Hey, You're White!

Has anyone told you that you’re white today? Has anyone stopped you in the middle of the street to tell you the color of your skin, as if you didn’t already know? If not, you should feel blessed. If you can walk down the street and not have everyone yell out “white person, white person” and watch your every move, then you’re lucky. Everywhere I go the word mhlungu is close behind. It is the Zulu term for white person, and no matter where I am or who I am with, it follows me like a shadow. It’s whispered between students, yelled within groups of women, and slurred by drunken men. In rural South Africa I am not Kelsey, I am not a woman, I am not an American, and I am not a sister or a daughter. Here, I am a white person. For the first time in my life I feel defined by something I had no control over, and let me tell you, it is one of the worst feelings I have ever experienced.

I have been in rural South Africa for almost seven months. I have been in my current site for four, and I have yet to go a day without being reminded that I am white, that I am different from everyone else. Like most people out there, I have never been part of the minority. I am a middle class, college educated, white girl. I was basically the queen of blending into the crowd. Then, all of the sudden I chose to get dropped off in the middle of nowhere South Africa, a country that is still in the depths of fighting a brutal battle for equality between blacks and whites. Everyday a new protest breaks out, another union goes on strike, and as volunteers we are in the heart of the communities struggling to rise from the years of oppression. To say some people have developed a little bit of resentment towards white people would be a huge understatement, and with only a little preparation we were sent to live in the middle of it all. It doesn’t matter who I am, or why I am here, the first thing that anyone notices about me is the color of my skin. I can’t hide that I am different; I don’t think I should have to, but I never knew until now how hard it is to be singled out because of one difference.

There are four different types of reactions that I get from people in town. There are the people that are thrilled that I am here. Students and gogos all seem to think I am the greatest thing that has ever happened to my village, but outside my village things get a lot more complicated. The increasingly less common reaction I get in town is curiosity. People want to know what a young white woman is doing in a black community. Curiosity I can handle, I expected it. I expected people to wonder why I am here, but I didn’t expect people to question my sanity because of it. I came half way around the world to work in a rural village, to help where I can, and people think I am absolutely crazy for it. Black South Africans are shocked that I would even consider living in a village. They tell me it is not safe to live where they live, that it is too hard of a life for someone like me. They offer to wash my clothes, clean my house, and haul my water because that’s not something I should have to, as a white girl. It is so ingrained into these communities that as a white person I deserve better, they don’t understand why I would ever choose to live as they live, or to be a part of their community. Even the teachers at my school have told me they don’t understand how I handle living without running water even though all of them handle it just fine. Unfortunately time hasn’t really decreased the number of people who think I am off my rocker, but it has decreased the level of curiosity. People know why I am here, they might not understand it, but they know. For many people this is enough. Their curiosity has been dealt with, and they leave me alone.

For other people it doesn’t matter why I am here. All that matters to them is that I am white and they either resent me for it, or feel that I owe them something. Of the two, resentment is the easier to handle. Hell, sometimes I feel like I deserve their resentment. Last week was the end of the month. It is by far the worst time to go to town because it is when everyone gets paid. People flock to the ATMs to pull out all the cash they can, and then the buy, buy, and buy. Gogos are hauling around 25kg bags of rice and corn meal, while kids are carrying racks of fresh bread loaves. Basically it is the African equivalent of Black Friday, every month. I unfortunately was out of food, and decided to brave the chaos in search of a few cans of tuna and some produce. My friend Krista and I were in the extremely long line to check out when we were approached by another cashier, a black cashier. He quickly apologized for the time we had to wait, but offered to open another line just so we could go through. There had to be at least 100 other people waiting to check out, but we were the only ones offered a shortcut. The two white girls with small baskets were being handed a break while black men, women, and children were left to carry their huge loads in line. After we politely declined the offer, the cashier simply nodded and walked away. I suddenly felt like I was in that nightmare where you show up to your high school assembly butt naked. Everyone was watching the white girls who were offered something they weren’t. As if we weren’t embarrassed enough ten minutes later the store manager, who is a white Afrikaner came up to personally apologize that we had to stand in such a long line. If people weren’t judging us before, they sure as hell were now. Not only were we offered special treatment, but we were apologized to as if having to stand in the same line as everyone else was some horrendous burden. I was mortified! Here I am in a country where I am trying to help kids see that the past should not dictate their future and that skin color should not decide ones value, and within ten minutes two different people just told everyone around me that I am better than they are. That because I am white I was singled out as deserving special treatment over every black person in that store. If people didn’t resent me before, they had every right to now. At times like this I understand their resentment, which makes it harder to fault them for it.

What I cannot understand, handle, or deal with are the people who think I owe them something. Somehow this is usually the reaction I get from the drunken men, which just makes it so much worse. They treat me like I am the one that wronged them, and that it is my job to right that wrong. Whether they want money, a job, or my body, they act like what is mine should be theirs, no questions asked. They yell at me, follow me, and try to touch me as if I am a payment rather than a person. To them my skin color is all that matters. No one cares that I am their granddaughter’s teacher, or their son’s neighbor. I am white, and I owe them.

I am white. It’s a fact, but I am so much more than just the color of my skin. I am a teacher, a volunteer, a friend, a sister, and a daughter. I am a person, and if I have learned anything from my time as a minority it’s that no person deserves to be judged by one characteristic. Our differences should not have to define us. We should be able to walk freely without fear of judgment for what people can see on the outside and things we had no control over. Be careful how you categorize people. We all do it, but remember that even by internally defining someone based on what you can see you are devaluing everything else about them. You have no idea how bad that feels until someone treats you like you are worthless based on one small aspect of who you are.