South African Travel Writing

South Africa Piece

What does a gay white man pack when he goes to Africa the first time? I asked myself this preparing for my first trip to South Africa. What I knew about South Africa was limited to what I suppose many Americans know, Mandela, Apartheid, wildness, animals, and black people. I had talked with some of my South African students at the college since I managed their special program, and was aware of the unique and blunt way they confronted racial issues. I remember being excited yet a bit unsure of what to expect and how to handle what I might experience as a visitor to such a distant place. How would I communicate? Would I be understood? Would people know I was American? What might that mean to them? I knew they would know I was white.



I wondered what whiteness really meant to South Africans. And in turn, what my whiteness would evoke in others, specifically African blacks. I learned about the horrors of Apartheid and the terrible physical and emotional violence against blacks by whites and I knew that by association I was indistinguishable from them. How was I going to work and communicate with others during my trip in spite of my whiteness? What could I do to avoid being seen as one of those whites that 10 years earlier would have been happy to live off the labor and ignore the suffering of 95 percent of the population? After such horror, how could I expect any black African to look at me and not be blinded by my whiteness?

I felt ashamed as I got in line at the airport. My white privilege had bought my ticket and booked my trip though my college’s expense budgets. My white privilege had allowed me to go to school, and buy a job. My penis, by its mere existence, gave me more undeserved status, too. It gave me the excuse to be aggressive and competitive and dominant. But, it was not my gender or sexuality that gave me the most trepidation. It was my skin color. I wished I were darker, maybe olive skinned. I looked at the other whites in line to board the plane at JFK and tried to see if maybe the South African whites acted differently from me. If I could just figure out how they acted bad white, I might have been able to omit that from my behavior as a precaution. It was not an easy thing to figure out. I was not very successful. The more I studied the whiteness in others the more I saw it reflected in me.

The only thing I could change was my attitude, but I was not sure exactly what my attitude was. I was not proud of being white, but thought I was lucky to be white and gay, so at least I had a leg up on my internal sexual minority. Being black and gay would be very hard, and my guess was being black and gay in Africa would be nearly impossible. Since it was difficult to see “gay” and I was used to cloaking or code shifting when feeling unsafe, I was stunned by the fact that I could not cloak my whiteness. I could neutralize the gay stuff, but the white stuff, well; it just seemed to get more powerful.

When I stepped off the plane, I was surprised to see groups of people of all colors waiting for passengers. Why would I have expected anything different? I looked for the driver that was sent to pick me up and bring me to my hotel, since it was not advisable for me to go alone without a guide. I never had drivers in Europe, except Russia, but I guess the rules in Johannesburg were different. One wrong turn could mean robbery and death for a white man, or so I had been informed. I felt like a target.

The man holding my name card was black. I waved to him and he smiled. I was not going to let him carry my bags to the car, I thought, I was not one of those white people. I was determined to show this African right from the start that I respected him and did not want him doing work for me. He was not just one black man to me he was all black men. My whiteness was already in action, stripping him to a level of objectification. I wondered how many white people he had taken to their fancy hotels before returning home to his shack in the townships. How he must be disgusted by it all.

Being on the plane for so many hours I felt grimy, but to me it was my white skin that smelled rotten. I wanted to shower and clean off, to scrub my skin. Being white is bad enough, but smelling like old cheese and being white was worse. How horrible a job to have to pick up funky whites at airports, I thought. He came towards me and I put out my hand. I wanted him to know I was not afraid to touch him. I was not afraid of him, I told myself, and I wasn’t. I was afraid of his feelings toward me. I worried that his hurt and anger towards whites would make my own whiteness unmanageable.

He then spoke to me in Afrikaans. I was stunned. I was confused. Was he talking to me? I speak English. South African whites speak Afrikaans, not me. I am not part of that group of whites that had tried killing him. I did not speak the language of the native oppressor. My native English was supposed to be proof of that. He said, “Oh you are American, from New York. Welcome to South Africa”. His hand was warm and his skin was rough. The contrast of our skin tones seemed glaring to me as we held hands. He did not pull his away quickly, instead he squeezed mine a bit, maybe sensing that I was a bit nervous and wanting to reassure me. How could he be willing to give of himself to me? He must be an emotional superhero, I thought. Maybe being American made it easier to be nice to me. I just had to not ask any stupid questions about Africa, or make any stupid comments. That was my plan. Well, anyone who knows me knows I ask a lot of questions, so my plan was not well executed.

In the car, after we each carried a bag, I asked him why he spoke to me in Afrikaans. He said that I looked like the farmers from the Free State, the Boers. “They are big and tall and broad with big eyes and round faces”, he explained. I laughed and asked him if everyone I met would think the same thing. He said they would.

The Boers were Dutch colonialists in the country, notorious for being stubborn, aggressive, dumb and very racist, and the architects of Apartheid. They were even by white standards, rednecks. My family in the US is Dutch descended. They were farmers. They were miners. They have always been stubborn and physically imposing. The Boers and I were genetically linked. Their specific brand of whiteness was more evil that some others in Africa, and easily recognized in the country. Not only had the Dutch settled NY, but South Africa too, and both native populations were painfully damaged. My ethnicity seemed worse than my skin color. I had traveled to Africa and found a direct link to my own personal history.

Each day in South Africa helped me confront my whiteness. Each day was a lesson. The white history I learned through a lens of historical proximity to enslavement changed me. It moved me into a state of action. It helped me face the terrible consequences of white privilege in a new and different way. I spent the remaining time I had trying to reconcile my identity as a white man in Africa, and asking myself how I could move from shame and guilt to a place of purpose. I cried a lot in private. I drank a lot when I went out. I distanced myself from whites in the country, and spent time only with coloreds for the first week, as they were the only non-white group to which I had social access during the first few days. I made sure I let people know I was not Afrikaans.

As the culture shock lessened, I became less anxious. I asked many questions of my colleagues, all of who were not white, about issues of race and culture. They always answered me with care and thoughtfulness and humor. They seemed able to talk about race in a way I had not experienced in the white or black community in the US. They spoke about it openly. They helped me to learn to do the same. I eventually made white South African friends who were active in the dismantling of Apartheid and had spent the majority of their adult lives as activists. They were accepting of my struggles and supportive of my transformation. I love South Africa and its people. It is notable that as a gay man, I have more rights as a visitor in that county, than I have in the US as a citizen. Thank you Mandela, for including my life and hopes in your vision of an inclusive society and constitution.