Inconsistencies in apartheid
As I was getting a little older and observing more of this segregation going on all around me I began to notice some rather peculiar inconsistencies.
Most of the "help" around houses and in the garden was racially classified as Black, this included mine labor, farm labor, domestic servants, nannies and the like. In other parts of the country the labor farce came from the other racial classifications of Coloured, Asian or Indian. So although apartheid policies dictated segregation and separate development in predefined "homelands" and "townships", it could not escape the fact that blue collar work needed to be done and "mixing" was fine under those circumstances.
Pass laws limited how non-European persons could travel and where they could live but these things were suspended in cases of work needing to be done.
These inconsistencies were brought about by necessity. Persons classified as Black, Coloured, Asian or Indian therefore still ended up working and rubbing shoulders with people designated White living in exclusively White areas.
This mixing could consequently not be limited simply to work.
These employees, if they were provided with a meal we presented it, for the most part, in an enamel tin cup and enamel tin plate. This way it was easy to distinguish which were the "whites only" cutlery and utensils and which were for others.
That never made much sense to me when I saw this at friends houses because the cutlery and utensils were washed in the same basin by the same black hands that had in many cases prepared the meal but that were not allowed to eat off the same plate or drink out of the same cup.
This was not the only inconsistency... but in many cases the non-European person that was not allowed to ride the same bus, sit on the same park bench, or go to the same beach as your European or White children was in many instances the nanny or domestic servant that raised, cared for, cooked and cleaned up after those children.
At the time it didn't seem that too many people took the time to think about how inconsistent this was.
It was simply the way things were done, in the more conservative parts of the country, and had probably been going on for a couple of generations, to the point where the more conservative households didn't give it any further thought.
What truly interested about these practices is that they were probably inherited all the way back from the British empires class system and how it discriminated against those considered to be of lower rank during colonial times.
Completely according to you, really inherited, so to speak at the genetic level. In our time, these inequalities still exist, the European race does not want to recognize that there are no more colonies.
Careful with generalisations, its where this exact form of racism stems from.
a very interesting story!
Good post
@mdmorshed
আপনি একটি মহান মানুষ .. এবং মহান উর পোস্ট
আমি আপত্তি এবং আপনার পোস্ট মন্তব্য।
প্লাস আপ আপত্তি এবং আমার মন্তব্য উত্তর ..
ধন্যবাদ
You are really funny
Thank You and welcome my world
and you want to my good😒friends..............
Utterly agree @magnata Europeans should already accept the rest of the world as other colonies.
i am from India. i was thinking that the magnitude of the problem is reduced to a great extent. sure.. it still exists. but i feel not as bad as a decade back. what do you think?? good post. to be taken seriously.
As a fellow South African I can say that yes it is a lot better, but what angers me is that when you visit someones house and you still see the domestic worker being given food and water out of a separate plate and cup. Even the food given is usually either old or completely stale. This sickens me and I regulary speak out against this.
The biggest irony of the whole thing is that when these entitled people go to a restaurant to sit down and eat they share the same cutlery previously used by people that they deem subservient.
I'm glad you feel better now is a good indication that the evolution of human beings is good promotion.i would like desapereciera this problem completely.
thank you. i fully support your ideas. i am following you. i will also do the best i can from my side.
Yes racism is one of the main problem in the world..Even now some people show the same attitude towards the lower people.. I don't know when they all r going to end.. Thanks for sharing such a great post @gavvet
Racism should disappear completely, simply we are all human beings we are all the same.
This post really “took me back...” The inconsistency’s really we’re terrible. How I loved my Nanny, Gladys. I’m very thankful for parents that expected us to treat her with the highest form of respect. Our Nanny ate off the same plates, washed her clothing in the family washing machine and gave us hugs on birthdays or when we fell... Mom always remembered her kids birthdays and loaded her up with sweeties and gifts for her kids around Christmas... and how we missed her when she was on leave!
Apartheid was repugnant. But one of the more interesting facts about the Afrikaner community in South Africa is that for people to whom "racializing" other "Non-Whites" became the norm, Afrikaner DNA has a larger amount of Non-White haplogroups than practically any other 'European' descent group in the world.
I think categorizing racism in South Africa as something only the Afrikaners did is shortsighted. The biggest racists during "apartheid" and today where actually the English South African whites. The Afrikaners have always been a lot more integrated, especially in the rural areas, with the local African population. Most Afrikaners from the farms and rural areas had best friends growing up that were from other races and speak African languages fluently.
Racism was/is a lot more prevalent in the suburbs where it comes down to a class issue more than a race issue.
That is a fact... when the first dutch settlers of over 100 men arrived there were only about 20 dutch women, the rest took local wives from the indigenous populations.
Afrikaans was the result of this intermingling with dutch and other languages.
I'm pretty sure discrimination of the Other is just a specialized form of selfishness. We see it everywhere from common daily racism to nationalism to immigration policies. "It's mine, and I'll share it with x, but I won't share it with y."
Group identity is a lie.
i wouldnt call it inconsistent, but just stupid. or even more accurate / primitive.
whole that idea about enslaving people was primitive.
one has to climb many stairs down in evolution to accept slavery as something necessary, acceptable, normal. as a sign of superiority, or as extra profit, which was the case.
thing is / its same with racism
Very interesting post. Many people who contribute and are hire to provide help to ease the flow of work and or family responsibilities were/are often times are undervalued. Back during slavery "wet nurses" were does who would breastfeed other womens children were also minorities/slaves. Again, under appreciated and discriminated. Discrimination is a very vicious cycle we have moved towards a better direction is previous decades but there can always be more improvement. Best wishes to you, - @gavvet.
Very interesting comment about wet nurses see gavin agree. You have my vote too, did not realize the trail missed half the normal voters while voting for your comment.
all form of liberty limitation mostly when it was abusive measure was only temporary. but the cost in pain and lives is all the time inacceptable.
The dream os freedom is stronger than any dictator.
I was born in 1991 so I never truly experienced Apartheid at its worst so great article. I do remember the tin cutlery though...
Sadly the country is not in the best shape at the moment.
I grew up in the UK and I remember seeing pictures on TV about the brutality dished out by Botha's henchmen. As a child I couldn't understand how Africans were not allowed to walk where they wanted in their own homeland.
Then as I grew up I discovered how the British regime, namely the Thatcher family, supported that disgusting regime. It made me (and still makes me) sick to my stomach.
Hopefully the further we move away from those times in history, the more we can grow as a society to prevent such blatant injustice happening again.
Cg