The challenge of racism

What is racism? And what are its implications?
Racism is a form of xenophobia. I might be biased saying that it is one the strongest and unforgiving form of xenophobia.
Post-apartheid South Africa society draws a final line about racism being essentially xenophobia. It is clear that the origins are rooted in fear of other people that do not share the same culture and have different set of value. Fear that foreign behaviours that one doesn’t understand can be threats to one’s way of life. The bigger the difference in culture, the wilder the fear is. It has nothing to do with reason or assessment of values it has everything to do with fearing for one’s own riches and invariably one’s wealth.
Racism is unforgiving because it gets imbedded in skin colour.
No matter what you can do or even how rich and successful you can become you will still have the same skin tone. There is absolutely nothing that can be done about one’s genes heritage. This is final.

However racism still finds its real roots in the wealth and cultural differential and most people that are victim of racism seem to understand this at some level.
The amount of German luxury cars driven by black people in South Africa is unbelievable. And this so similar to what is happening at the other side of the world in the Caribbean. People simply seem to buy these very expensive cars to climb out of their general condition and try to be acceptable in higher part of society.
But, and this is a big but, they buy these social status automobiles before actually getting there just to be more acceptable and therefore less threatening to the elite. And some of them are just doing it for impressing the opposite sex!
Nevertheless it remain undeniable that they use symbol of western wealth to try to climb up or at least get more “respect”.
I personally think they are just “jumping the gun” because a car is just going to do so much socially for its owner. The bottom victims of racism are historically tied to poverty and having more wealth indeed does wonders to prevent racism, by itself and better when it is coupled to openness. Lack of money is not the only thing that is historically tied to racism: lack of intelligence and belief in oneself are traits that have plagued victims and have became part of the racism world as well. But the latter came afterwards to victims after years of damage.

Then the main cause of all this comes from inequality in the sharing of money with one group having most of it. And this is actually good news in South Africa where now more people have access to more opportunities, more jobs.
I would bet my entire Canadian credential that this will help people become closer to each other and kill the fear.

Unfortunately, like a lot of things there will be a price to pay and this will be a loss of personal culture as more things will become the same. Is it worth it for living in a world without hate? I guess so.
Equality unfortunately seems to come at a price of more uniformity.

In an hypothetic future maybe we’ll be able to all stand together and we will go back to more ancient values and dare to be different again. However this requires, first, the end of all xenophobia and its ethnical form: racism.


Coming back to South Africa there is a very big divide between rich and poor people in nowadays and therefore racism is still present. But, as said previously, there is now a well-defined path for people to improve their situation and this enables us to tackle racism problems.

Post apartheid South Africa particularly never ceases to impress me by being so similar to other countries that didn’t have its infamous history.
This really encourages me to think that overcoming racism is very possible and is on the way. The people that I have been in contact with are quite wonderful. I talk about black and white people alike.
Blacks are not stuck on the victim speech. It’s been 2 months and I have never heard anyone complaining about history.
White people are very open. I live at a white woman’s house and this experience ended up to be inspirational. I met a friend of hers the other day and I have been repeatedly invited over at her place which is in another province. I accepted her invitation and, with my landlord driving, went there the next week-end!

Really the only thing that stands in the way of true equality, is what I bet started the whole thing that is the economic factor.
This is amazing how it is possible to recover from such a damaging and hateful regime, that great achievement paves the way for a better future for all of us. After all if we all get a chance to work we will be wealthier and richer than ever before and overcome racism once and for all!


My stay at Catherine’s (mu landlord name) was formidable.
In summary: it was difficult to get comfortable at the beginning. After a few weeks of knowing each other everything started to be easier proving that the more you know about the other the less irrational fears survive. Then she invited me and Marco to see her parents in the country side. Her parents are incredibly interesting and nice people and they get along with everybody. I mean not in the drunken kind of way but in a respectful and sincere manner. They don’t mind knowing more about others and sharing there own experiences. On my side I tried to listen and to get past my own fears the most I could and after this visit the last step in equality was made. Getting along with white South African was expected to be a difficult task and thanks to the people I’ve met here I can say that this is a success and it is definitely possible to overcome the barriers between our respective worlds both ways.

Thanks, thanks Sci-Bono, thanks Catherine, thank you South Africa. We are moving forward winning the challenge brought by racism!

Assignement 5 – Take Away

The main thing I will be bringing back with me from South Africa is knowing the exact size and how far divide between people can be in our world in the present time.

That was what I was looking forward to appreciate when I got selected to come and South Africa was everything that I hoped it would be and more in this regard.
The experience was intense, profound and a lot more challenging and tiring that I thought it would be.

Since the beginning of this trip it was clear that South Africa has the exact same type of society than the French Caribbean (where I come from originally). Please note that this view is the one of a French citizen of dark skin complexion. Situations remain the same from wherever ones looks at it but where one stands determines how everything is going to be lived.

Everything is very similar even the scenery but it is on a totally different scale: A LOT BIGGER.

The mountains are bigger, the economy is bigger, the population is bigger and the social dynamic is bigger.

South Africa is peaceful and so is the Caribbean and relation between what is still called races is on a passive-aggressive model that does not irrupt in violence in both places. However it is clear that the problems are deeper and more serious in South Africa. I find myself being feeling this intimidation in front of certain white people. An irrational feeling made of respect and fear that is still in me from my childhood the Caribbean that I seldom experience anymore over there and never in Canada. In South Africa it came back with a vengeance even after all these years (I have been living in Canada for 8 years) and the fact that I am well into my twenties now.
This will probably never leave me and now I am sure I know the limits of the reality at the origin of this complex and for that I’m eternally thankful to South Africa and its people.
It was always been that “if I can handle South Africa I can handle anything regarding race related social divide”.

Of course there are other things that I have learnt here. They are mainly work and language related ironically. Studying at York for 2 years really has helped raising my English-level however working is a whole different setting. At work there are co-workers that one need to greet and acknowledge, supervisors that give assignments and projects and to whom there are reports to be submitted. In a word there is a lot more communication involved that at university at undergraduate level.

So my english have been improved as well as my relationships with people in general. It is not very related to South Africa in particular and could have been done in any other place in the world but it is true.

This is the last post as far as blog assignments are concerned but stay tuned as I’ll finally publish this paper on race relation before the end of this month!

Thanks for reading

Assignement 4: Traveller or Tourist

What is a traveller and what is a tourist? It may be safe to say that as long as one is venturing outside of his/her home one is travelling. And by this definition a tourist is a kind of traveller.

Some may not agree entirely and want to assign a more prestigious meaning to the denomination "traveller" as oppose to the fast-food reputation of the "tourist" label but having one term encompassing the other does justice to both as well. Let me explain. A tourist is a very well known term that has been defining a very specific group of people over a number of years. This category or group of people has done everything from climbing the pyramids in Egypt to fuelling economies in places like in lots of Caribbean islands whose economies are geared toward catering for them. Tourists have done everything in between including abusing there powerful position in a lot of places from crazy behaviour in hotels to indecent conduct and outfit at the beach. There is no getting away from it. There is a bad reputation associated with tourism.

So more image conscious people call themselves "travellers". They avoid going into typical places that most foreigners visit, place labelled "tourist attractions" and they try to concentrate so called more "authentic" experiences. This has been a new trend for some time and an attempt to restart the activity of visiting foreign places from the basics but this is the same basic activity. This is why a tourist is necessary a traveller but a traveller might not be a tourist.

To simplify further the distinction between the two let's confine the tourist designation to pure recreational vacations and traveller to every other type of foreign journey.

Following this definition I have been both during this marvellous trip to South Africa! Most of the time I am working in my place of internship at the science centre and this falls nicely as a non-recreational activity necessary to differentiate myself from a "tourist". But I had the chance to go on a short "vacation" to the beautiful city of Cape Town and there was nothing in mind than enjoying the beautiful scenery, climbing the gorgeous "Table Mountain" and going to see Nelson Mandela prison cell on the nearby island with all the other tourists!

I think there is no inherent bad in being a tourist from time to time. As a Caribbean guy I was quite happy to finally being one and enjoy a week-end of care-free relaxation in a place that was truly exotic to me. It is like everything in life if it is not abused it's all good.

Since then I've been back to my placement and I have been working hard to make the most out of everything. Working for more than just a few weeks really makes me start to feel different about everything and by now I feel a lot more like a foreign worker than even a traveller let alone a tourist...

Thanks for reading!