Black and White

For the second time in my life I am in a setting where I am the minority, the first being this past summer in Guatemala. For the first time in my life I have been in situations where I am the only light skinned person in a given situation, and for the first time I have been uncomfortable with the color of my skin. I am the only white person at my school, I am the only white person on the bus to and from work, and I am the only white person visible when traveling through the townships. I blatantly stick out, even when all I want to do is blend in. Such feelings are new to me but I know have been common place for years in oppressed individuals from the US, South Africa, and countless other countries.

These feelings came into play strongest yesterday when my director took the other UConn intern, Erica, and me on a tour through the township where he grew up. He lived in an apartment complex comparable to what we consider the projects in the US, in a tiny two bedroom apartment which housed up to ten people at any given time. It was one of the first complexes put up during the relocation of colored and black people (in South Africa you can be classified white, colored, or black) I spoke of in my entry on the District 6 museum and is comprised of almost completely of these individuals to this day.  Thus I was the only light skinned individual for what seemed like, and probably was, miles. People stopped what they were doing to gawk, people peered into the car window as we passed; people did not even try to hide the fact they were looking at me, clearly wondering what I was doing there. It all made me incredibly uncomfortable; all I wanted was to quietly make my way through the township, hearing its stories from a former residents.

This experience, as well as others like it, has been very humbling. Growing up in a community that is majority white and going to a university that is far less diverse than it claims to be has meant I am constantly surrounded by people similar to myself. It has also meant that when someone different, i.e. a person of color, enters the context they stand out just as I have here. I can now appreciate the emotions that these individuals must feel when this happens and understand the privilege I was automatically granted when I was born with white skin.