself when I knew my brothers and sisters were being persecuted? Things had to be done and just like western proverbs say, “If you can’t get something done right, then do it yourself.” This was exactly what I planned to do. The oppressive forces of the British government who overthrew our native people were too much of an oppressive force to use peaceful methods to stop. Violence was truly the only answer.
It was said that my publicity grew exponentially and that I was becoming one of the greatest figures of my time, but I didn’t believe in any of that. Before I left this earth, I knew that to have lived a fulfilled life, I must have freed my people. Racism, segregation, and discrimination, were all perverse and despicable things introduced into our homeland. Because of the color of my skin, I was only allowed to excrete in certain bathrooms. Because of the color of my skin, I was only allowed to drink form certain drinking fountains. Because of the color of my skin, I was only allowed to sit on certain benches. Because of the color of my skin, I was denied from having sufficient education. Because of the color of my skin, I am denied sufficient shelter and the access to clean clothes. Because of the color of my skin, I was not white and thus I was made an inferior. These principles and laws that were implemented made me want to shoot someone. At the same time, these same principles and laws that were implemented made me want to shoot myself and be done with my life.
Whether one was white or one was black made no difference to me. I worked with all colors and did not turn anyone down or refuse to listen to anyone based on the color of his or her skin. In the year 1991, I was elected the President of the African National Congress because on the consideration and admiration of my fellow colleagues and co-workers. This was the year when I had true authority under my belt and had the opportunity to stand up to the oppression that was already losing its reigns in South Africa.
Two years later, I received the Nobel peace prize on the grounds of standing up for all who suffered and all South Africans who sacrificed so much for their people and their country. This jurisdiction gave me reason to believe that there were people out there who wanted to put an end to the apartheid just like I did. This was a true confidence boost in my life and I knew from that point on that I not only had the support of my fellow South Africans, but I had the support of my fellow world community as well.
On the historic day of April 27, 1994, South Africa held elections for the next presidency. This date also marked the day that I as well as thousands of other South Africans voted for their first times. Less than a month later, I was inaugurated the President of South Africa on May 10, 1994.
After years of bloodshed, after years of pain, after years of suffering, after years of wishing that South Africa could be at peace with its fellow neighbors, I, Nelson Mandela, accomplished the un-accomplishable and became the President of South Africa. As of May 10, 1994, I got the opportunity to rebuild South Africa all over again from its foundation all the way up to its people.
On my inauguration day, I gave a speech to my fellow South Africans that I believe all should hear:
ReplyDelete“We dedicate this day to all the heroes and heroines in this country and the rest of the world who sacrificed in many ways and surrendered their lives so that we could be free. Their dreams have become reality. Freedom is their reward. We are both humbled and elevated by the honour and privilege that you, the people of South Africa, have bestowed on us, as the first President of a united, democratic, non-racial and non-sexist government. We understand it still that there is no easy road to freedom. We know it well that none of us acting alone can achieve success. We must therefore act together as a united people, for national reconciliation, for nation building, for the birth of a new world. Let there be justice for all. Let there be peace for all. Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all. Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfill themselves. Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world. Let freedom reign” (Nelson Mandela.org).
This speech not only commemorates South Africa in its genuine opportunity to start anew, but it instills hope into all of the people in South Africa that the hardships have passed and that not only will South Africa never on any circumstances put up with oppression by a foreign land again, but that freedom will reign throughout the land.
The apartheid had officially ended when I became president and South Africa would never again have to experience the feeling of oppression. My life goal was completed and my people were freed. South Africa was being restored and future leaders and generations were arising with a better chance at life than the previous generations. I, Nelson Mandela, declare that the apartheid will never leave our history as South Africans, but will never again revisit us again for as long as I live.
Works Cited
Facts on File Modern World History Online:
"Mandela, Nelson." Facts on File Modern World History Online. Encyclopedia of World History: The Contemporary World, 1950 to the Present, vol. 6, Web. 16 Jan. 2011. .
South African Activist Eddie Daniels’ Podcast:
Daniels, Eddie. "Surviving Apartheid in South Africa." Audio blog post. Lehman Today: Surviving Apartheid in South Africa. Lehman College. Web. .
The Official Foundation and Website of Nelson Mandela:
Nelson Mandela Foundation- Memory- Biography. Nelson Mandela Foundation, Web. 14 Jan. 2011. .
The Official Web Site of the Nobel Prize:
"Nelson Mandela- Biography." Nobelprize.org The Official Web Site of the Nobel Prize. 1993. Web. 16 Jan. 2011. .
University of Michigan’s South Africa Apartheid Website:
South Africa: Overcoming Apartheid Building Democracy. Web. 10 Jan. 2011. .
Is there no end to this suffering, this hell, this horrid cycle of oppression? I was ten years old, and I couldn’t remember a time when my stomach wasn’t grumbling at me. Both my parents worked hours and hours each day, but me and my siblings had never had more than a mouthful to eat. My parents told me it was all the fault of the white man; the source of all Africa’s woe. My mother worked as a maid for one of them, telling us fantastical tales of magical castles where even the smallest of children had at least two rooms to call their own. My siblings and I always laughed at these ridiculous stories, seeing as we had just one room for the all family functions. We didn’t think much of it, and we played as kids do, went to school as kids do, and thought nothing of it.
ReplyDeleteWhen I turned fourteen, a government official drove through our small village, telling us about a new law that was passed that allowed us to have our own “states” called Bantustans. It was strange though, I don’t remember my mother or father voting on this. The next year was the first time I saw a white area. My parents took me into the city to find her sister, who was working as a maid also. My siblings and I looked up in awe at the towering square houses that rose up all around us. Many of them seemed to be made of a gleaming white rock. I wondered where they found these, coming to the conclusion that black people and white people looked for building materials in different dumps. While we walked around in a daze, two white men stopped to talk with my mother. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, and neither did my mother, but they were angry about something. They were tracing the shape of a square in the air with their hands, but it made no sense whatsoever. (I later learned that to be in a white area, we needed our identification papers, which classified us as black, and allowed us to be there.) The two white men proceeded to take a metal string from ones belt, and tried to tie my mother’s hands with it. When she refused, they beat her until she was bleeding from her nose, threw her into a car, and that was the last I saw of my mother.
Ten years have passed and my perceptions of normal life have changed greatly. I worked on a wealthy white-owned plantation, and my wages barely sustained me. Everywhere I go in the white community I must bring papers from my employers, giving me express permission to be near whites. What a backwards country this place has become. The white men came to our country, took our people, took our resources, and now, they are taking over our whole country. It is strange, in white areas, houses are miles apart, yet there aren’t enough white men to fill it. I know I shouldn’t be thinking these thoughts, but I believe it is a bit unfair that the white men have so much. Every day, it seems, they pass new laws that take a little more away from us, and give a little more to them. I recently broke my left hand working the farm equipment, and being crippled; my white employer had no use for me and sent me back to my Bantustan.
My remaining sister and I share a shack made of corrugated iron and mud. In the summer it feels like an oven, and in the winter, an icebox. I went back to the dump many times, looking for those magic stones I had seen, but never once did I find one. Now with my broken hand, I won’t be able to find a job anywhere to feed my sister and me. One of my African brothers who had worked on the plantation with me told me of a place where people gave you magic potions through sharp needles, that would cure all my illnesses. I asked around the whole village, finally managing to learn that this medicine man was called a “doctor”. A neighbor also told me that the doctor had a hut in the middle of our Bantustan. The day I went to find him, I was that there were thousands of other people with much more serious maladies than a broken arm, and that I would have to wait. That is where I am right now. We haven’t eaten in two days, and I barely have the strength to fetch water from the well every morning. Why can’t we live in magic castles, and never worry about being hungry? I guess that the government decided that was a right reserved for the whites. I can’t help but wonder where in the world the reasoning for that is. Because of our darker skin, our skin the color of the earth, we must struggle to live our lives. To me, it seems our race was doomed from the start…
ReplyDeleteDavis, R. Hunt, ed. "Bantustans." Encyclopedia of African History and Culture: Independent Africa (1960 to Present), vol. 5. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005.Modern World History Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?
ItemID=WE53&iPin=AHCV0061&SingleRecord=True (accessed January 17, 2011).
Davis, R. Hunt, ed. "apartheid, beginnings to 1961." Encyclopedia of African History and Culture: The Colonial Era (1850 to 1960). vol. 4. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. Modern World History Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?
ItemID=WE53&iPin=AHCIV0038&SingleRecord=True (accessed January 17, 2011).
I didn’t understand it. They didn’t just need us; their lavish lives depended on us. So why do they act like we’re nothing?
ReplyDeleteMy father told me when I was young that our family had been living in South Africa for longer than he can remember. He told me that it wasn’t always this way, but ever since the “White South Africans” simply decided they should have complete control over us, because of our “obviously”, inferior skin color, life has been complete hell.
I spent my days taking care of someone else’s child. I cooked, cleaned, gardened, in the nicest home in Cape Town. It was a huge house with a swimming pool. I made sure to get to the house by 5:30 am, to wake their son and get him ready for school. He attended the new school a few blocks away. My husband helped build it. It was large and beautiful, filled with an endless supply of books, materials, and knowledgeable teachers. But of course, my three children would never even witness the site of this school. They went to a school in the townships, which taught them nothing, leaving me to feel hopeless. Although, we all are forced to learn the sophisticated language of the white people, Afrikaans. I used to imagine my children living the life of this ignorant child, but it just made me mad. And it wasn’t that child’s fault, or his parents’ fault. It was the life they were born into. However, they never once, did anything to stop it. They saw how I lived, how I never saw my real family. They dropped me off at the townships. The townships: built of nothing but trash, crowded with hungry people, and filled with disease and pollution. In fact, one of my sons became very sick as an infant. Everyone knew, but there was simply no way to treat him without a doctor in sight. I didn’t dare tell my “white family” about it, that wasn’t my place. He died a few weeks later, in the townships. My eldest son was overwhelmed with sadness and confusion and lashed out. He decided to fight against the hatred but the police immediately caught him, beat him, and threw him back into our tiny little space we called, “home”, although we didn’t mean it. I was relieved that he wasn’t jailed or worse…but that was a wake up call that whatever we did to respond to our oppression, would not work. We needed someone with power to take a stand.
But of course, they would never give up their comfortable, idyllic lifestyles to help people they didn’t know, understand, or even like. I tell my children to have hope each night before they go to sleep but I know that doesn’t help. I know that it would take a miracle to make them comprehend that despite our darker looking skin, we are South Africans like they are, and should come together to make this country the best it can be.
Works Cited
Millet, Kate. "The Apartheid System of South Africa from the Book The Politics of Cruelty." Third World Travel. 1994. Web. 15 Jan. 2011. .
Smitha, Frank E. "South Africa and Apartheid." MacroHistory and World Report. 2010. Web. 15 Jan. 2011. .
September 30, 1977
ReplyDeleteDear Mr. Lithebe,
Thank you for all the help that you have given my family over the past 6 months. I do not know how we would have survived with out you. By the way, how are things in Gaborone? I hear it is quickly becoming a very great city. You were probably right to move to Botswana when you did, for the situation here is not very pretty.
I unfortunately have to admit that I am writing this letter from my prison cell in Johannesburg. I was arrested only last week (under situations I will discus later), but I have only been able to write twice: one to you and the other to my family in the Soweto township. The cell is pretty uncomfortable but not unlike the conditions at home. The prison bead is a little smaller and the cell is very small, but it does lack the smells of the townships.
After being laid off from the factory job that you had found me before you left, only three months later, I was hired as a miner for one of the largest goldmines near Johannesburg. The pay was not as good as the factory job, and I had to work longer hours, but at least I had a job, which are hard to come by for a person like me, who did not finish year six of school.
Because I did not finish school, I want my children to do so.My oldest son will hopefully finish the sixth standard this year, and I hope to find a higher education school for him and a elementary school for my youngest. However, because their are so few schools blacks can attend to finding one for my youngest and my oldest will be very difficult. The apartheid laws that you ran away from strangle the potential from an entire generation of young blacks.
We also had to sell the house you had found for us, and move to a smaller one. The school fees were getting to high, so we needed money for these fees. Now we live in a two room house that we share with another family of five, so in total their are nine people living two small rooms.
We also ended up using a lot of that money on getting a doctor two months ago, when my wife had a bad disease. The white doctor told us that she had something called cholera, and that she needed to go to the hospital for re-hydration salts. So just for that one trip to the local black hospital, which was still 20 miles from our house, and the hospitalization of five days used up the last of my saved money. The black hospital was not even that well equipped with barely 20 rooms to serve the entire Soweto township, and all of them were full, so she had been forced to lie on a bed in the hallway. I heard from one white doctor though that just outside the Soweto township they are building a ten story hospital for whites only just 4 miles from another white hospital, while we have only one to serve our entire black community.
To make matters worse two days before I was arrested they announced a pay cut of over 60% for black miners only. We were already struggling to pay for my children’s schooling and food for us even with your help, and another pay cut would force us to go hungry or pull my children out of school, which would affect their future. This is why I was arrested. My fellow miners and I had organised a strike against the mining companies pay cut. And on the day I was arrested we went through with our plan. The mining company did not like our striking and called the police. Soon our peaceful strike was being broken up by police with riot shield. I saw a policeman beat a black miner even as he lay unconscious on the ground. They then rounded us up and arrested whom they thought were the leaders of the strike, which included me. So I will probably stay in jail at least until the end of year, and my family will starve because of this. In the name of our long friendship I beg you to continue to send money to my family, for we can no longer take care of ourselves.
But I have also noticed one thing while in jail. From my jail cell I can see in the distance a very nice, well kept neighborhood with large brick houses. I have also seen that in this neighborhood the only black people are servants. It doesn’t seem right to me for us to live as servants and take the pay cuts when we have nothing but poverty while they live a life of luxury and comfort.
ReplyDeleteYour old friend,
Mr. Nodsheni
All we've ever wanted was love.
ReplyDeleteBut all we have ever got was hatred.
I can't really remember a time in this blood soaked country where we were treated with respect or care. No, it has always been the other way around. For centuries, there seemed to always have been this invisible wall separating us from them. We Africans have tried so hard to break this wall, even with our own bare hands. But it seemed as if it would never crumble.
Then they cemented the wall with apartheid.
It's impossible to define this term. They lecture in schools how it segregated us from them economically and socially, but its true meaning remains trapped beneath the surface.
I was a young colored woman living in district six of Cape Town with my husband and our five children. My husband's family and my own had lived in this district for generations. This is where my children were to grow up, and their children, and so on. Other races also lived in this simple neighborhood. From Malaysians to Indians this place brought many races together in harmony. My family and I did not live a luxurious life at all, merely a happy and content one. As long as we had each other, nothing seemed to matter.
However, this home we called our “safe haven” changed forever.
With firearms slung over their shoulders, the police stormed into the district and threw us out of our homes like rag dolls. In protest, my husband tried to reason with the officers with no violence, only soft spoken words. With not a single ounce of empathy for my husband, they endlessly beat him until he crumpled to the ground. My children screamed in horror as their father was bludgeoned to death in front of their own eyes. I remember clasping my hand over my youngest son's mouth as he began to sob. The last thing I wanted was for my son to be next.
With the little possessions we had, my children and I relocated along with many of our neighbors to the Cape Flats Township. In a matter of days, we desperately scavenged for scrap material to assemble a makeshift house. Even after building a simple shack out of street signs and sheets of rusting metal, we could never bring ourselves to call it ons huis, our home.
I found that as the years dragged on, those with voices disappeared forever, or were left in the streets to rot. Those who lost their voices slipped into the shadows, their echoing footsteps dying out with each step they took.
Our hands stung with blisters and scars from endlessly bringing happiness to those wretched white people. They would command us like an army of disease infected rats, “Clean our cities until they are spotless, build prestigious schools for our children, watch over our immense mansions and gardens...” I despised them so much for bringing sorrow and hatred into not only my life but to all of the colored people of South Africa. Why did they see themselves higher than us? My children are just as talented and intelligent as a white child. Even though I along with many of my friends and family found distaste in our lifestyles, we never complained nor shook our fists. However, many of the younger generation couldn't stand to hear another curse word thrown at them or see another dirty glare.
My eldest son, filled with anger and resentment towards the white government, joined a small rebel group in the township and began a small protest in hopes of bringing some change to our community. However, word quickly spread of this and troops arrived with every intent of murdering each and every protestor. Before anyone could warn my son and his gang about the soldiers' arrival, they immediately open fired on the entire township. Not only was my eldest murdered, but my other son was also heavily wounded. My neighbors and I took my wounded son to the nearest hospital, which happened to be a whites only hospital. With my son barely able to suck in another breath of air, the nurses refused him any sort of health care whatsoever, leaving him to die in my quivering arms on the street.
ReplyDeleteSo I ask myself, will we ever find love in this country? Will that invisible wall ever crumble in front of my eyes just as my house in district six did?
But the answer always remains the same- just keep waiting.
Works Cited
"The History of Apartheid in South Africa." Student Information. Web. 17 Jan. 2011. .
"Home." District Six Museum. The District Six Museum and Webfactory. Web. 17 Jan. 2011. .
Why do they look at me like that? As if I had done something wrong? I was only taking my baas to the bus stop. It had been the first time I have been out of the house since Mother died from childbirth. They wouldn’t take her into the hospital because of the color she is. So she and the baby died. I don’t really enjoy working for these people. They make me clean all day and I can’t have any of the food I make or else I am beat. Then I have to sleep on the floor of the kitchen, with merely a towel to cover myself during the colder months. Everyday the children leave for school, oh how I wish I could go to school again. Of course, I have never seen a textbook before. I’m only allowed to touch the books when I pack them into backpacks. Sometimes I peek a look inside, but I cannot read English. Maybe now that my baas is gone the children will teach me! But first I must cook and clean.
ReplyDeleteToday, while I was washing the windows, I looked out to see the gardeners talking to the police. The policeman seemed to be asking for something, but the gardener did not have it. Suddenly, the policeman began to violently punch and kick the gardener, who just curled into a ball, as if praying it would all end. I quickly looked away, horrified at what I had just witnessed. I looked up just in time to see the bloody and broken gardener being thrown into a police van and taken away. I asked the mother of the children about the beating, but she told me I was being a stupid dramatic child and I should never speak of such lies again.
During the hot months, the children enjoy going to the beach or the pool. You would think I would need to accompany them to these places, but there are signs saying that only white people are allowed in these areas. So I can only walk them there and then wait at home until it is time to pick them up. One day, they were late to the meeting spot, so I stood under the shade of a tree to keep out of the hot sun. I was beginning to worry something had happened to them and contemplated going onto the beach in order to ensure their safety. But I saw a police van out of the corner of my eye and knew that I crossed the street to the beach now, I would surely be caught and beat. I really hated the signs. I could only go into certain shops, and I could not accompany my baas into certain areas without a pass. Therefore I would have to wait outside in all weather conditions, until he was done. And as I stood there waiting for him, I would be looked at as if I was some sort of eye sore. They all glared at me as they walked by. I always look down and pretend not to see or care, but I feel the eyes burning into my skin as if their hatred were a laser.
One day, while walking with my baas down the street, he told me to wait outside while he went into a building. While standing outside, a policeman called out to me. He asked if I had a pass, when I told him I didn’t he wouldn’t let me explain to him that I was waiting for my baas to come out. He began to hit me, and I curled into a ball as I saw the gardener do. I then felt someone grab me and throw me into the police van. Three weeks later I was let out of prison, thoroughly beaten and exhausted. I was returned to my baas, who beat me more. I hate it here.
For how long has black been a problem? For how long as the color of your skin determined who you are? For how long have I been black and not Themba? It seem as though Themba no longer exists. I no longer exist. I have become part of a black mass that roams around South Africa lonelier than the loneliest shadows. The loneliest shadow is what I have become. Not even a shadow, for shadows are not treated as I am. Shadows are not beaten by the police. Shadows do not have to worry about housing. Shadows do not have to worry about health care. Shadows are treated better than us.
ReplyDeleteThese are the thoughts that have plagued my mind the past few mornings. These are the thoughts that have plagued the minds of thousands of blacks all over South Africa, the homeland. Whose homeland? To whom does the land belong, because I know for certain that it does not belong to us. It does not belong to Themba. This land is homeland for only one color. That color is not the color of the dark lonely nights. That color is not the color of the water we drink. That color is not the color of our skin. That color is the color power and wealth. That color is white.
I must stop thinking these thoughts for today I must work. Work. A word that sends chills down my spine. For this morning as I wake up my child still sleep with their mouths wide open and their eyes shut tight. Their mouths open wide hoping that this will be the morning they will finally have breakfast. Unfortunately it is not that morning yet. A janitor at the local prison does not earn that money. My children will not eat this morning. They know that they must wait for the sun to set before their mouths can be fed.
I walk out of my house, if it can be called that. It is made up of boxes I have collected over the years and managed to arrange in a fashion that provides little safety from the terror outside. I do not turn back for I know if I do I will not go to work. I fear for the life of my children who must stay at home until I return from work. School is no option for my kids. I have never considered putting my kids through school because I know that I will never be able to afford it. I feel guilty since I cannot provide education for my kids.
My wife is gone. Taken by them. She was caught drinking from a fountain the had written on it “Vir Gebruik Deur Blankes.” The police immediately took action by beating her relentlessly and leaving her body there almost as sign to blacks to follow the law. After this instance if have not been able to fight for my rights. I have accepted my place in society as a part of the ANC. Even though I feel strongly and greatly support the ANC I cannot show my support due to the death of my wife.
Themba does not exist. I have become a shadow. Or have I always been a shadow? I have lost hope for my country and for my family. This separation of my country has caused me great grief. This separation of my country has taken the life of my wife and the future of my kids. I can only pray that my children will have more courage than I do and fight back the oppression. Themba does not exist.
I drink the same water as you, I eat food to survive just like you, I have feelings of love like yours, but why do we live worlds apart? Questions I ask myself every day as a black South African. I am by all means South African. My family has lived here peacefully for generations and I have been born and raised here my entire life. Until recently my family has run into troubles.
ReplyDeleteWith apartheid I feel there is little room for us black South Africans. Even though we are native to this land our rights have been stripped. We can no longer receive a good education, it is hard for us to find work, and it feels like we are the dump of society. We are forced to live in shanty towns where my whole family is crammed into seemingly a jail cell. In fact my family of five lives in a three room house. We have a kitchen with assorted pots and pans which were found (few were bought), a bedroom where my wife and I sleep, and a third room where the rest of my children sleep. Our house is completely dilapidated, and I worry sheet metal from the roof will fall and kill one of my children. The conditions are horrible, and as if matters could not get worse gangs are rampant. I constantly worry about my kids being kidnapped or my wife being killed or raped. Because of Apartheid I can’t get out of this cycle of poverty. Us blacks are oppressed so we can’t find high paying jobs, which leaves us in theses shanty towns. This brings up another issue “economic apartheid”. Being black, nobody wants to hire us. I remember one time I noticed a sign “Help Wanted”, at a barber shop. I walked in and asked to apply for the job as a custodian. The white man standing behind the counter simply laughed and then directed me out of his shop. I then looked in a mirror to see if I had something on my face worth laughing at. As I looked closely it hit me that he was laughing at me because I, a black man, was applying for a job at his shop. This to me is absolutely disgusting and wrong. Why can’t I get a job there; I am fully capable and am motivated to work? Well this was just one instance of many where I was reminded that my family may never leave the cycle of poverty. This thought was hard to live with; knowing that your helpless kids may never leave intense poverty. The economic apartheid was indirect but it definitely had a large effect on my family and me.
Mr. Webber, the post above has formated itself wrong. I cannot figure out how to delete it so please dis-regard it.
ReplyDelete(there is no paragraph break)
I drink the same water as you, I eat food to survive just like you, I have feelings of love like yours, but why do we live worlds apart? Questions I ask myself every day as a black South African. I am by all means South African. My family has lived here peacefully for generations and I have been born and raised here my entire life. Until recently my family has run into troubles.
ReplyDeleteWith apartheid I feel there is little room for us black South Africans. Even though we are native to this land our rights have been stripped. We can no longer receive a good education, it is hard for us to find work, and it feels like we are the dump of society. We are forced to live in shanty towns where my whole family is crammed into seemingly a jail cell. In fact my family of five lives in a three room house. We have a kitchen with assorted pots and pans which were found (few were bought), a bedroom where my wife and I sleep, and a third room where the rest of my children sleep. Our house is completely dilapidated, and I worry sheet metal from the roof will fall and kill one of my children. The conditions are horrible, and as if matters could not get worse gangs are rampant. I constantly worry about my kids being kidnapped or my wife being killed or raped. Because of Apartheid I can’t get out of this cycle of poverty. Us blacks are oppressed so we can’t find high paying jobs, which leaves us in theses shanty towns. This brings up another issue “economic apartheid”. Being black, nobody wants to hire us. I remember one time I noticed a sign “Help Wanted”, at a barber shop. I walked in and asked to apply for the job as a custodian. The white man standing behind the counter simply laughed and then directed me out of his shop. I then looked in a mirror to see if I had something on my face worth laughing at. As I looked closely it hit me that he was laughing at me because I, a black man, was applying for a job at his shop. This to me is absolutely disgusting and wrong. Why can’t I get a job there; I am fully capable and am motivated to work? Well this was just one instance of many where I was reminded that my family may never leave the cycle of poverty. This thought was hard to live with; knowing that your helpless kids may never leave intense poverty. The economic apartheid was indirect but it definitely had a large effect on my family and me.
As well as being oppressed economically and being forced to live in the ghettos, there was little to no money to go around in education. I have three children; my youngest daughter is eight, my son nine, and my oldest twelve. They are all enrolled in a school in town. There school has 400 students who are all black. The conditions at this school are horrendous. The teachers are all incompetent, there is minimal books to go around, and the school is dirty and falling apart. Because of this, my poor innocent children can’t receive a good education at all. What is more frustrating is looking at the white children’s schools. They are huge and very well designed and built. Well trained teachers are provided and there is a more than ample supply of books there. It is appalling that the government can provide unbelievable extra amenities for white children but can’t even provide a mediocre school for blacks. Thinking of the horrible education situation for my kids is very upsetting because it reminds me that my children may never escape the horrible living conditions forced upon us.
ReplyDeleteAnother disturbing thing we blacks have to live through is the little healthcare provided for us. Every day I pray that nobody in my family will get sick because we never know when we could see a doctor. In fact, my youngest daughter has never seen a doctor. She was born in my house with the help of a few neighbors. Fortunately she was able to live and fight another day, but other people are often not as fortunate. It is not uncommon to hear black infants dyeing at birth. Both of my neighbors have lost kids in child birth. It is so saddening to think how whites can have all the help you could ever imagine and we blacks are pushed aside and have nothing. This was so upsetting that we often protested. I remember one day myself and several other people went to protest the unfair healthcare. We walked to a white area of town and began peacefully showing our disapproval. Not to our surprise the police pulled up minutes later. Without hesitation they walked up and beat us all. So brutally I still wear the scars from that day. My friend, whose child died as an infant, was beaten so badly he broke his leg. We carried him home, and to this day he still has a limp because he never saw a doctor about it. More disturbingly, at this incident, there were a couple of children laughing when we were being beaten. But out of those kids there that day was standing there and just watching. He was not participating in the laughing but he was just standing there. I made eye contact with him and I saw a tear fall from his eye. Although this may not sound like a big event it gave me hope. It would have been so easy for me to give up all hope of receiving a better life, but because that white child showed compassion it has given me strength even today. Now whenever I feel like nobody cares about us I think of that child.
Apartheid is horrible, I can’t live life, I am stuck in a box. I will never be able to move away from this horrid life, but worst of all my children will always suffer. They will be stuck in shanty towns for the rest of their lives. They will never even get a below average education. They will have to keep fighting off deadly diseases on their own. They will be beaten. All of this is hard to live with. I can't have this happen to my children, but it will. The white man has messed everything up. Even though we both; drink, eat, sleep, dream, love, and die, we are separated. Separated only because the pigment in my skin is black and his is white. Because of the black in my skin I will never be able to live life to the fullest, and neither will my children.
ReplyDeleteBriana Silva
ReplyDeleteJanuary 17, 2011
Is this real? My heart pounds out of my chest while I’m on the ground, unable to move. Why me, why us? This is a question I ask myself every day.
I have tried so hard to mask my true identity and hide in the shadows of society, however I cannot take this anymore. My people have suffered enough, however I feel as if there is nothing I am able to do. Any chance I get, I speak out to this issue that is destroying the beautiful country I live in. The police are brutal to those that act against this law, especially if that person is black, so I run away as soon as I see the police, for I knew I will have a small chance of living if they catch me again. I already received my one “free pass” as the policeman told me, although it did not seem like much of a free pass. I was thrown in jail, and every day I was taken out of my cellar and beaten until my blood completely covered the man’s hands. Then I was sent back into my cellar to sit there, waiting for the next beating. I was released was two months later, and every day I thank God for saving my life, but this seems like the end of my time.
Today March 21, 1960 I decided to partake in a protest Sharpeville Township. My people support the African National Congress, which stresses nonviolent protesting, so naturally we are using only our words to express our feelings. The police have just arrived and it has become a madhouse. Shots ring out in the open air; I try to run through a sea of people when I feel the sharpest pain in my back. I have been shot; I fall to the ground in agony, my breaths are shortening and all I see is a bright light. I know that I am going to die, however I am not upset about this, for I will die doing the right thing for everyone in this country I call home. I can only think about the troubles my people must face every day, how strong we have become over the years. I thank God and the people who have risked their lives to attempt to achieve equality for all in this beautiful country. I know that eventually, the dream will become reality and the people who sacrificed everything will restore the country our ancestors once knew as their land. I say my last word to God and just like that, am gone.
As a child I spent hours listening to my grandfather’s stories. I’d lose myself in my heritage everyday after dinner. My grandfather’s words spilled into my conscience and pulled my Zulu warrior spirit from the oldest part of my soul, the one born in the old Africa, my real homeland.
ReplyDeleteAt the time, these stories strengthened my heart and inflated my pride. Now, the memories of these stories keep my darkest emotions alive. They instigate a war inside of me, where my warrior spirit is screaming to be set free. My black skin lets this war continue because those in power mark it as my crime, the reasoning behind silencing the power within me.
At 35 years old, I have lost my home and my rights. It is 1967, and I live in the KwaZulu Bantustan. The other proud and fierce Zulus are caged here with me, all twisted and abused the same way that I am.
I awake to the stench of oppression, seeping out of the waste that runs through the streets of my township. The insanitary world that I live in often mirrors the poison that runs within me. I scrub my hands to rid myself of this filth and anger, but the black that’s causing it won’t come off. I fumble through the darkness, preparing for my day at work.
I arrive at my employers house, with my shamed identification tucked away safely in my bag. My little warrior once again swells with anger as I step into the extravagant house, so I must scrub my hands again. The black won’t come off, but my warrior won’t quiet down.
I awake the boys for school, and send them off with a smile. I watch their clean and pressed clothes shine as bright as their fair skin as they bounce to school, aware of absolutely nothing. I imagine my daughter and son bouncing along with them, their dark skin contrasting with the white shirts, but no one seems to notice. With the longing for this dream, my warrior wails. I scrub my hands to hush her.
My children would be walking to school at about the same time. They are young, so they are still learning my native tongue in school. By the time the teachers move on to the white’s language of power, my children will probably be forced to drop out and work on the Bantustan’s farms. Sometimes I let myself cry for them, when my hands are scrubbed raw and the warrior still screams. I cry for my children when the boys I care for get sick because this is when I see the gentle and professional care the white children get. I fear a day when my son or daughter may get sick, and there are no gentle, professional hands to care for him or her. I cry because they have been born into a world that hates them. A world where whites pretend everything would be better if we were gone while they simultaneously thrive off of their superiority. A world where they are told that the skin covering their body is stained with stupidity, dirtiness, weakness, and a congenital inferiority.
I am a South African. Born in raised here. My ancestors have been here for centuries. However I am treated like a different species. Why you ask? I have significantly more pigment in my skin than the small percentage of others around me. I am black. However I am treated like I have a contagious disease. I am tortured and beaten for the pleasure of the white man. I ask myself why are we so inferior? What makes us so different to the point that we are treated worse than animals?
ReplyDeleteThe fact of the matter is that my ancestors were here before these Afrikaners however; we have no problem sharing the motherland- they do. They feel entitled to this land- to treating us like road kill because they think they are better. Why? We are just like them. Eating, sleeping, living, loving, dying, mourning… I question if all men feel this way about us. There are the few very special whites whom sometimes stand up for us in various ways- however it is to no avail. I heard of one family who was in support of the ANC and their family were sent t-shirts that had been soaked in acid and killed their two little children. How can a government do this to us? Millions of us behind bars, living in hell.
Since the age of 11 I have been serving a white family. Cooking, cleaning and serving the parents and the child. It’s interesting to me because until I was imprisoned, the son in the family seemed to enjoy my company, however he had no problem ordering me around directing me what to do- something he would never do to a white elder. I got him ready for school, cooked and cleaned for him and took care of the up-keep of his family’s pristine mansion in Johannesberg which my father helped to build. All of my black relatives and friends have a hand in creating the town in which we and the whites live. From building the buildings, to cleaning the insides of them and driving people to get them there we as a community have a huge hand in the functionality of this city. However we are thought of as nothing more than people to walk over. If we are to get sick- no one cares. There is no health care for us. We must suffer and often times die. We receive less respect than house pets in the white homes.
My uncle is the grounds keeper of a school for white boys. The campus is gorgeous- field after field of rolling green grass and dormitories fit for kings. I will never attend a school like this- no one of my color ever will. We are not allowed in the schools with the white kids- which are the only schools.
ReplyDeleteIn this hell that is called prison I witness daily beatings and torturing. Food is scarce and I cannot remember the last time I smiled. Why am I here? I did not steal, I did not hurt anyone no… I was waiting to collect Johnny, the boy whom I care for when I saw two white cops repeatedly punching a boy from my town-ship in the stomach in an attempt to make him vomit. Why? Because he was walking down the street and they were board. At seeing this I made the mistake of coming over to attempt to help him. I have grown up with this boy, he lives two shacks down from my family- I had to try to help. Instead, I was knocked unconscious by a bat yielded by the larger of the two police and the next thing I remember is waking up in this cold cell. The injustice has brought me to tears many a time. Seeing people from every generation beaten and tortured like this- without being able to do anything is heart wrenching.
All I want is peace. However for us blacks achieving this is nearly impossible. I… we want to leave in harmony with every other race. Black, white, coloured, purple, green I don’t care. I want to be treated like a human being. Simply be able to go to the beach with my family. Go into restaurants. Be able to walk down the street with out the fear of being caught and beaten. I want to be treated like what I am; a citizen of South Africa. I want to not have to be confined to the townships- where animals should not have to live. “Bantu” and “kaffir” should not be words that I hear on a daily basis. We are all humans, and some day I pray we will take the advice from one Nelson Mandela and listen when he says “If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.” One day I hope we will all be free and function as one community all as South Africans.
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAll my life I have been looked at as an inferior. I am worthless and a good-for-nothing Zulu living in the congested townships. Under the strict rules and regulations that have been put forth by the leading oppression of the whites, I have been defeated.
ReplyDeleteI was born on the brink of this terrible disaster that hit South Africa and implemented separateness throughout. As a child I was well protected, unaware of this horrid places’ outlook on my people, but as I grew older some of my friends would disappear, some of my family would disappear, never to be seen again.
I am destitute, right-less, and am beginning to believe that I need to do something for change to happen. Unfortunately, I can do nothing but wait. I try to keep the hope in my family alive, telling them “there will be change,” but day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, nothing changes. My son is lost, two of my daughters are lost, all I do is hope that the rest of my kids stay and do something powerful to bring back the South Africa there should be, the South Africa that we used to have. Nevertheless I hope that my family will survive; however, this is a lot to ask for under this dominance we live under.
I am still locked up, awaking every morning knowing that I should be scared for my life. My township, the contaminated filth that I live in, is swept with fear, no hope for change. I believe there will be a revolt to end this white inflicted oppression. Will I join? Will I sit in desperateness? Will I risk my life for the hope of change? I have complied with this constant control of us blacks my whole life, not able to break away, but when does this end?
My mind, made up. Tomorrow, I will join my people in a peaceful demonstration with the hope for change. Is there hope? I believe there is. The place were we demonstrated was grimy, there was nothing but a field of dirt, packed of musk. It was full of Blacks and Coloured, all fearful for their lives, but all willing to risk theirs for this common goal of change. We held our signs up to show the world our oppression, to express our feelings, to describe our lives.
There, in the distance, I saw my children. Screaming for them to run, I was hopeless. As they were being shot, I tried, I tried, I tried, to run to save them. There was no hope. I went home that day knowing of the injustice to come, knowing of the hardships to come, knowing that even if I give my life, nothing will change. For South Africa has been taken from its roots to uphold nothing but injustice.
Alex Ryan
ReplyDeleteMr. Webber
Honors Modern World History
17 January 2011
I don’t have much hope for the protests after the events of today – the level of violence that the police used against us was unbelievable. I saw bodies littering the streets – young, innocent students (who are all now in a better place than this living hell), women, children…
It breaks my heart every time that we have to do this, that we have to lose such a precious part of our country’s future, that we have to sacrifice the crown jewels of so many broken families. I have already talked to parents, whose children were dead before they even woke up this morning. They were all numb – deaf and dumb with disbelief that their invaluable children, who have already been lucky to survive so much, are gone. Fortunately, I’ve long since gotten over the guilt – if we are ever to reach a world where the possibility of death or worse no longer hangs over our heads every second of every day and night, if we are ever to reach a world of freedom and equality – some must die. But children! Poor, harmless children! The government’s blindness astonishes me.
Already the journalists that we had brought in have been smuggled across the border to Zimbabwe, where they will find a charter plane waiting for them at a secluded airfield. Their cameras have been shipped back to Europe and America, and their rolls of film cut into dozens of pieces and sent back hidden in letters and packages. We have done everything we can; now all that is left is for us to wait, and hope. And for me to pray that God will forgive me for the atrocities that I have helped to make possible.
I have not heard from my brother in the mines in weeks; as every night passes with no word I become more and more resigned to the supposition that some filthy Afrikaner got too drunk and too angry and decided to find a convenient kaffir to take it out on. All the better for him, in my opinion – I almost envy him his restful, untroubled sleep. More likely, however, he contracted malaria and died bleeding in the streets while white passerby barely avoided stepping on him and fellow blacks walked by slightly more sympathetically. I myself have not had a job since I returned to South Africa – the skills I learned working on the railroads up north are worthless in a nation where a train company would be shut down for hiring a black conductor. My beautiful wife, Nomzamo, walks to work in the city at dawn every morning to her job as a servant in a big house owned by an old English family. She comes home after dark, and then immediately gets to work with me planning the next move against the government. Her unmatched resolve and emotional reserves astound me every day – she has been arrested and harassed by police, and even had to change her name after it became known that she was my wife, yet she still stands strong in the face of the injustice.
ReplyDeleteThe death counts will probably be in by tomorrow; I’m guessing upward of 500. I have no doubt that somewhere in Johannesburg a bunch of old, fat, white men are making bets about how many the police managed to take care of this time – like they’re doctors and we’re bacteria that only respond to one antibiotic: lead. Yet we both know that, try as they might, the infection of truth and justice is unstoppable and no quantity of bullets and beatings can stop it from spreading. I just hope that they stop denying it sometime soon!
I do know, however, that not every person with white skin is a personification of the devil – just as they judge us all as one simply because we look alike, we must learn to see each of them for themselves through their skin. I’m starting to find myself devoting just as much time during the OAU meetings to defending whites as I am fighting them! I’ve had the pleasure of having a number of white friends over the years – some of the greatest human beings I’ve ever met, they were the few willing to stand up to their own government’s injustice. They were suitably rewarded, of course, by being killed or imprisoned and watching their families suffer; to the man, I know of not one that still leads a normal life today.
But I must now return to my work; to whoever you are who has found this, let my story be a lesson to you – a lesson in the consequences of injustice; a lesson in the costs of resistance; and a lesson in the depths to which humanity is capable of sinking.
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ReplyDeleteLost Dreams, Empty Future
ReplyDeleteI watched Ellie skip outside with her friends to play tag in her vast backyard. I knew that when she and her friends came back inside, their white skin would be rosy from the warm sun. Their laughter filtered into the dark kitchen, a constant reminder of the differences between Ellie and me. Their chattering and frequent giggles seemed to mock me, but in reality, they did not even notice me. I was just a shadow, a small, dark shape in the kitchen, busy cooking and cleaning.
My name is Nkosazana. It means “Princess,” but I am nothing like the royalty that I see in Ellie’s books. Ellie is the real princess, and I am only her family’s servant. When I count out the years I have been alive, ten seems like too small a number. I feel much older, as if my childhood has been stolen from me. I suppose that in South Africa in 1965, a young black girl must grow up quickly, especially if she wants to earn a living. Ellie, who is twelve years old, lives in comfort and can be a child for many more years. She can still have dreams and fantasies, something that I gave up as soon as I dropped out of school to come and work at Ellie’s home. I receive no healthcare from Ellie’s family, and I sleep on the hard, cold kitchen floor every night. I need a pass just to buy groceries for Ellie and her family, which can hardly be considered gratitude for the tiring work I do each day. The little English that I learned in school barely allows me to understand orders that I am given.
The rest of my family is not much better off than I am. Both my brothers live in Gazankulu, where they have had a hard time finding work. They stand up against apartheid and the pass laws, but the only outcome of their efforts is being frequently beaten by the police. I had a third brother that I barely remember. He was killed when I was four by a policeman who believed that he had stolen from a white man’s home.
My people have been reduced to nothing under apartheid. It is a chain growing ever tighter around our necks, only allowing us enough breath to work, sometimes not even that. We have been pushed to the periphery of the white vision, and they want us pushed farther still until we disappear. Will they ever feel that we are far enough away? Even as a ten-year-old I can see that they will not.
Works Cited
Davis, R. Hunt, ed. "apartheid, 1950s to 1991." Encyclopedia of African History and Culture: Independent Africa (1960 to Present), vol. 5. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. Modern World History Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?
ItemID=WE53&iPin=AHCV0036&SingleRecord=True 17 Jan. 2011.
Davis, R. Hunt, ed. "Bantustans." Encyclopedia of African History and Culture: Independent Africa (1960 to Present), vol. 5. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. Modern World History Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?
ItemID=WE53&iPin=AHCV0061&SingleRecord=True 17 Jan. 2011.
Davis, R. Hunt, ed. "Bantu education." Encyclopedia of African History and Culture: Independent Africa (1960 to Present), vol. 5. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. Modern World History Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?
ItemID=WE53&iPin=AHCV0060&SingleRecord=True 17 Jan. 2011.
Webber, Mr. "Apartheid." Honors World History Class. Pacific Ridge School, Carlsbad. 10 Jan. 2011. Lecture.
What am I? Why am I even here if I am not a human? Every day I lose a reason to keep fighting. I struggle miserably to see the end. But what do I know I might not even finish at all. My family has already been taken. What if I am next? The white despise me because I am not one of them, when really this is my country too. I have been here for hundreds of years. How I pray my great grandchildren will see a country filled with little black and white children playing together in the street. But until then they will look at me as if I am uncivilized and a barbarian. I am not an animal. I am human. A black human.
ReplyDeleteWe all have been tormented. They beat us if we don’t cook their food correctly, if we don’t work their fields correctly, and if we don’t teach their children correctly. As I walk down the streets and look at the schools. The white children have a lovely building with fresh pavement, new buildings, and educated teachers. While the white children have luxury, the black children have nothing but a little one roomed building where they have to sit on the cold hard ground. The worst thing is we make the white schools possible. We create and make everything that the white enjoy and they still look at us if we are nothing. The jobs we do make their jobs possible. Without us, they would be nothing. As the white walk to work in their territory only, nothing but a hello comes from the police but if I venture into their territory, I would be beaten, taken, and put in jail. If I was to drop in a quick second I would not be taken to the hospital, I wouldn’t be cared for; I would only lie there in my pain. Nobody would help, just pass by. But if a white man dropped down he would be taken to the hospital and be put in the best care there is.
Before my family was taken, I could barely keep them all sheltered. Each day we would have to rotate who would sleep inside. And only having one bathroom for seven children was not easy. But I did all I could to take care of them. If only they were still here with me. I would rather have my family and nothing than be a white man with everything.
I feel as if I could do anything the white are doing. I feel as if I had the chance and the opportunity I could be just as good as them. The resources are all we need. One day someone will stand against, one day we will. But until then, I will always feel hatred and abhor the government and the people that pursue its’ evil doings. I will always wait and hope that they will give rights to all. But until the day comes where we rebel completely, I will always scorn the color white.
They took my family, they make my job miserable, they make education impossible, and they make it hard on us, just so they have better. No mercy is taken unless you are the color of white. Hope for justice is fleeting we are slaves in our own country and imprisoned by the color of our skin. Yet someday, if there is a God in heaven, justice will be served; that is our only hope.
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ReplyDeleteClaire Nassif
ReplyDeleteMr. Webber
History, Period 4
17 January 2011
I am living in a white man’s world. A world, in which the white people live frivolous lives to the detriment of my people, the Zulus, and the rest of black South Africa. While their children are sent off to boarding schools adorned with tennis courts and luxurious housing, I live in fear every day that one of my children will be killed for simply having a darker hue of skin. Sometimes I think of the world around me, in which innocent people die for a seemingly impossible cause, and I wonder if life is worth it. I am simply tucked away into a township without access to health care or education for my children so that the whites do not have to deal with me as if I something less than a human. I think of the pain that I and the rest of my people have felt after loved ones have died. I think of all of the times my kids have looked up at me with bewildered expressions as they wonder why the white kids get to play on the beaches while they sit at home with growling stomachs. The worst part is having to explain to my children that they may never receive the same privileges as the white kids. These are only some of the aches of apartheid.
The Afrikaners have come into our homeland, turned us into monsters, and forced their language and ways upon us; yet, we are not equals, we are the underside of human civilization and forced to live unhealthy lives, while they steal the fruits of our labor. To say I do not want revenge would be a lie, but we must fight with pride and stay above their lowly ways. I simply need liberation from these hollow days and sleepless nights, in which I feel pain for the people who have been incarcerated or killed fighting for our cause: Steven Biko, Nelson Mandela, Victoria Mxenge- the heroes and victims of apartheid. I fight in the name of the ANC and I fight in the name of the people at Sharpville who were murdered because they wanted the basic rights of a human being. However, there are victims of the apartheid that are more personal than others. I vividly remember the day my husband left to find a new job because his employer decided he was not needed anymore. It was a regular Wednesday, but what I did not know at the time was that my husband was not going to work, he was going to protest. Now that I recall this day, I remember that my husband had had a different way about him. On any other day, he would have woken up with a small grunt and a sigh as he realized that he was at the beginning of another inevitably terrible day. At the time I thought he was excited for a new job, but now I realize his nervous yet radiating smile was fueled by his anticipation for the coming events. At the end of this day I looked out the window for his arrival, but only darkness filled the window. I had hopes that he would show the next day, but my husband had been swallowed by the apartheid.
ReplyDeleteI am living in a white man’s world, but I raise my right fist to the end of apartheid and the birth of equality throughout South Africa.
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ReplyDeleteAs the 300th anniversary of Jan van Rieebeck’s landing at Cape Town comes closer, nothing but a dark realization comes to me. My people have been exploited by the isiphukuphuku who have ruled these lands for the longest of time. It makes me wonder, how can any human being be any different from the next? My ancestors may have had quarrels over land and water, but to subjugate an entire population, which within has many divisions, to the injustice of apartheid is unforgivable.
ReplyDeleteMy life started in a township, much like any other black man, in the late 30’s when Hitler’s shadow was cast across the world. I grew up seeing my mother early in the morning and late at night. At first I did not know why my mother was abandoning me for the majority of the day everyday till I was six. Now I realize that it was she who was putting food on the table for me and by brothers and sisters, by being a nanny for a white family. My father worked in the mines 800 miles away from home, helping the umlungu mine diamonds in Botswana.
I never ventured out of my township when I was young, as my parents did not want me to be picked up by the white people and put into their service. While I was not deprived of a basic education, I was deprived of almost everything else in my teenage years. I could not play any sport competitively outside my township, nor could I go outside without the fear of being beaten by the police, for no apparent reason.
As soon as I learned of the African National Congress from my parents, I became driven towards fighting for our rights, and the fact that the white people do not eclipse the black people and their rich tribal history. Albert Luthuli, one of my personal heroes, said, "Our interest in freedom is not confined to ourselves only. We are interested in the liberation of the oppressed in the whole of Africa and in the world as a whole," thus solidifying my belief that the roots of racism needed to be vanquished.
ReplyDeleteAfter the landslide victory of the Nationalist Party in 1948, we found ourselves in quite a bind. With apartheid in effect, my race would suffer a significant amount more than any other racially prosecuted people in history. Random and brutal police killings, no freedom of movement or speech, and lack of recognition by the white population as human beings. There were horrible tales from the prisons that leaked into our townships of brutal torture and the bloodstained walls of the prison warders’ ‘special rooms.’
The Freedom Charter of 1955, which called for equality among all races, led to worse persecution of my race, as now the paranoid umlungu called us Communists. I was detained by a gang of police members as I was walking back from my factory job to my home; they were demanding to see my papers, and forced me to empty my pockets in the process. When they saw my papers, they proclaimed that I was out past curfew, when it was clearly 4:34pm. They then proceeded to handcuff me, and dragged me to an alley, and proceeded to beat me until bloody welts covered my entire body. The beating lasted till past curfew, giving them a reason to jail me.
I did not feel a single blow that they administered unto me. For non-violent protest, and mental solidarity is the key for success among us black South Africans. Letting the world know of the injustices that we are suffering will only help us in the long run. No matter how much the white people kill, how much they destroy, black South Africans will unite as one, and together we will protest the evil that is apartheid.
Ian Torbett
ReplyDelete01/17/10
World History
Will this cycle of violence ever end? Who will save South Africa? As I sit here in my cell, on Robben Island, I gaze through my cell bars, only to see the oppression by whites in full swing. The whites have destroyed the country, plaguing South Africa with racial discrimination and violent oppression. We, the native South Africans, the Zulus, are brutally beat by the white police regularly. With no rights, no privileges, no money, no health care, no schooling, our society has descended into chaos.
My family has no money. The last time we were full… I cannot remember. I have lived this way the day I was born. In my youth, I did not understand the actions of the African National Congress, until I was a teen and witnessed the massacre Sharpville. Seeing bullets pass through my peers and my, dear father, shocked me, changing my life forever. The blood flowed down the streets, the crys of the oppressed burned into my mind.
Walking around the streets of Johannesburg, protesting the apartheid, in every way shape or form, has gotten me arrested more times than I can count. I began to become recognized by the African National Congress, and soon became a local leader in my community. The more I opposed, the more I suffered. Now every time I go out into the streets, I risk my life to preserve the values of our society.
When I resist, along with the other “inferior” people of South Africa, the white police descend upon us, with soldiers bristling with weapons, ready to stop our revolt. They mercilessly gun down the protesters with no warning, destroying lives, families, and communities. They destroy the fabric of our society and corrupt the future families.
In one particular demonstration, my fellow protesters and I were beat by a police envoy. As their batons hit my face, everything suddenly went red, then blue, then black. And the next I know, I was in a police jail cell. As they looked at my record, the whites discovered I was a prominent political leader, so they jailed me at Robben Island.
Will we ever be free? Can we ever be equal? As a glance to the adjacent cell, I see the sole man who can change the face of South Africa, Nelson Mandela. He is my hope, my light in the dark, my inspiration. We must change; we must become equal, no matter the consequences.
Jake Smith
ReplyDeleteWorld History
Webber Per. 6
January 17, 2011
The Tide is High
“Hey you…. Stop! Get on the ground.” I turned to the man who was yelling. He pointed at me, “Get on the ground.” My reply was simply, “ NO.”
“Jake get up your going to be late to the farm,” my mom shouted. It was dark… how every day began. Why so early? It seems like I fell asleep two minutes ago and here I am getting ready for another day. I came into the kitchen with enough time to grab a biscuit and then I was gone. 3 miles seems a lot longer in the morning.
When I got to the ranch I immediately started my daily routine. Water the plants, pick the weeds, plant new plants, collect tobacco, feed the chickens, milk the cows and I usually finish by either washing the farm owner’s car or garage. You would think all of this would take maybe three hours, try twelve. And yet still the money I bring home is hardly enough to make a difference. So I finish around 8 and start the walk back home. It was dark… how every day ended.
“I’ll give you NO!!,” a swing and a miss. It was now or never, I planted a kick into the man’s gut. He fell to the ground, out of breath. “How dare you, you bloody Kaffir,” one more kick shut him up. There he sat whimpering on the concrete, I got real close and whispered, “The day is breaking, a light in the sea of darkness will turn the tide. Are you ready?”
As I walked home I heard a slow siren and footsteps. Jim, a boy who worked on the farm with me ran by. As I turned and saw the police car I jumped into the bushes and watched, little did I know the horror, which was about to take place. The police car stopped and the two policemen got out of the car; one pulled out his pistol and shot at Jim. To my relief it caught Jim in the leg, but the bullet was not to kill it was to immobilize. The other policeman turned and opened the back door releasing two attack dogs. “Go” the policeman said, laughing as he did.
I left the man to his crying and walked into the night. As soon as one is wounded the angry start coming so I needed to get out of sight fast. So I took to a dirt path leading up towards a mountain. There wasn’t much left for us here in Africa, but we stay anyway. Because we believe in hope, that is what drives us and pushes us to keep fighting. But is there any hope left? Is there anything worth fighting for? I thought about this for a long time as I stared at a fork in the road. Should I run? Save myself and live a life of living. Or should I stay and fight for a life worth living?
I sat in the bushes crying for a long time. When I arrived back at the house I told my mom Mr. Warren had kept me late washing his car. As I walked up the stairs I thought about Jim, the policemen and all of my friends. Who’s next? The dreams I had that night haunted me for a long time. And the next day was just another day in the cycle that never ended.
It was dark... I stared at the fork for a long time, thinking about my past, present and future. I looked up at the sky at the moon and the stars and saw a light that I had never seen before. This decision would affect my life forever. But I was ready.
Jake Smith
ReplyDeleteWorld History
Webber Per. 6
January 17, 2011
The Tide is High
“Hey you…. Stop! Get on the ground.” I turned to the man who was yelling. He pointed at me, “Get on the ground.” My reply was simply, “ NO.”
“Jake get up your going to be late to the farm,” my mom shouted. It was dark… how every day began. Why so early? It seems like I fell asleep two minutes ago and here I am getting ready for another day. I came into the kitchen with enough time to grab a biscuit and then I was gone. 3 miles seems a lot longer in the morning.
When I got to the ranch I immediately started my daily routine. Water the plants, pick the weeds, plant new plants, collect tobacco, feed the chickens, milk the cows and I usually finish by either washing the farm owner’s car or garage. You would think all of this would take maybe three hours, try twelve. And yet still the money I bring home is hardly enough to make a difference. So I finish around 8 and start the walk back home. It was dark… how every day ended.
“I’ll give you NO!!,” a swing and a miss. It was now or never, I planted a kick into the man’s gut. He fell to the ground, out of breath. “How dare you, you bloody Kaffir,” one more kick shut him up. There he sat whimpering on the concrete, I got real close and whispered, “The day is breaking, a light in the sea of darkness will turn the tide. Are you ready?”
As I walked home I heard a slow siren and footsteps. Jim, a boy who worked on the farm with me ran by. As I turned and saw the police car I jumped into the bushes and watched, little did I know the horror, which was about to take place. The police car stopped and the two policemen got out of the car; one pulled out his pistol and shot at Jim. To my relief it caught Jim in the leg, but the bullet was not to kill it was to immobilize. The other policeman turned and opened the back door releasing two attack dogs. “Go” the policeman said, laughing as he did.
I left the man to his crying and walked into the night. As soon as one is wounded the angry start coming so I needed to get out of sight fast. So I took to a dirt path leading up towards a mountain. There wasn’t much left for us here in Africa, but we stay anyway. Because we believe in hope, that is what drives us and pushes us to keep fighting. But is there any hope left? Is there anything worth fighting for? I thought about this for a long time as I stared at a fork in the road. Should I run? Save myself and live a life of living. Or should I stay and fight for a life worth living?
ReplyDeleteI sat in the bushes crying for a long time. When I arrived back at the house I told my mom Mr. Warren had kept me late washing his car. As I walked up the stairs I thought about Jim, the policemen and all of my friends. Who’s next? The dreams I had that night haunted me for a long time. And the next day was just another day in the cycle that never ended.
It was dark... I stared at the fork for a long time, thinking about my past, present and future. I looked up at the sky at the moon and the stars and saw a light that I had never seen before. This decision would affect my life forever. But I was ready.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe lonely days of oppression carry on. Segregation upholds. A family riven from me by white hands resides is a once peaceful Zululand. A black, beaten, overused tool and nothing more is what I’ve become. My kind: solely a barrier, a barrier that lies between the demons and complete domination; complete supremacy. Of course, extermination is unlikely, for us “Kaffir Bastards” come in handy around the white castles. Permanently employed to maintain the White’s lives of luxuriousness. The job and routine are simple. The morning meals, scrubbing dirt laden floors intentionally defiled to keep us prisoners active, the housekeeping, afternoon meal making, further cleaning, the daily market run and finally dinner preparation. The wage is deficient, the food is not enough, but who am I to complain? After my work I tiresomely escape to my private quarters for a meager break. I dwell where my masters’ pets dwell, the henhouse. Yet, seemingly I am not as important as the irritating animals that surround me, and so remains the name of my quarters, the “henhouse”, not “the servant’s house”. Alone, I sleep. I wash. I wake to a cacophony of rooster cries signaling yet another day’s work. At this point, I must interject. I assume I have confused you seeing as how I, a black Kaffir slave living during the White-imposed South African Apartheid, have written a story, quite intellectually I might add. The Truth: I am different from the bulk of my kind; a superior among and inferior race. What the whites fail to acknowledge is that I, on the inside, am not unlike them; I, incomparably to my black allies, am an educated slave, yet a slave nonetheless. I have acquired my knowledge through books, poems, and any other literature I can procure.
ReplyDeleteMy master’s possess a voluminous collection of novels, novels of which I have sneakily taken (and returned) over the years for my own pleasures. I’ve developed and perfected a stealing tactic. Stealing is much harder than it’s made out to be, especially in my circumstance. Quite literally, getting caught would be the end of my existence. Anyway, my clever strategy is as follows: often because my masters are away during my work hours I have no supervision. I can easily steal what I’d want. The difficulty is that when the demons return they might suspect my wrongdoing. Therefore, I have become subtle in my actions, only taking one book at a time and never for more than a couple of days. If anything, reading is my one passion. Six years I’ve kept up my deviousness and not once have I been caught. Six years I’ve been exiled on this wretched white island, segregated from my own people. Life is hard, but I’ve learned to accept and endure.
ReplyDeleteI’ve tried to escape this wretched life and start anew. I’ve looked for work elsewhere, though my options are limited. The Colour Bar Act disallows my practicing any “skilled trades”. I’ve learned about these acts, laws and racial hardships through my masters’ newspapers. I’ve learned that a Population Registration Act is the reason I have to I carry with me a racial classifying pass. I am marked as a “Black”. Wherever I venture I’m forced to reveal my racial inferiority with a trivial slip of grimy paper, a slip that is the difference between a life of riches and satisfaction and a life in the dumps. It’s quite demeaning.
The scars on my back and face remain. Beatings continue unreasonably. On a recent excursion to a White vicinity for the purpose of acquiring my masters’ necessities (food et cetera), I curiously peered into the dreary eyes of a tall white man, broadly built. He exclaimed, “What you lookin’ at you Kaffir Bastard?” He pushed me to the ground and furiously began his beating. I lay down questioning the man’s morals and wondering why those who passed evaded and ignored the hideous sight. The ground strewn with my blood, and the tears I couldn’t hold back, shook with each kick. I was helpless, hopeless and scared of what might happen if I were to commit a more significant mistake in front of a White bigot.
ReplyDeleteThe newspapers mention a “terrorist” group called the African Nationalist Congress. The group supposedly supports communism and opposes any form of discrimination along with any form of segregation. I fear the words written by a white hand are skewed. I’ve learned not to trust everything I hear or read; I’ve learned to differentiate between fact and opinion. Discrimination is present in every White person, everywhere. To them Blacks are the epitome of evilness and ugliness. My people, true Africans, have no intention of creating a communist society o I assume the ANC has logical goals and aims to put an end to the tragic White domination. How can I come in contact with the notorious faction? And what are their objectives? Could they help make South Africa one again? If only I could access unbiased information about the group!
I’ve heard of a Black man, Nelson Mandela, seeks freedom and protests apartheid. He appears to be an evil man, though I have interpreted otherwise. He was jailed and will never be released. I dream of the man and being in his position. I have had thoughts of rebelling, but a one man protest is ineffective and will most certainly lead to my demise. I rarely come in contact with other Africans, so rallying and protesting seem implausible.
Yet, I remain hopeful. It’s this single emotion that keeps me alive and lively. My family could be okay. Some day in the near future I might see them again. But till then the apartheid continues, the Whites dominate and death strikes the Blacks frequently.
Works Cited
ReplyDelete"Apartheid South Africa." Cheap Flights, Car Rentals, Hotels, Cruises & Ballooning. Web. 17 Jan. 2011. .
"The History of Apartheid in South Africa." Student Information. Web. 17 Jan. 2011. .
Webber, Chris. "Apartheid." History Class. US, Carlsbad, CA. 11 Jan. 2011. Lecture.
View of Apartheid Through a Zulu’s Eyes
ReplyDeleteAs a Zulu, I am a proud person and even under the crippling weight of oppression I try to remain strong for family. My husband has been missing for 6 days now and my fear of his arrest has been confirmed by rumors running though the township where I live. I also caught a glimpse of the newspaper as I was cleaning my baas’ house and his name was listed under traitors of the state who had been arrested. My dear husband was a known member of the Umkhonto we Sizwe sect of the ANC led by Nelson Mandela which had given up on nonviolent protests of Apartheid and turned to a violence to try to get their point across. I just hope that he will not die in prison like so many others do.
Our oppressors, the whites, don’t feel that blacks and coloureds are worthy of good schools or that black children worthy of being taught at the same level as their kids are. To make it worse, the classes are taught in Afrikaans because of that bleary law the government passed. How are the children supposed to learn in school if they can’t understand the language they are being taught in? Those whites are always preaching that their God loves everyone equally and in his eyes everyone is equal. Those born-again Christians are always trying to live by the ways of God yet they don’t seem to be following God in this way at all.
Everyday I hear new stories about how the whites are imposing their unjust superiority. The other day my neighbor’s husband, Chaka, was walking back to the township from work just a few minutes after curfew and the police stopped him. Instead of hearing his legitimate reason for being out late the police punched Chaka in the face until he couldn’t see. If Chaka even whimpered with pain the police would hit him just hit him even harder. When they were finished with him they left him to slink into the bush with the hope that he would not encounter another policeman.
I am a lucky woman as far as work goes compared to most other women in my township. My baas doesn’t pay me much but when I am milling about her house cleaning and cooking she leaves me alone to do my work. The only jobs that black women are allowed to get are jobs as maids or cooks. Apparently white females are to good to clean their own houses and black women are too dirty to be a librarian for example. All of the good jobs are saved for the whites while all of the menial jobs are left for us wretched black folk.
ReplyDeleteI hate to see my beloved South Africa so segregated. I don't see why the English and Boers feel the need to impress their superiority so firmly upon us. What if the tables turned and they were the inferior ones whom were striped from their rights; how would they feel about that? In fact we are basically the same except for the hue of our skin except that we were here first. The Boers and English have no right to oppress the native South Africans especially since they are the foreigners. I don't have a problem sharing the amazing country but they must learn to respect the natives or blacks as they call us, accept our differences and become one united nation.
Cummings, Denis. "On This Day: Nelson Mandela Sentenced to Life in Prison." FindingDulcinea | Online Guides | Internet Library | Web Resources. 12 June 2010. Web. 18 Jan. 2011. .
The government works hard these days. The Englishmen and the Afrikaans work hard to ensure we're separate. They say “separate but equal” is the policy. I guess we're lucky the Englishmen and the Afrikaans work so hard to keep us separate. Grandpa says it wasn't always that way, before the Englishmen and the Afrikaans came. I asked him if things were better then; he said things were different, and that our people were stronger. I couldn't figure out what he meant, so I went outside to play. The places we lived were full of adventure. We would search the junkyards outside our house for tools and supplies for the latest imaginary games. Grandpa didn't like living near the junkyards, but we thought they were treasure troves. Grandpa always talked about living closer to schools, or even having schools, but for the rest of us kids the junkyards provided endless entertainment. Sometimes we would go near the fences and watch the Englishman and the Afrikaans driving back and forth in their shiny metal cars. They were brilliantly bright colors, and the drivers wore sharp, neat, strange-looking clothes. Our grandpa called the cars the “carriages of death,” but I never saw them harm anything, except when they ran into each other. The shiny metal carriages zoom back and forth, carrying important-looking people to important-looking places to do important-looking things. We never saw what they did, but we could tell they were important because of the frantic irritated way they ran about, all the Englishmen and the Afrikaans in their shiny metal carriages. We invented tales of big fat men arguing heatedly over new ways to keep our two societies separate, with more fences, with the invention of the passbooks law, with the separate train carriages. Telling these fantasies made us immensely proud of the excellent job the big fat men had done keeping us separate and safe. For surely, if ever anything disturbed the fences that kept us apart, we would mix with the Englishmen and the Afrikaans and their shiny metal carriages, and that would not be good. Sometimes kids would pass by the fence. The older ones who were 11 or 12 would walk by us without looking, and we would not look at them. But the ones that were 5 or 6 would run up to us, waving frantically. We wouldn't make eye contact, fearing to disturb the precarious balance of society. But the children's parents would come up and pull the English and Afrikaans children away, scolding the daring to go against the big fat men's rules. We would watch these goings all day sometimes, but we would always be sure to be back home by 9, or we would break the passbook law that kept us safe. We returned from the fence to our house to have supper and discuss what we saw. But one day, I came home to one of the big fat men arguing with my grandpa.
ReplyDeleteThe big fat man was yelling in English, and Grandpa was yelling back in English. I asked the room what was going on. The big fat man turned around, and, speaking in fractured Zulu, said we had to leave our home. Grandpa cut across and told me we weren't moving anywhere. Big Fat Man repeated what he said, and I thought aloud “I'm sure he's trying to keep us safe.” Grandpa looked at me in a way I couldn't figure out. Big Fat Man chuckled and ruffled my hair, then went back to arguing with Grandpa. I slunk back outside, feeling Grandpa's eyes examining me. The next day we packed up and left, and I asked Grandpa why we had to leave, and he said the Big Fat Man told us to. I couldn't understand why he wanted us to move. Grandpa said it was to make room for the Englishmen and Afrikaans, and we were in the way, nobody wanted to make room for the us. Grandpa said it was because all the important-looking people going important-looking places for important-looking things were Englishmen and Afrikaans, and none of them were khaffirs, like us. I asked him what a khaffir was. He said a khaffir was anyone who wasn't an Englishmen or an Afrikaans, and were less important. When I asked him why we were less important, he only said “Because the Englishmen and the Afrikaans say so,” and we kept moving.
ReplyDeleteRochelle Dong
ReplyDeleteFear.
Pain.
Everyday, I experience so these feelings. They never leave me, and have become who I am
.
I see my friends, my neighbors, my family in such squalor compared to the white people.
The other day, I saw two of my friends. Dogs were attacking them, and the white policemen were laughing, cheering for the dogs. I couldn’t do anything but just watch as they were getting mauled, and beaten.
As I trend around my neighborhood, if you can call it that, I see the white people, dressed in smart uniforms, going to school. What will I be doing today? I will be trying to feed my family and attend my sick sister. The white people do not need to even worry about it. They have more doctors, hospitals, everything needed to make them better, and we are banned from them. We must be separated from these superior white people. Many newborns die; only about a handful survive being born. But once born, they also are susceptible to death by disease, police brutality, or other hardships. It is not easy being a black Southern African.
One step out of line, and we are beaten, sent to prison, or even killed. We live in fear every day of our lives.
We live in the shadows of the white people. Us, the real people of South Africa. Why are we living in such squalor? How are we any different than these white people who come and take our land and drive us out of our homes? What did we do to deserve this treatment?
The answer, is nothing. We are the rightful people of South Africa, and yet, we are the ones that must live in the shadows. The townships, they are dumps! We have no running water, none of the pleasures of the white people. They live in palaces compared to us.
Every day, my father goes to work. He works for the white people, but yet, he is only able to scrap a living. All his money goes to feeding me and my family. He is required to walk around with a document that signifies that he is a black that has work. How degrading. One day, he forgot to bring it. The police found him without his document, and beat him so severely that he was unable to go to work for the rest of the month. All because he forgot a stupid piece of paper!
Ah, and the people of black Africa, the African National Congress, those strong men. Those were the people who were brave enough to stand up to those white people. And even they were put into jail! Imprisoned for life. This act gives the rest of us no hope. Is there ever a day when black will have the same rights as those white people? Today, that day seems very far away.
Rochelle Dong
ReplyDeleteFear.
Pain.
Everyday, I experience so these feelings. They never leave me, and have become who I am
.
I see my friends, my neighbors, my family in such squalor compared to the white people.
The other day, I saw two of my friends. Dogs were attacking them, and the white policemen were laughing, cheering for the dogs. I couldn’t do anything but just watch as they were getting mauled, and beaten.
As I trend around my neighborhood, if you can call it that, I see the white people, dressed in smart uniforms, going to school. What will I be doing today? I will be trying to feed my family and attend my sick sister. The white people do not need to even worry about it. They have more doctors, hospitals, everything needed to make them better, and we are banned from them. We must be separated from these superior white people. Many newborns die; only about a handful survive being born. But once born, they also are susceptible to death by disease, police brutality, or other hardships. It is not easy being a black Southern African.
One step out of line, and we are beaten, sent to prison, or even killed. We live in fear every day of our lives.
We live in the shadows of the white people. Us, the real people of South Africa. Why are we living in such squalor? How are we any different than these white people who come and take our land and drive us out of our homes? What did we do to deserve this treatment?
The answer, is nothing. We are the rightful people of South Africa, and yet, we are the ones that must live in the shadows. The townships, they are dumps! We have no running water, none of the pleasures of the white people. They live in palaces compared to us.
Every day, my father goes to work. He works for the white people, but yet, he is only able to scrap a living. All his money goes to feeding me and my family. He is required to walk around with a document that signifies that he is a black that has work. How degrading. One day, he forgot to bring it. The police found him without his document, and beat him so severely that he was unable to go to work for the rest of the month. All because he forgot a stupid piece of paper!
ReplyDeleteAh, and the people of black Africa, the African National Congress, those strong men. Those were the people who were brave enough to stand up to those white people. And even they were put into jail! Imprisoned for life. This act gives the rest of us no hope. Is there ever a day when black will have the same rights as those white people? Today, that day seems very far away.
Davis, R. Hunt, ed. "South Africa, 1960 to present." Encyclopedia of African History and Culture: Independent Africa (1960 to Present), vol. 5. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. Modern World History Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?
ItemID=WE53&iPin=AHCV0514&SingleRecord=True (accessed January 18, 2011).
"Police Brutality in South Africa." Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. Ed. G.P. Joshi. CHRI, - . Web. 18 Jan. 2011.
Webber, Chris. "Apartheid." History Class. US, Carlsbad, CA. 11 Jan. 2011. Lecture.
Joanna Gonda
ReplyDeleteMr. Webber
Honors World History/Period 7
17 January 2011
I loved school. I loved learning. I wanted a proper white girl education but being a native black South African, I have lived the oppressed life. Sometimes I dream about being born white, carrying a certified white identification card, and living the honored white life, but I am a descendant of the Zulu tribe. We are proud of our origins, proud activists of our freedom and individualism and proud South Africans.
The white children I care for are selfish. I have to listen to their complaints about their homework and school days. Even considering the amount of love I have for those children, I cannot bare to hear their whining and their cries. I can only hope they will grow up and fix the crippling political struggle amongst the black South Africans. For the sake of South Africa’s future, I only ask for a free nation.
The Apartheid is horrible. The white conservative government is set up for whites to earn the preferential treatment they wouldn’t and couldn’t have received in their native homeland. I feel so inferior to our government and South Africa. My name is unimportant and my existence is too. If I were to ever speak out and face the opposing sides, my face would be overlooked and forgotten. The white people, if we ever secure any rights, have set the colored people up for failure. We don’t know how to nourish and prosper our own nation because the whites have done it for us for all these generations. I think it would be a struggle to succeed. I know for certain we would support each other in our growth of our own nation. The separation has created a stronger bond amongst the black people and our stronger bond will guide us to our freedom and our failure.
My house is a pain and an embarrassment. I honestly can’t even call it a house because really it’s a shack, especially compared to the white’s houses. It is my home though. We have no running water and no electricity. I will sometimes get the opportunity to sneak a book home and I try to read, but the sun will go down and there are no lights for me to keep reading. We have a flashlight but it is only for emergencies. I believe my education is an emergency but my family thinks otherwise. Another time I cut myself and there were no cleaning supplies for me to use and the only doctor’s office open was for the whites. The police would crush me if I even touched their newly mowed lawn with my dirty black feet. One of my close friends had everything taken from her and had a colored baby. Her poor child will never survive in either of the racial groups.
I was raised to never judge skin color because it is insignificant. I believed it as much a as a child would believe anything. I did as I was told. As I grew older and more argumentative, I learned that I would always judge someone by his or her skin color. My looks, your looks, their looks marked the life you lived, and the advantages you earned. Skin color is congenital and there is no cure for it. For my future, and my children’s future, I can only wonder if it will contain segregation, integration or liberation.
Tonight I will dream and dream and dream and image the better life in white skin and wake up in my black skin with my black life.
Roy , Christopher D. "Zulu Tribe Of Africa." Gateway Africa. Web. 17 Jan. 2011.
Magaziner, Daniel. "Black Man, You Are On Your Own!": Making Race Consciousness in South African Thought, 1968-1972." International Journal of African Historical Studies 42.2 (2009): 221-240. History Reference Center. EBSCO. Web. 18 Jan. 2011.
Victoria Mansfield
ReplyDeleteMr. Webber
Honors World History, Period 7
1/17/11
As a young child, my Zulu mother always told me to be proud of my skin color. The beautiful color of soil which covers the ground. The soil which nourishes the plants, tree's, and which essential for growing food. It was not until 3 years later when I was 7, I realized that anyone with this pigmentation would actually be treated like dirt. I had never known why, and I still don't. Because of my skin color which I was always told was so beautiful, the white's think they are better than me? It has never made any sense.
I had first realized how cruel the police force could be when I was the tender age of 9 by keeping a secret for my older 15 year old brother who I was very close to. He often told me that I was the only one he could trust with this secret. He fancied a young girl who was around the same age as he was, but she attended a white school. From the way he described her, she sounded beautiful....and very different than my mother or I. Fair alabaster skin, rosy cheeks, golden curls, and blue eyes. He would often secretly visit her after school in a vacant field. I told him that I worried about the outcome of his secret relationship and he would just tell me “relax sis, love prevails all right?” To that, I had nothing to say. It sounded logical to me at the time...until the one day he did not return home. I remember my mother was sitting in her usual rocking chair and lamenting over his disappearance. Even then I knew that something was not right. Years have passed, and since then I have not seen my brother and know that he was most likely beaten brutally and arrested, or maybe even killed. Even today, the thought that I could have saved him from this fate haunts me.
I am an unmarried 31 year old Zulu woman, and I have no one. My mother passed away when I was 16 due to illness. After the tragic loss of my brother, I realized I do not want a family. I have no idea what their fate could be and I could not deal with any more loss. With the low pay I earn as a domestic worker for a white family who do not treat me with any respect, putting food on the table for a family would be a struggle. My children ,they would have to deal with poor schooling, each day I would worry...and if they become ill? Unimaginable. Of course, as a Zulu, we do not have access to good quality hospital and cannot get the appropriate medical that white's can get. My children would not have any opportunity to lead a privileged life. If I had a husband he would have to live apart from me and work in white areas at a factory or mine. So why have a family if we would all have to face worry and loss? It would be too much to endure.
ReplyDeleteWhy must we all be treated like this? Because of the pigment of our skin we must be treated like animals who are congenitally inferior? We are all South Africans, and it disgusts me that we must be separated merely due to our skin color. If we did not live life like this, I know myself and many others would still have our loved ones with us. We are often told that we are not South African, and are only here to serve the white men and women. We have no political or economic power in society, the white Afrikaners have forced us to learn their language, and they have prohibited us from from visiting their area of living. What I do not understand is how things have not changed, white people are the minority and we are the majority of South Africa. So why not do anything about it? I wish one day to own a home with an abundance of land to raise crops and to raise a family whom I won't have to worry their fate. I know this will never happen unless things change. Demonstrations occur regularly, and I participate, for I have nothing to lose right now. I know I am South African, I not only speak for myself, but for the rest of the black South Africans. We all hope for a day when all South Africans, black and white can live together in a peaceful society.
What’s wrong with the world? What has it become? Years of strife, anger, and fear; Years of brutal beatings and racial strife has lead to this; Apartheid.
ReplyDeleteI’ve been left to live with my brother and parents. My sister was strong and stubborn. She was doomed from the start.
I remember the day the police took her from us. A white man had asked us to get out of his way. My family and I had moved, with our heads down. She stopped in her tracks. “No.” she said strongly and slowly. Out of nowhere came a police van and two men climbed out, swinging billy-clubs. I can still hear her screams, filled with anger, sadness, and fright and that was seven years ago. I’d never heard that out of my strong, brave older sister. I wanted to tell her to move, to do what he asked, just this once. But I couldn’t, I was frozen. The police took her from me and I never saw her again.
The walk from in town to our home was long and silent. My mother, who was trying stifle her heavy sobs, took my little brother and put him on her hip and took my hand. Trying to stay strong for the two of them took all of my strength. As we walked into our little village, people doing laundry, people talking, everyone stopped to look at us. One look and they knew, they knew that she was gone. I put my head down and lead my mother and brother into our little hut. I began to cook for them, and bathe my little brother in the kitchen sink. I hugged him to my chest and said, “Be strong my ubhuti.”
My mother had wrapped herself in blankets and I pulled out the chair for her and continued to dry off my little brother. I could tell that she was not in the mood to cook, which usually brought joy to her sad life. I began to cook the mealie soup in silence. The silence was strange to me. My family and I had always talked about our day or what was on out mind, but this time and eerie silence filled my ears.
The next few days were terrible. Being strong and trying to stay positive was hopeless. There was no possible way for her to come back to us. I wanted to wake up from this nightmare, wake up to my sister laughing and braiding her long black hair, but I knew it was impossible. I was falling asleep to a dream and waking up to a nightmare.
A few days later, I went to get my new passport. That is a day that I will never forget. I remember the big long benches and I remember the old white men who looked at me over their glasses. The told me to state my name, origin, family, all of which I told them. There was one last blank slot that had to be filled. Race. An old white man leaned forward and commanded me to walk closer to him. He had grey glasses and short gray hair. He poked and prodded me, circled me, and looked into my eyes. He went back to his paperwork and filed the papers. I never took my eyes off of him. I remember those five letters that were printed onto my card. B L A C K. I thanked him and walked outside
ReplyDeleteThe road was strangely empty and I began to walk towards the village, waiting for some sort of sound. All of a sudden I heard it. A faint chant that sounded as if it was coming from the school. I ran through the town and watched from behind a building. They protest was peaceful, but a bit loud. I watched for a couple more minuets as the protestors chanted. I heard sirens that I knew all too well. I ran back to the main road and continued walking with my head down. I heard the protestors chants turn into screams, and then the first gunshot. Tears filled my eyes and I began to run home, faster than I had ever ran before.
I stopped and leaned on the old tree that my sister and I had loved to play around and take a break from working and studying. I sat down, leaning against the trunk and buried my head in my hands. I had been running from my emotions and I had been trying to outrun my problems. I couldn’t hold back any longer. Tears that had been filling up behind my eyes poured over and the drops hit my legs and rolled down onto the soft ground. I looked at the tree through my tears.
I wanted to pray. I wanted to believe in God. But I just couldn’t. How could God let this happen? Why is there nobody out there that can stop this? Why is nobody doing anything?
I began to think about what I had, something that my sister had taught me to do. Whenever she was upset, she would think of the positives.
It was hard to think of a positive list, but somehow I managed. This is what I came up with: Family, House, books to educate myself, and hope.
Hope? Why did I put “hope”? I have no hope left and my future is dark, no chance of making things better.
I walked home crying and trying to find any bit of hope that was inside me. How could this happen? Did someone think that discriminating against another race makes you feel superior? Hitler and P.W. Botha both think that they are right, so who is next? It seemed like only a while ago I could feel safe and loved. Now I feel as if I turn a corner I will be shot dead. The terror that fills the air, and the hatred that I feel, even when I’m alone, is something that I cannot live with.
David Claxton
ReplyDelete1/17/11
The constant dripping from my roof ticks in my head like a metronome, as lay exhausted on my slab unable to quench the desperate thirst of sleep. My hands shake from lack of blood, as I try to steady it with my one half open eyes, the other shut closed from the bruise. The tin roof crackles as the rusted metal is swept off with the current of the rain to the bucket; enough has fallen off so there is a visible layer of metal on the bottom. Thinking, should I pinch myself? Is this a nightmare? Will I wake up to find myself in our rich village where my grandfather used to talk about the brave warriors and the plentiful harvest? I look at my children and I do not see happiness in youth, I see scars. I do not see strong growing young men, I see my frail boy selling metal scraps, for food scraps.
My home, HA, My house, no this is nothing we can no longer be content after the damage I have taken. My wife used to work as a nanny, and I a dock worker we would get our papers go to town and I would work for fourteen hours seven days a week to earn my wages, but she would stay for five days and take the weekends off to stay with our children that was a year ago now she is gone. I can no longer support them, she died from tetanus and we could not see the doctor because there is only one in our village he had no supply’s. We could not have paid for it anyways, and now she is gone. Shortly after some unemployed Afrikaners told the shipyard manager (who was white) that they were unemployed, he proceeded to say that all the spots were full, but because they were white our spots became open and my manager ripped up my passport. It was needed to get out of the city, I tried to explain to the police but they broke my leg, I could not get any medical assistance and now I am crippled.
Earlier today I talked to the family that my wife was a nanny for and the father owns a private school. He says that he has a job open at the school delivering laundry to the boy’s dormitories. He gave me a letter and I went into town to find his house. On the way a car pulled up to me, it was a white lady and she asked where she was, I did not know where and so that is what I said. She got upset. Watching these events unfold were two large white men coming home from a cricket match both had cricket bats. Also they were both single, so they approached the lady told her where she was and talked. I stopped and started to leave when I felt my body crumple beneath me, and listend the laughter of the three people fade into the distance.
I laid there I could not move. An officer came, and left me in a state that I am in now in. His reasoning for this cruelty was I did not get up immediately. I am back at my house, listening to the metronome of water dripping, dripping. I think to myself , what did I do to deserve this hell, as I slip in to the warmth of death.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSasha Bechtler-Levin
ReplyDeleteWebber, pd. 6
Today, my child was born. It should be the happiest moment of my life. I have successfully brought my beautiful baby son into the world. But how can I be happy when the world I have brought him into is a literal trap for any black person who lives in it? And I am a black person who lives here. And now my son will have to suffer through this unjust apartheid from the moment he is born.
Before I was even allowed to see him, the doctors took my son and classified him as BLACK. They will later stamp the word onto his passport, and it will rule him in every aspect of his life from now on. He will be separated from all white people and will be treated as nothing more than the scum of the earth which he will be told he is. He will be slowly beaten down by this society and his spirit will be broken.
It is said that a newborn is so innocent and yet untouched by society that he or she is completely and purely good. Society, so they say, then builds and molds and twists that goodness to create what ultimately becomes an adult. But now, with apartheid, before my baby has even been born, he has already been branded as bad, dirty, evil, and unfit to live here as an equal. How is it that these white people know how my baby will be when he has only been alive for 30 minutes?
How do they know his character, how do they know what sort of a man he will grow up to be? What if my child could become a great doctor and cure people of horrible diseases? Well, those people will have to remain uncured because due to apartheid, he will never have the chance to become a doctor. If he is interested in any such thing, he will be shot down. He will not be given the opportunities that the white man has stolen unjustly and prematurely from him. And because of what? Because his skin is dark. How can dark skin affect the way my child thinks? How can his skin make him bad? White people stomp around all day long telling us we are bad, we are dirty, we must do their work. But they never give a reason why. I want to know what a 30 minute old newborn baby has done to offend an entire race of people and how they can justify sentencing him to a life of forced servitude and subservience without a reason.
Peace, Liberty, freedom, justice, wealth and life, these are all things that I have never had and will never be able to have. Sadly my people once had these blessings, but that was a long time ago before these white elitists decided that they could simply come upon our soil, our land and push us off of it as if we were some sort of breed of animal. Their only justification was that their skin is white and clean whereas our skin is black and dirty. Now everything is based on your skin color. Where I can sit, talk, walk, eat, and live have all been decided simply based on the color of my skin. It is terribly wrong how we are segregated to such extents. My family and my people have been living in this area for far longer than these white slavers have. If anyone should be moving it should be them but that’s not how it is. Instead they get to live a luxurious in which everything is happy. They have nothing to worry about, their lives are set. Their kids get to go to luxurious schools that have everything even the most up to date athletic facilities. Whereas my children have to go to an extremely poor school that doesn’t even have enough seats for all the children. It doesn’t make sense to me how black and colored people are the ones who are making all of the buildings and all of schools for the whites but yet we don’t get the funds to be able to build nice facilities for our own children. Not to mention all of the disease that spreads rampant in the black living areas due to the lack of doctors within the black communities. With life as difficult as it is for me but as easy as it is for the whites sometimes I feel like I am in hell when all the whites are living in heaven.
ReplyDeleteEvery day I ask why my life is full of suffering, and why won’t anybody do anything to fix this country. However I already know the answer. Everyone is too afraid to stand up against the white government. Anyone who tries to rise up and protest against the Apartheid are badly beaten and thrown into jail. This is what happened to my brother just last year. He was a very brave soul that wasn’t afraid to express what he wanted. He was a part of every protest he could possibly be involved in. One day during one of the many protests he was involved in the police showed up like usual to put a stop to the protest. However this time they were much more enraged. It was as if my brother had a target of some sort put on him due to the countless protests he had been in. Instead of simply giving him a beating and taking him to jail they picked him out of the mob of protestors and would not stop beating him and before long only his lifeless body was left. On this day my brother died in a brutal way, beaten to death by the police like so many other black and colored people have been in the past and will be in the future. The white government believes that by mindlessly killing us that we will eventually give up. Well I hope they know that they are terribly wrong! By them killing my brother and not listening to our countless protests has made me want to fight back even more. Since the day of my brother’s death I have sworn to go to every possible protest that I can. The whites don’t realize how much pride that we have within ourselves and that if we want a change we will not stop until we get that change. We have all been living in poverty for too long and if the white stereotypical government won’t open there eyes and change their policies they will end up staring down a much needed revolution.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteCasey Tirshfield
ReplyDeleteMr. Webber
History
1-17-11
I am a citizen of the black race, more particularly of the Zulu tribe; no longer can I be associated with South Africa, it has disowned my people and me. South Africa, the epicenter of my roots, the source of my nationalistic pride, and most of all the home of my family, has become foreign to me. No longer can we enjoy the minimal freedoms we had prior to Apartheid, nay! Instead we are overwhelmed by hegemonic white rule. Helpless and needing of change we wait, prey, and do all we can. We are desperate! The means by which we solve this atrocity are irrelevant; peace has proven impotent, yet war is suicidal. We have no voice, no advocates, no justice.
I personally consider myself blessed. Given the color of my skin I could be in worse of a situation. I have no wife or child to care for, and I am fortunate enough to see my brother weekly. Those who inhabit the same dwellings, if you can call them by such a term, are suffering far worse than I. The township, in which I live, is on the non-native soil of Zimbabwe. Here I have spent seven years and seven months in exile. If only life adhered to the bible in the way I do. In Exodus it states “Set him free in the seventh year, and he will owe you nothing for his freedom.” All I want is to be set free, and welcomed home to South Africa. These years that have elapsed since I fled my country of South Africa with my brother go by faster than any other I have lived. And I have lived!
Fifty-Four years I have lived, but my accomplishments are null and void. Antedating my exile I was as any young black man. I grew up knowing not but suffering and submission. My mother was absent with the exception of occasional visits. I was told she led a good life, having a warm bed to rest her head, all this due to the little white boy she was employed to nurse. O did I loathe him; picturing him being held by my mother was not an abnormal nightmare of mine. But I did not know different. In the absence of Mother, I was raised by the kindest woman, Widowed by the Afrikaans police, she instilled in my brother and I values, inspiring us to attain a higher education.
Despite our adeptness there was little job opportunity for an educated black. So after graduation we sought out the ANC seeking a place of refuge in which to channel our hatred and despise. Just as members we were prosecuted, fired upon in gatherings and beat up in commute. If a minor infraction of the law were to take place, god forbids we would never have seen the light of this earth again. But, like many of our predecessors we trudged on.
Then it happened one frightful day, accompanied by my brother on my way to work there was an abrupt end to my perceived invincibility … I was shot. The bullet missed my femoral artery by centimeters. This was the rude awakening, much like the one I got as a child, when I was found dreaming in my bed, and tardy for my schooling or chores. All was the same except in the manner by which I awoke, instead of the frigid murky water that would splash across my face it was the trickling of warm crimson blood on my leg. It was from this day forth I knew it was escape or death for me. I had become to involved in my work, to much of a threat for my own good. All I desire know is a fresh slate one that is absent of racial identification cards and discrimination.
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ReplyDeleteWould it always be this way? The segregation between different people by the color of their skin? Black, colored white . . . what difference does it make? We are all human, are we not? Not to the white government in South Africa. I feel it would be best to describe how Apartheid has personally affected me by recalling some key moments in my life.
ReplyDeleteThe drums are pounding in my ears, I can feel the steady beat, boom boom . . . it is slowly picking up pace. The dancing is blending with the beat as if they were one, the turns are getting blurrier and the dancer’s dark skin is shining in the golden light of the sunset. I can feel my heart rate pick up, I can no longer separate the dancers from each other for to me they all look like one big blur of rhythmic dancing. I was becoming dizzy, the sun had made its final contact with the African landscape across from our village and said its goodbye. All became darkness and then I felt a sharp pain on my arm and could hear someone yelling my name from a distance as if god were calling me up to the heavens. With a sudden jolt I sat straight up in my bed. My mother was looking over me with an odd expression on her face which sent chills rolling down my spine. I sprang from my bed, which compared to a white’s would probably just look like a blanket. Without being told I went straight to my usual chores for the Terreblanche family that I have been doing all my life, only with every year I grow older I have a greater responsibility to the family to do more as my mother ages and I take on the role of the eldest child.
I repeated the dream to myself over and over again trying to relive the happiness and excitement I had felt in the moment before I had to wake up. This dream had been one that was recurring more often the more I longed for my homeland. Although I had never actually been there and experienced it first hand, my mother used to put me to bed with these colorful stories of our ancestors. My family has not been to our village in a very long time and I wonder every day what it looks like now. My mom and my mom’s mom have always lived on this same property. My family, my mother and two younger sisters, have been living on the Terreblanche family’s property for quite a long time and have a room of our own in the house. It is not exactly a normal sized room, but it is better then sleeping on the tile floor in the kitchen which is what most of my mother’s friends do when I overhear them talking at church. One day I also overheard the son in of the Terreblanche’s, Ted, ask him mother one day at the house after their church if blacks and whites were equal once they got to heaven. Mevrou Terreblanche’s face went red and she turned to her son aware that I was still cleaning in the corner and asked me to leave. I quickly got up and rushed out of the room looking down not daring to make eye contact with anyone, but once I turned the corner I stayed just out of sight and listened closely for the answer. I faintly heard her say that there was a separate place in heaven for whites and another for blacks but they were both clean and no one worked for another. I wondered to myself why the whites could not accept blacks as their equals and this thought stayed with me for a very long time because it really did puzzle me.
Black South Africans are just like the whites but with one difference, we have different colored skin. Of course out of that came other differences. Ted goes to a better school than I. One with only white in it and I go to my school with only blacks. I am probably one of the more privileged on my class, from what I can tell there are a few families that stay at their employer’s house with their parents and live there but most live in the townships. They have it even worse off over there, and it’s constantly dirty, smelly, infected with sick people, violent and very poor. We are taught our lessons in Afrikaans and most of the people in my class cannot understand what is being taught and so are no more educated going to school than if they did not go to school. Personally, I cannot read Afrikaans but know a few of the words when spoken, I just never had the time to learn another language just for school when I had all of my work back at the house. It is not just the schools though, segregation it is also the movie theaters, the beaches, public bathrooms and water fountains, the trains, and almost everything I can think of is color coded by the Government. Every South African even has to carry a pass around with them that indicates what color of skin they are.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a little bit younger, around the age of fifteen, and Ted was about thirteen, Ten came up to me one day when I was scrubbing the kitchen floor and bent down, kissed me on the cheek, and then walked away. I considered why he would have done such a thing, and just blamed it on puberty and realized that I was probably his first crush. I knew that if this developed into something more then it could be a very bad situation so I made a plan. The next day when he was working on his homework and his mother was out of the room and I could hear her sewing machine whizzing away I approached Ted silently and say down next to him. He looked up from his book to me, I suppose he must have been reading in Afrikaans because I could not understand any of the words in it whereas if it were English I would be able to pick out a few words every so often because I have been living with the Terreblanche’s my whole life and had to learn English since they would not learn my family’s language. I dropped my graze from his and opened my mouth to speak but he beat me to it. He told me that he was being childish yesterday and it would never happen again and that I could count on that. I let out my breath and walked away. There was no point in talking any further to him, and I could have gotten him angry. Although in my mind I was free and no longer had to worry about what Ted would do it he wanted to further our relationship. I knew the police would most likely put us both in jail if we were caught at any point doing so much as just holding hands, and the public would look at us as if we were a disgrace to Africa itself. I would be treated as if I were filth, even more so than I am now not just because of the color of my skin but because I dare defy the law that is Apartheid.
All my life I was constantly reminded that blacks are not equal to whites and if one dares to contradict this the police will step in. If any black or colored person was not where he or she was supposed to be then the police would pull out their club they always carry and give that person a hard beating and thrown into the back of a police truck with many other blacks and driven off to a jail. I have seen this happen countless times and have learned to accept it even though it pains me to watch. There are other people who do something about the laws and protest, this is how many of my kind have died, even some whites were in there protesting too but they were shot with no more mercy when it came to the police. It was one of these protests in which my father lost his life. He knew what he was getting into at the time also, my mother had just given birth to my youngest sister when he left one day and never came back. I pray now that he is in heaven, but not in a segregated heaven, but one where blacks and whites are created equal and no one has to feel inferior and there is no war.
ReplyDeleteWorks cited:
Davis, R. Hunt, ed. "apartheid, 1950s to 1991." Encyclopedia of African History and Culture: Independent Africa (1960 to Present), vol. 5. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. Modern World History Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?
ItemID=WE53&iPin=AHCV0036&SingleRecord=True (accessed January 17, 2011).
Webber, Chris. "Apartheid." History Class. US, Carlsbad, CA. 11 Jan. 2011. Lecture.
Coach Webber
ReplyDeleteDylan Fox
1/17/11
1976, June 15
Ubaba is crying again. My brother ran away today to join the protests in Soweto, even after daddy told him not to. He knows he needs to help father in the mines to support our family, or we will become another just another dirty impoverished family begging on the roadside, scrounging for the scraps left behind by other unfortunates. Ayanda has always been a rebellious child, and today was no exception. He had heard from some of his friends in the mine that lessons in school would now be taught in Afrikaans. Although he never made it past primary school, always one to fight for the people, he left to march with the thousands of others protesting the new law in Soweto, so that maybe another South African boy would have the opportunity to abolish the hate dividing his country.
Ubaba warned him that if he was hurt by the police, we could do very little to heal his wounds - there was only one doctor to take care of all our thousands of brothers and sisters in the Bantustan. When I was younger, I used to ask daddy why the white doctors wouldn’t treat us, but he always got that sad far away look in his eye, and told me I would understand when I was older. That night, the usually calming sounds of the wild birds outside seemed harsh and unreal. I felt in my heart that something terrible was bound to happen to my brother.
1976, June 16
Ayanda is dead. Nearly everyone in the township has come to our door to bring us food and their condolences, trying to make us feel better. The only thing I can hear, drowning out the rumble of noise coming from the sympathetic villagers and the tear-filled sounds of my father’s wretched sobs of grief, is the cry for revenge, to avenge my brothers death the same way it was brought upon him, the same way he had so peacefully walked on that path that was now strewn with the bodies of his dead friends. The bodies that lay across that road are not the bodies of protesters, nor are they the bodies of blacks and coloreds. They are the bodies of South African men, and women, and children who tried to stand up for what they believed in, only to have their wishes answered with a sharp report from the rifle of a fellow South African.
Brynes, Rita M. "South Africa - Employment and Labor." Country Studies. U.S. Library of Congress, 1996. Web. 18 Jan. 2011. .
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI don’t want to wake up. Light streams through a small window whose only curtain is my tattered and thin shirt that was soaked from the sweat of the day previous. A slight breeze blows directly through my shack; I’ll have to replace some of the older, more rotten boards. My entire dwelling threatens to fall over, the corrugated tin, stolen wood planks, and palm fronds do little to hold it together. A small pile of rags and dirt suffice for a bed. I roll over onto my side and try to fall back into the numb, restless sleep of my people, but to no avail. I would have to open my eyes and face the day. I slowly sit up, working out the kinks in my back from laying on a lumpy, misshapen surface. My joints pop, and the hot summer sun already has me in a sweat. Why could I not have slipped peacefully and quietly into death last night? I stand up, bending over to avoid breaking down my meager house by means of knocking the roof off. I gently remove my stained and torn shirt from the window, and attempt to use it to cover my torso, but to no avail. I’d have to use some of my meager savings to purchase a new shirt. I grabbed a few coins from a rusty and crinkled coffee tin, and ducked out of a hole in the wall I used as a door.
ReplyDeleteI walk down a central dirt path, dust coating and swirling around my large already black feet. Small huts and lean-tos line the lane, and a meager facsimile of life went on around me. Small unclothed children ran around, their parents too poor to allow them to own even one garment to cover their nudity. The old, sick and infirm sat on the ground, begging and pleading for help from those who could not give any. Any and all healthcare went to the white oppressors, the men who had come a generation ago to lay waste culture and land alike. If only someone could lift us out of this dirt heap… but no. People will only come to bring us down.
My path leads me into a more permanently developed district. In fact, the dividing line between the white settlement and the black shantytown. Small colored and black children raced around a ramshackle playground in front of a dilapidated school house. The thin frail teacher quietly called to her students, and they meekly came. They were in all sorts of dress, from fully clothed to little more than a loincloth, harking back to their tribal roots. They were of all different ages, only very few schools could be made to operate at one time, therefore having to serve a wide range of ages and children. I look to the tantalizingly close white settlement. The grass is green, and white men and women walk on neat little paved paths. I come into view of a white’s only school, a boys’ boarding school. Nearly identical boys wearing pressed and cleaned uniforms, blue trousers and blazer, neckerchiefs daintily tied around their necks and under their stiff, starched collars. A little hat topped their predominantly brown hair, neatly cropped into submission. They were cute: in a robotic similar way. They were getting educations that my people could only dream of, and at such a young age too. I never have and never will go to college, and neither will many more of my downtrodden people.
I near my place of employment, a slaughterhouse, run by a cruel and demanding man only known as “Dan.” Outside a scuffle was taking place. Several police had apprehended a black man, caught trying to steal a piece of cured meat to take back to his hungry family. Two officers held him by the arms as he pleaded to them, but the white men paid no heed. The third proceeded to slap the man with the piece of meat he had been trying to take. In a fit of rage, he dropped the meat, and kneed the black man in the face. A cruel smile spread across his lips as he began kicking in earnest, the transgression forgotten, and in its place a feeling of superiority and power. In a brief respite from the brutal pounding, the man looks up and catches my eye: Please help me brother. But there was nothing I could do. The sinister laughter of the policemen rang in my ears as they continued the beating. Dan leaned in the doorway, a smug grin plastered onto his face. He looks at me, and angrily beckons me over. Watching the spectacle, I had not realized I had become rooted to the spot, caught in the sheer brutality the police exhibited. As I walk through the door, Dan cuffs me on the ear, muttering about me being a dirty Kaffir. I want to punch him in the jaw, but I cannot. I would be killed on the spot. I continue walking in.
ReplyDeleteThe back of the slaughterhouse where I worked is a maze of blood, grim, dirt, and blades. Grotesque carcasses hang from hooks in the ceiling. All the equipment is rusty, old, and bloodstained. Pools of dried and fresh blood cover the dirty tiles. In them, I see the plight of my people. The work place is unbearably hot, but there is nothing I can do. I mumble a greeting to my fellows, don my apron, grab a knife and begin to work. I hack and cut at dead animals, their blood and gore spattering me. The dull blade makes a rough going of it, and it almost slips out of my hands several times, nearly stabbing me. One of the other workers is not so lucky. He was cutting the flank off of a pig, and the dull knife tried to slowly pierce the hide. He had applied too much pressure, and gutted himself. His body falls to the floor dead. He does not scream, he does not moan. The black man gurgles a little, and thuds to the floor. His face is one of shock and bliss.
Dan kept us well into nightfall, the sky had darkened by the time I saw the outside world again. I count my pay for the day: less than one dollar. I sigh. There’s nothing I can do. I briskly walk back to my dwelling; this is not the time to wander. Gangs and hooligans prowl the streets at night, killing and thieving, I cannot be caught. I hear a sound to my right, and bolt as fast as I can. I run back to the opposite schools, and pause to catch my breath, my already exhausted body overtaxed. In the dark, one school is a huge imposing shadow seeming to lean over the smaller weaker school in the darkness. The analogy makes me run again. I do not stop until I get back to my shack. I remove my shirt, and put it in front of my window. I lay down, close my eyes, and hope to never see the sunrise again.
Jaclyn Hirbawi
ReplyDeleteWebber
Modern World History Period 7
17 January 2010
Oh, if only I could understand it all! All I wish for is to learn. Every morning, all I wish for is a chance to go to school. I do not want to guess anymore: Why there is no sparkle in the eyes of my parents. Why our township lives in misery. I feel my entire life is like a box full of jigsaw puzzle pieces. I want to know why—I just want to finish this puzzle. I have nothing else, but to do this puzzle.
I am only eight years old. I have worn the same dress everyday for two years now and I see myself shrinking. I know what they call us, the boys behind the fence who throw stones. We are Zulus, but called Bantus. We are South Africans, but are not treated as South Africans. I am a South African girl and I love to run through the streets. I run to silence my hungry stomach, but also because it helps me cheat and steal. I must fend for myself here because the torment and anguish of the people leave them a little unfriendly to face. Depression is prevalent. There are no warm arms for me to fall into. There is no water or food and nothing is clean; nothing feels safe. Everyone around lives in poverty. What I call shelter, there is no family to make it a home.
I see my mother once a year and barely hear the footsteps of my father’s returns. My mother, she is the mother of a white man’s children. She watches over those who are not her own, cooks, cleans, and sleeps in their lavish town. She sees roses bushes, freshly cut grass, a pool, and only a glimmer of hope outside her bedroom window. “Until the great Mandela is released,” she told me once, “I must go on and work quietly. The day will come when he will change things forever.” And so I do not ask her questions anymore and instead let an ear follow my father. I listen to the conversations he has with neighbors: They complain, which they should, about their injustice-filled lives. My father mines gold for white men and rants on about the “Population Registration Act” which he once did not meet requirements, a sheet of paper, and was brutally beaten for it. They also say they must learn to speak Afrikaans and act like “civilized white men,” and my father believes “we, the blacks, will never be Afrikaners.” But these whites, they seem so evil to me! They have deprived the lives and the well being of the people I see as I run through the streets.
My people built their beautiful schools and well-equipped hospitals, yet we will never be able to use them nor gain the education or health we need to become strong and rise against. When we resist, as my father explains, “big trucks of soldiers come with guns to harm innocent children and wives like my mother and me.” Despite all this, I know we must resist. I cannot do much. In fact, I can do very little, but these “racists laws” and this “strictly enforced as well as regulated rules of segregation” as the adults put it, are NOT right. As I see the candle wax collect at the bottom of my tray, I realize my puzzle is finally sealing together. By unifying as not only Bantus but also as South Africans, I think the adults can bring an end to this separateness. Even though everyday gun shots are heard, feelings are hurt, and I still cannot go to school, I have a feeling that Mandela, this man my mother speaks of, will eventually bring the peace or “uxolo” we need.
ReplyDeleteWorks Cited
Atmore, Eric. "Apartheid and South Africa's Children." Education Resources Information Center. 12 Mar. 1998. Web. 17 Jan. 2011.
"The History of Apartheid in South Africa." Student Information. Web. 17 Jan. 2011.
Webber, Chris. "Apartheid." Modern World History Class. US, Carlsbad, CA. 11 Jan. 2011. Lecture.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBobby Wright
ReplyDeleteMr. Webber
Honors world history
Jan 17, 2011
The following is an interview with Nomusa Buthelezi, a South African citizen who Graduated from Harvard university with a major in politics with a minor in English, who now lives in San Francisco California, describing her experiences during apartheid.
It was May 6, 1965. It was the first day that I saw apartheid. I do not mean that I had had never seen apartheid before. Every day of my life I had seen its cruelty and lived is hate, but it was the first time that it I saw apartheid at its absolute worst. I was walking to my school in the slums of KwaZulu, which was the homeland the White government had put me and my family in as well as thousands of other zulu familes, with my good friend, Nklakanipho, when suddenly a big, black, government car turned the corner ahead of us. Nklakanipho, ran out in front of the car so he could beg the man inside for money. You see, he was very desperate at the time. His family was poorer than most and his mother had just been fired from work, so his family had very little to eat and could barely afford to send him to school. Well the car stopped just as Nklakanipho hoped but unfortunately for him the passenger was not a sympathetic white person, but a police officer and an government official. The police officer, punched Nklakanipho in face, then kicked him in the stomach. The policeman kicked him again, and again and again until he coughed blood and bile onto the dirt road beneath him, while I just stood and watched, helpless. As this was happening, more black people came out of their houses to see what was causing all the commotion. The policeman looked nerviously around at the crowd of black Africans, then shot a look back at the government man and asked him something in Afrikaans. The official grunted in affirmative, then went back into the car. The policeman, took out his pistol, and, before my brain could process what my eyes were seeing, shot Nklakanipho in the stomach. The crowd was in a shocked silence, and just looked on, as Nklakanipho lay on the dirt road writhing in agony, while the policeman walked back to the car as if nothing had happened, got in and drove away.
All my life we had been treated like scum. We have been second class citizens for hundreds of years. But this moment, when I saw my friend, a person who I has know since I was a child, bleeding out in the middle of a dirt road because he tried to help his family.
Once the car was out of sight the previously shocked crowd unfroze explosively. All twenty or so of us ran over to Nklakanipho as fast as we could. The strongest of us picked him up, and the entire group came with him to the hospital. When we got there, Nklakanipho had lost a lot of blood and nearly dead but since there were so few doctors, we had to wait another 30 minutes just to get into the Emergency room. By the time the Doctor arrived it was much too late. I was with him when he died three minutes later, from blood loss. That day was the first time I saw apartheid at its worst.
Brian Haist
ReplyDeleteMr. Webber
Honors Modern World History
17, January 2011
Life in Apartheid
To be kicked around and treated like a savage mutt in a place that is not your own is one thing I believe I could understand, but to be oppressed and disadvantaged in your own homeland is an outrage and an embarrassment to every person of the entire country. The laws that were made by foreigners to restrict us people who inhabit this land disgust me. The imperialists marched into our land and took control of us natives, all for our diamonds and gold. None of our heads of power attended a single meeting about the imperialists coming to our land. The normality of our homeland truly changed, though, when Apartheid was formed in 1948.
Our daily lives changed the day that Apartheid was first initiated by the new government. Apartheid is extremely effective in segregating the whites from the Blacks, Asians, and “coloured” people. Laws were enforced to segregate schools, movie theatres, beaches, libraries, and many other public areas. Laws were even made to separate people in love; a non-white could no longer be in love, marry, or have any relationships with a white. Apartheid did, however, make sure that the whites would get the better end of Apartheid’s benefits.
The distribution of land in the time Apartheid was brutal: with 19 million black and 4.5 million whites in South Africa as of 1978, only 13% of the land was given to the black population, while the whites got the luxury of the 87% of the land. Whites received around 75% of the national income, while blacks got a little over 20%. The average earning ratio of blacks to whites was 1/14. This proportion of equality disgusts me beyond any amount of words or emotions.
The standard treatment for blacks and coloured people in South Africa is horrendous, while whites are able to get the better break of life with better education and living standards. My own father was sent to jail for being in a “whites-only” designated area, and I have not heard of him since. This is so common that the boys at school talk about revolting with the ANC, and I am willing to commit all of my time to help rid my country of this sickness. Imperialists were expecting resistance to be made, and so resistance to the plague of Apartheid was deemed illegal in 1950, 20 years ago. Because of this restriction upon more restrictions, us brothers of the revolt must make our revolting almost invisible, or we will surely be beaten, sent to jail, or most likely, be killed.
ReplyDeleteFifteen years ago, our messiah for the resistance group, Nelson Mandela, was sent to jail for his expression of distaste for Apartheid. Since then, us bothers of the revolt have kept revolting while waiting and preparing for Mandela’s release from prison. We will show our strength in numbers, and we will take back which rightfully belongs to us – our homes, our right to enjoy living, our education, our freedom of expression, and our land. I devote my life to the ANC so this inequality can be banished from my homeland. I wish only to live the life that my ancestors lived – one without limitations by an invading force.
May the ANC live on, and let Mandela live free.
19, April 1982
Works Cited:
1. Fairbanks, Eve. "The Healer." New Republic 241.10 (2010): 15. MAS Ultra - School
Edition. EBSCO. Web. 18 Jan. 2011.
2. Nachtwey, James, and Alexandra Fuller. "MANDELA'S CHILDREN." National
Geographic 217.6 (2010): 80. MAS Ultra - School Edition. EBSCO. Web. 18 Jan.
2011.
Bobby Wright
ReplyDeleteMr. Webber
Honors world history
Jan 17, 2011
The following is an interview with Nomusa Buthelezi, a South African citizen who Graduated from Harvard university with a major in politics with a minor in English, who now lives in San Francisco California, describing her experiences during apartheid.
It was May sixth, 19765. It was the first day that I saw apartheid. I do not mean that I had had never seen apartheid before, every day of my life I had seen its cruelty and lived is hate, but it was the first time that it I saw apartheid at its absolute worst. I was walking to my school in the slums of KwaZulu, which was the homeland the White government had put me and my family in, with my good friend, Nklakanipho, when suddenly a big, black, government car turned the corner ahead of us. Nklakanipho, ran out in front of the car so he could beg the man inside for money. You see, he was very desperate at the time. His family was poorer than most and his mother had just been fired from work, so his family had very little to eat and could barely afford to send him to school. Well the car stopped just as Nklakanipho hoped but unfortunately for him the passenger was not a sympathetic white person, but a police officer and an government official. The police officer, punched Nklakanipho in face, then kicked him in the stomach. The policeman kicked him again, and again and again until he coughed blood and bile onto the dirt road beneath him, while I just stood and watched, helpless. As this was happening, more black people came out of their houses to see what was causing all the commotion. The policeman looked nerviously around at the crowd of black Africans, then shot a look back at the government man and asked him something in Afrikaans. The official grunted in affirmative, then went back into the car. The policeman, took out his pistol, and, before my brain could process what my eyes were seeing, shot Nklakanipho in the stomach. The crowd was in a shocked silence, and just looked on, as Nklakanipho lay on the dirt road writhing in agony, while the policeman walked back to the car as if nothing had happened, got in and drove away. To this day I am haunted by the image of my friend bleeding out on that dirt street while I look on, helpless.
Once the car was out of sight the previously shocked crowd unfroze explosively. All twenty or so of us ran over to Nklakanipho as fast as we could. The strongest of us picked him up, and the entire group came with him to the hospital. When we got there, Nklakanipho had lost a lot of blood and nearly dead but since there were so few doctors, we had to wait another 30 minutes just to get into the Emergency room. By the time the Doctor arrived it was much too late. I was with him when he died three minutes later, from blood loss. That day was the first time I saw apartheid at its worst.
Bobby Wright
ReplyDeleteMr. Webber
Honors world history
Jan 17, 2011
The following is an interview with Nomusa Buthelezi, a South African citizen who Graduated from Harvard university with a major in politics with a minor in English, who now lives in San Francisco California, describing her experiences during apartheid.
It was May sixth, 19765. It was the first day that I saw apartheid. I do not mean that I had had never seen apartheid before, every day of my life I had seen its cruelty and lived is hate, but it was the first time that it I saw apartheid at its absolute worst. I was walking to my school in the slums of KwaZulu, which was the homeland the White government had put me and my family in, with my good friend, Nklakanipho, when suddenly a big, black, government car turned the corner ahead of us. Nklakanipho, ran out in front of the car so he could beg the man inside for money. You see, he was very desperate at the time. His family was poorer than most and his mother had just been fired from work, so his family had very little to eat and could barely afford to send him to school. Well the car stopped just as Nklakanipho hoped but unfortunately for him the passenger was not a sympathetic white person, but a police officer and an government official. The police officer, punched Nklakanipho in face, then kicked him in the stomach. The policeman kicked him again, and again and again until he coughed blood and bile onto the dirt road beneath him, while I just stood and watched, helpless. As this was happening, more black people came out of their houses to see what was causing all the commotion. The policeman looked nerviously around at the crowd of black Africans, then shot a look back at the
government man and asked him something in Afrikaans. The official grunted in affirmative, then went back into the car. The policeman, took out his pistol, and, before my brain could process what my eyes were seeing, shot Nklakanipho in the stomach. The crowd was in a shocked silence, and just looked on, as Nklakanipho lay on the dirt road writhing in agony, while the policeman walked back to the car as if nothing had happened, got in and drove away. To this day I am haunted by the image of my friend bleeding out on that dirt street while I look on, helpless.
ReplyDeleteOnce the car was out of sight the previously shocked crowd unfroze explosively. All twenty or so of us ran over to Nklakanipho as fast as we could. The strongest of us picked him up, and the entire group came with him to the hospital. When we got there, Nklakanipho had lost a lot of blood and nearly dead but since there were so few doctors, we had to wait another 30 minutes just to get into the Emergency room. By the time the Doctor arrived it was much too late. I was with him when he died three minutes later, from blood loss. That day was the first time I saw apartheid at its worst.
Three years, after that horrible day later I was out on the streets. I had dropped out of school after my family could no longer afford to send me there. When I was sixteen my parents kicked me out of the house. Not because they were cruel or because they didn’t love me, but because they could not afford to feed me as well as my five siblings. You see, my parents, like all black Africans, had no access to decent jobs, as the white government kept them from us with their apartheid. I spent the next three years moving around homelands, living in the shanty towns that once proud Zulu’s were forced into.
After those three years of wandering, I had seen cruelty and hatred towards my fellow man that was truly inhuman. When I finally took stock of the horrors what were going on in my
country, I took the only logical course of action. I decided to join the ANC. This was, of course, still very illegal at the time. I was one of the more active members of the Party. The other group members and I spent much of the seventies doing our absolute best to bring down the apartheid government that we despised and that despised us. We destroyed railroad tracks and bridges in an attempt to harm the economy and organized rallies and protests all over the townships.
ReplyDeleteAs I continued to cause problems for the Apartheid government, I rose through the ranks of the ANC, until, eventually, I became a leader in the ANC. Unfortunately for myself and my family this brought the attention of the government right to my doorstep. In the first month after my promotion, I received three death threats, and a note saying that my brothers and sisters, who had all taken up work as servants and had never hurt a soul in their lives, would be killed if I continued to cause trouble. I knew then, that I had no choice but to get out of the country and get as far away from Africa as I could. The very next week, I pleaded my case with the leaders of the ANC and they agreed to smuggle me out of the country, and to send my family to London. We decided it would be safer for my family if I didn’t stay with them as I could have lead The south African government to them. For the next twelve years I lived by myself in a strange place. For twelve years I earned a living by driving a cab. For the next twelve years I lived my life, got into college and graduated the first in my family to do so. I waited for twelve years before I was finally able to speak to my family again. I waited for twelve years for Nelson Mandela to be free and take control of Africa, but I was used to waiting. For I, like all Black South Africans, had waited my entire life for day when I was finally able to return to my true homeland, South Africa.
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ReplyDeleteI remember being a young boy in South Africa walking into a white bathroom. I was too young to understand the difference. I walked in, and faces were staring then all the sudden I woke up on the floor in my own blood. I could barely open my eyes. That night, I resented those people. I always wondered why they live in such luxury! Nice schools, restaurants, bathrooms, houses while we are here in huts with not enough money to supply for each other. We are forced to steal in order to survive and we begin to rebel and grow a strong hatred towards the White people.
ReplyDeleteMy father left my family when I was young and my mother was too poor in order to supply for us. We couldn’t afford health care, and our living conditions were rather poor. We don’t have proper irrigational systems and no electricity. We weren’t allowed on certain streets, and we weren’t allowed to use certain water fountains and we couldn’t get any good jobs because they were only available to the whites.
My Aunt, Uncle, and cousins lived across our hut. We frequently traded items we needed or found that may be useful to one another. One day the settlers came in and drew a line that separated our Country, slap in the middle of my other family. From that day on, things got worse. We needed things that our other family had and was now unable to reach them. We had different people settled here, with different languages and different ways of life. They made us change our living style’s and we were forced to obey under their rule.
None of this is fair. We shouldn’t be separated by the color of our skin. We are all people and we deserve to be treated as equal. Why should the people of my color be discriminated, forced into slavery, treated unfairly and unjustly? We try to speak up, but no one will listen. We try to get a job but we just get beaten. Why did this happen to me? Out of all people, me? It’s not fair that other white kids get to have fun, get to go wherever they would like and be treated much better?
I always wonder where my father is. Is he alive? Has he rebelled? My father was the reason that I was jailed. I purposely stood on the wrong side of the road and waited. Waited for a white person to beat me. The next thing I knew I was on the floor. They were telling me something but I didn’t quite understand. They were trying to get me to move but I refused. This is my country too, not just theirs. I stood for what I believed in. I was throne in jail that night. Behind the bars was a free man, but in the outside world everyone was locked up. Their mouths were zipped shut, luxuries weren’t available to them. And there I was, in jail because I stood up for what I believed in. I could have never been happier. Here I am, a free man. And a free man I’ll stay.
Every night, I pray that I would never wake up. If there is a God, I don’t think he is listening. I’ve prayed every night for this nightmare to end.
"Human Rights and Health: The Legacy of Apartheid: Underlying Causes of Human Rights Violations in the Health Care Sector." AAAS - Science and Human Rights Program. Web. 18 Jan. 2011. .
June 15, 1976
ReplyDeleteI woke up in the darkness and felt around for the small square of paper stored in a crack of our thin sheet metal wall. I reached for the small square of paper that allows me out of the sheet metal wall. The square of paper that allows me to leave my township and go into the white people’s land – but only for business. The square of paper that allows me a taste of freedom, but is only one more shackle on my bones.
Instead of finding my work pass I find my birth certificate – my death sentence. How can this paper tell you “I am black.”? You can look at me and see that I am black – if you would look at me. I do not need a paper to tell you that I am black anymore than you do not need a paper to tell yourself that you are white.
I find my pass with a little effort and change from my only set of living clothes which are torn and threadbare into my only clothes for work which are also worn and misshapen and used, but I must keep them presentable. I am hungry and think about taking a pinch of bread for the road, but I decide that my younger brothers will need it the most when they go to work in the mines in an hour.
It takes me until the sky starts to lighten to get past the end of the mud ground that marks the edge of our township and onto the paved streets of the ‘net blankes’ areas. There are always cops waiting to catch the poor African worker who forgot his passbook so they can beat him around. Sometimes I want to just drop my passbook on the ground in front of the officials and jump on it! I want to tell them it is stupid! I want to be so mad at the police, I AM so mad at the police and the government. They sit there laughing at my clothes that don’t fit, they hit me because I am black, and they spill my water when I am parched and carrying it back home. There are so many Zulu proverbs that my mother tells me that emphasize that the simple smart man will win in the end and the fool will regret his blind hatred. When I think of the white government that confines us to a suffocating pen I start to doubt the ancient proverbs’ truths.
I reach the Jansen’s house, where I am a nanny to their daughter Ashley. I am only two years older than her, however I am instructed to look after her, dress her, and cook for her. I am lucky because they let me eat their meals if I cook enough. I am guaranteed food from my job while my family struggles to even obtain clean water. I have tried to bring food back for dinner to my family, but the police stopped me and beat me because they accused me of stealing.
Ashley tells me that she was made fun of at school today because she didn’t understand her math. I hold her hand and tell her it was okay because I knew what it felt like. Everyday she gets teased for not being like the other girls. So do I. The schoolgirls make fun of me when I go to run errands for the Jansens. They tell me that I should go back to my hut in Zululand and eat dirt. Do they not know that my family was one of many Zulu families who built their school?
“I was never any good at math either,” I say to Ashley. I like math, but I had to drop out of school before I learned how to multiply. I wish I could go to school like Ashley, and have friends, and learn to read. But I never will. Even my youngest of brothers never will. I can only hope that my future children will have the opportunity to go to school instead of work and eat healthy meals instead of mine for rocks. I can hope that my daughter will be able to sit in a desk next to Ashley's daughter and play during recess with a group of girls as colorful as a rainbow, even if I am not alive to see it.
I am South African and they are South African. We all are South African. We should be all the same. If only things were that black and white. But then again, this is the problem; black and white. Why should it be separate? I see no difference severe enough to justify the oppression I feel.
ReplyDeleteI am South African. Actually, a black South African. It seems strange but that little distinction makes a big difference. It is the difference from rich and poor, full and hungry, healthy and sick, educated and uneducated, power and oppression, living the life and dying because someone else is living the life. And I got the short end of the stick, because I have dark skin. It’s not fair, my family was here first; long before those pale skinned monsters invaded; we make up most of South Africa but treated like a minority; we have built the perfect world they live in while we live in shacks, if they can even be called that. We are so unappreciated. If all the black and oppressed people left South Africa, the whites’ privileged life would fall to pieces. Being at the bottom means you hold everyone else up. They depend on us. The white people are like a virus and my South Africa is its host; they thrive and grow in power while South Africa is sickened, the life sucked out. That’s how I feel like my life is being used to benefit someone else but can’t let me enjoy it myself. The black people of South Africa built the prestigious schools that their children can’t go to. It is as if they think that if we are not educated we will not be able to see the injustice, but we can. Blacks get barely any doctors and health care when whites get all they need. It angers me; I feel the black south Africans should join and rise up against this oppressive government and fight for justice. I shouldn’t have to only dream of a place where the police are there to protect and help you. I shouldn’t have to feel fear when I see the police around. I shouldn’t have to worry if the police are going to bash my head in or shoot me to death for no justified reason. I shouldn’t have fears like this, but I do, because I’m black. I am also South African, and somehow that part doesn’t matter.