Discrimination:
Part I.
The most discrimination I have ever experienced happened while in South Africa. After a VERY long four weeks in the Bush outside of Hoetsprit, which is north of Johannesburg about six hours, I found myself on a much needed break and racing through Johannesburg in a black Mercedes with my heavily armed driver named Mutabo. We raced through streets that were pitch black due to rolling blackouts, and we found my dinner date waiting for me at a very upscale restaurant located in the heart of the downtown inner city. My date was a beautiful black native South African woman that I had met long before, and dated for several months after her graduation from Sierra Nevada College. I told her that someday I would visit her, and there I was in South Africa with a woman I could have very easily fallen head over heels for, and that I may have married were it not for the distance between us. Nevertheless, there I was, in South Africa, holding hands with Lesego again.
The date, up until my life changing racial experience, had gone well. We were holding hands, we had kissed a bit, and then we stepped into… the Michael Angelo Hotel. The Michael Angelo is a historic hotel, was built during the Colonial period, and was a fabulously exotic, yet classic, yet very modern hotel, and it just so happened that the night I was there with Lesego, the African Union was having their annual meeting. The result was that the entire hotel had been booked, there was no way I was getting us a room for the night… at least not there. Nevertheless, we decided to have a drink at the bar, and at the bar were two black men dressed in suits so I assumed they were delegates from the African Union Meetings. It turned out that they were. In fact, not only were they representatives, they were President Mugabe’s (President of Zimbabwe) delegates. Zimbabwe, as I was learning at the time, was FAMOUS across the globe as the champions of what, we here in the west, call reverse discrimination, which was well noted through their land redistribution laws (another subject another day).
Lesego speaks Africaans and she was listening in on their conversation. Not feeling happy about what they were saying, she explained who they were and turned to me and said, “They are talking about us Jarrett (I like the way she says my first name so I allow her to call me by it).” I said something like, “so what.” And then she must have heard something she really didn’t like and she turned to me and said, “Kiss me Jarrett.” So I did.
Upon seeing us kiss, the two Zimbabwe gentlemen stood in anger, tore up their check and stormed off to the smoking lounge. Lesego grabbed my hand, I paid the check and she pulled me toward the same room. As we neared the door she pulled me close and kissed me again, “Don’t be afraid.” She said. “I’m with you.” She kissed me again, took me by the hand and eased me into the room.
As I entered and took in my surroundings, I VERY quickly realized that I was the only white person in a room filled with black African delegates from all over the continent.
Fortunately, Lesego kissed me again, took my hand, and the horrifying record scratching type moment that occurred as I initially made my presence known, disappeared, and truth be told, Lesego and I made friends with just about everyone except the two gentlemen from Zimbabwe. Eventually, we retired for the evening, made it home safely, and I have to say that we did this… without creating an international incident.
Part II.
Moving from a global scale to the domestic United States, I can attest to having been discriminated against on many occasions for many different reasons. True, I am a white 40 something male that is reasonably well situated in the world, but my life has not been without discrimination. I have actually been discriminated against for allegedly discriminating against others. Truthfully, there is no right answer here. The only answer is that discrimination does, in fact, exist, and, what’s worse is that it happens to everyone. Whether we call it discrimination, bullying, a hate crime, or crimes against humanity – it’s all the same thing really. It’s about me disliking you because you’re different, or the other way around. Quite frankly, I think the world has gotten better at this – particularly here in the US. Nonetheless, discrimination in one form or another exists here in the US and abroad. Do I like it? No. What percentage? I’m not sure, although I am sure there is data about it – though I am sure the data is biased. Regardless, if you’re asking whether I think we can get even better at being less critical and, not just tolerant, but respectful of one another… then I’d say yes.
No comments:
Post a Comment