the blog at planet-roz

Yes, I’m still on about the “coloured” issue, but it’s an every day issue here. It’s not about to go away. Last week after church, this coloured older gentleman starts talking to me. He’s spoken to me before, but obviously forgot so he asked my name and where I’m from again. He said I sound like I’m from England, so I said I grew up there.

He then asked me how I felt growing up there, whether I felt I fit in or whether I felt uncomfortable. I said I was in Guildford, Surrey, where at the time there were very few black people, so there were quite a few racist comments when I went into town. (You know skinheads doing the Nazi salute as they pass you, people coming up to you and telling you to go “back to the jungle where you came from”). I told him Guildford has probably changed a lot from when I was there.

The reason he asked was because he feels uncomfortable and out of place when he goes to a part of Cape Town where the people are predominantly black. (He didn’t say which part). He then went on to talk about a black family that moved in “recently” to his area, and people asked him how he could interact with them basically. When was recently? 1994!!!!! Unbelievable.