Whites only days

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I can remember these signs like it was yesterday they were everywhere.

Last night I was asked what it was like growing up in South Africa from a white persons perspective and seeing something threw my eyes. I don't think it is something you can just do over one post so maybe I will do them as I get my thoughts together.

I grew up in Cape Town, South Africa and went to a government school. A government school in those days was for whites only and was most likely if I compared it to today ,like a private school in most other countries.I say that as we had about 8 sports fields and every facility under the sun. I joined the school when I was about 10 having come down from Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). My dad was a chef and he changed jobs like we changed our underwear. He never stayed in a job for too long and most chefs were the same back then.

The time period if any of you are wondering is the late 70's early eighties. I was a youngster who knew no different and only cared about playing sport. Black people worked for white people and that was how it looked to me and that was reality. I saw the same in Rhodesia as most houses had servants such as a cook, cleaners and gardeners. In Rhodesia it was maybe a status thing to have some servants as it was still like colonial times.

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District Six was flattened as it became rezoned as a white area.

The residential areas were zoned and whites lived in white areas and blacks in their areas. The poor Indians and coloreds were sandwiched in between more like a defensive barrier. A black person had to travel quite a distance to get to work. I can remember district six which was a suburb in Cape Town on the mountain side just outside the city center. This area was basically demolished as they moved the colored community out and rehoused them else where. This was done tactically which I will touch on later. We had one colored family living in our area and they were moved out and the house was demolished. I knew the boy there as we played together during most of the holidays and weekends.

I never knew any black kids growing up except for the children from the private schools. The private schools had black kids from foreign African countries and were most likely belonging to diplomats.There weren't many though and it was fairly rare to see. When you grow up knowing no different as though this is the norm then you are ignorant to what is really happening around you. As I grew up I could see the problems and what was slowly brewing. This was a powder keg and rightly so.

Cape Town is generally a very liberal area so honestly besides the obvious signs everywhere it wasn't as bad as other areas of the country. Racism was far worse in the Afrikaans dominated areas. We were predominantly a white speaking region and were seen as foreigners and not pure bred South Africans by the true Afrikaaners. I realised that when I went to the Army later on.

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When I traveled on the train I had to use the first 4 carriages as that was for whites only or net blankes which is Afrikaans for the whites only tag. These 4 carriages were the same except we had cushioned seats. The next 4 carriages were second class and were for Indians and coloreds who sat on plastic molded seats. The last 4 were for black people and they had wooden benches. There were conductors on the trains who policed everything making sure everyone stayed in the right carriages. If you were a black person you listened to the "baas" or boss otherwise you would end up in trouble.

Stupid things like the cinema or restaurants were for whites only and blacks were not allowed. Hotels were the same except for the Carlton Hotel in Johannesburg where blacks were allowed in. This was most likely for visiting politicians from neighboring countries. My dad was in the hotel and restaurant game and had black staff working for him, but they weren't allowed to eat in the restaurant.

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The beaches was a big thing as blacks were allowed to sell ice creams and such, but were not allowed on the beach. The blacks had their own beaches and to be honest were the crappier ones. I don't know if they had shark nets or not. Most likely a majority of their beaches didn't back then. The public swimming pools also were closed to them and you would see the cleaners, but no blacks were allowed to enter as a customer.

I don't know if they had public pools in their area as we seldom moved into their neigbourhoods as firstly they were far away and we would be taking a risk. I think the furthest I traveled into a so called non white area was to play against a cricket club that was made up of colored players. This is how it was back then and to be honest you felt uncomfortable. Was this just for show as it was made out to be something big.

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I used to love going to watch the provincial sports at the stadiums and even there they had segregation. Newlands rugby stadium had a non white section and it wasn't a seating area for them, but standing room only. I actually have tried to rack my brain where a non white person had the same privileges as whites back then and can't think of one. Hospitals were segregated,parks, public toilets and the list goes on.Actually there was one and that was the Comrades Marathon where anyone could enter as an equal.

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The first I knew there was trouble brewing was when I was in High School and there were University Students handing out communist leaflets with the ANC emblem on them. Most of the students were rounded up by the police and God knows what happened to them. I knew about Mandela by then as he was In Pollsmoor prison which wasn't that far away from where I lived. Robben Island was still functioning as a prison and knew their were political prisoners on it, but that was it for the information really. We never knew of the brutality that was happening behind the scenes.

I can recall the song by Eddie Grant called give me hope which was banned in the country. I think that was the first banning I ever knew. If you listen to the lyrics it is all about South Africa and Joanna is in fact Johannesburg.

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The television was full of propaganda showing the National Party and the army doing various things. We never really saw the trouble that was going on behind the scenes. The first I knew about it was in the last few years of school as we were being called up for duty. There is nothing worse knowing the call up papers are coming and you are going to be shipped off to some distant place where they speak a language you hardly understand.

Afrikaans was compulsory in the schooling system and I hated every second of it. I know it is similar to Dutch, but I just didn't see the point. Give me French or Spanish or anything but that. You can't use it anywhere else in the world and it is spoken by a few only. The English schools were looked down upon by the Afrikaans schools as we didn't think like them with what was going on.

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I will continue this in another post as I have hardly touched on some things and it needs more thought.
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