Thursday, May 04, 2006

The Wonder Years (Part 15) - Race, Memory and Innocence

by Benji Raymond



When I moved from a private Jewish secondary school to an alternate private school, I found the number of races in one class remarkable. In fact, the ethnicity and religions ranged so vastly; from Muslims and Rwandans to Jews and Lebanese, that when I look back now I wander how we all used to get along so well. This is not to say that we did not have fights. There were often brawls after school in the courtyard where the boys would sort out the day's events that they disagreed on. From time to time this did have something to do with race or religion, but the brawls were not often motivated by such things. The fights where the boys would knock out each other’s teeth were often associated with concerns of who was stronger or who owed money to whom.

I eventually became best friends with a coloured boy, Burton and a black boy, Tebogo. I recall Tebogo often used to say to me, “Black is Beautiful, but White is Right.” I am not certain why he said it or the context in which he said it, but I remember always nodding my head in agreement. I simply assumed he was saying that Africans were more beautiful than whites and the way he said it made his argument appear convincing. My innocence prohibited me from catching on to what he was really saying and only now have I come to see what he meant. He was undoubtedly passing on the the hauntingly real sentiment of the white repression of the Africans that had occurred in the years gone by. While the segregation and apartheid had ended, the after effects were still being felt.

We never really discussed politics. This was not due to our disinterest in the subject but in some sense we were too young for the events that were slowly shaping our lives and we were very much at the seam of this change. I recall my Dad urging me to watch the television when Nelson Mandela was freed from prison. My Dad pointed at the TV and said, “That man will do great things. This is history in the making.” I was only 8 at the time but I recall feeling chills go up and down my spine as I watched the small television in our home in Johannesburg.

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The Wonder Years - Introduction
A Woman of Virtue - To Mum
The Wonder Years (Part 1) My Earliest Memory
The Wonder Years (Part 2) Sensitivity and its Implications
The Wonder Years (Part 3) Dad
The Wonder Years (Part 4) The Sun, The Moon & Disappointment
The Wonder Years (Part 8) Chocolate Milk & The Cool Sea Breeze
The Wonder Years (Part 15) - Race, Memory and Innocence
The Wonder Years (Part 16) In Between Two Worlds

A Long December - Poetry

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