Non-white, Non-human
Title
Non-white, Non-human
Description
While traveling through South Africa I have been trying to reposition myself in my mind: how would I feel as a Black or Coloured woman? How would my life have been different as a white person? It all feels foreign, emotions and realities that I cannot understand.
We spent a day visiting the District Six museum and taking a walking tour of the neighborhood. District Six was a thriving, multiethnic community torn apart by the nationalist government in the second half of the 20th Century; residents were forced to move out, and homes were destroyed, tearing apart families and social networks to make room for a white housing and commercial area. District Six is close to the city’s center, but residents were forced to relocate miles out of town, far from their jobs and from one another. The museum, housed in a former church, has beautifully preserved the stories and physical artifacts from District Six, including some signs.
One sign reads “For use by white persons: these public premises and the amenities thereof have been reserved for the exclusive use by white persons.” I had a physical reaction of guilt and pain when reading this sign, suddenly so aware of my whiteness and how that privilege and whiteness would have come at the expense of others. I sensed all of this in a detached sort of way during our class readings and even during our first few days in Cape Town, but in reading that sign I was overwhelmed by the systematic definition of those who had rights and those who did not.
The person/non-person rhetoric was reinforced in another sign, hanging right below the first: “Parking area for 3 taxis non-whites.” “Non-white” or “non-European” were the terms used to describe Black and Coloured people. While these terms at first seem almost an attempt at political correctness, they are quite literally the vocabulary stamps indicative of apartheid’s dehumanization. Whites are persons, Self, human beings. Non-whites are the Other, the not-quite-people who do not deserve their own identity.
We spent a day visiting the District Six museum and taking a walking tour of the neighborhood. District Six was a thriving, multiethnic community torn apart by the nationalist government in the second half of the 20th Century; residents were forced to move out, and homes were destroyed, tearing apart families and social networks to make room for a white housing and commercial area. District Six is close to the city’s center, but residents were forced to relocate miles out of town, far from their jobs and from one another. The museum, housed in a former church, has beautifully preserved the stories and physical artifacts from District Six, including some signs.
One sign reads “For use by white persons: these public premises and the amenities thereof have been reserved for the exclusive use by white persons.” I had a physical reaction of guilt and pain when reading this sign, suddenly so aware of my whiteness and how that privilege and whiteness would have come at the expense of others. I sensed all of this in a detached sort of way during our class readings and even during our first few days in Cape Town, but in reading that sign I was overwhelmed by the systematic definition of those who had rights and those who did not.
The person/non-person rhetoric was reinforced in another sign, hanging right below the first: “Parking area for 3 taxis non-whites.” “Non-white” or “non-European” were the terms used to describe Black and Coloured people. While these terms at first seem almost an attempt at political correctness, they are quite literally the vocabulary stamps indicative of apartheid’s dehumanization. Whites are persons, Self, human beings. Non-whites are the Other, the not-quite-people who do not deserve their own identity.
Creator
Jessie
Date
5-22-2013
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