Many For The Few

Visited Chichen-Itza today. One of the 7 Wonders of the world. The Mayan’s ancient calendar, which was based on their knowledge of astronomy, is only rivaled by NASA’s modern technology.





Truly amazing. Of course, it is sad to see the Mayan descendents scurrying about, peddling trinkets of their heritage to Western tourists for pennies. I’m not sure why we find so many descendants of such rich culture living in such destitute situations. Perhaps it isn’t them who are destitute. Maybe it’s us. Even after their way of life has been ravaged by outsiders; their sacred practices deemed evil and pagan; their land stripped of its resources; they are still a dignified, hope filled people. Interesting comment by our tour guide today regarding the practice of human sacrifice at Chichen-Itza: “Back then, they sacrificed a few for the many. Today, we sacrifice many for the few.”

Written by Frederick A Hanna

Black Beautiful and Bad

We spent the last few days of our South Africa trip at the Rugby House... the center of University of Pretoria's athletic training facilities. UP, as it is known locally, had a historical significance in the development and entrenching of Afrikaner nationalism. According to Jonathan Jansen,

"The University of Pretoria was one of the key Apartheid institutions for higher learning and one that fulfilled its white nationalist duty with considerable fervor for more than 100 years."

This was a university that churned out loyal civil servants of Apartheid, and ministers of religion who could defend its racist regime on holy grounds. Its anthropologists assigned ethnic and racial sensibilities that aligned with white racist ideology; its sociologists justified the racial order of society; its political scientists justified Apartheid rule; and its historians "impressed Afrikaner nationalism on public understandings of the past." (Jansen) It turned out prime ministers, business moguls, judges and Springbok (Rugby) captains. Its training originated in English, but was soon taken over by the language of Afrikaner nationalism, Afrikaans. At the center of the university's emblem sits the ox wagon, the symbol of the Vortrekker journey that has taken on mythical proportion in Afrikaner history.

Desegregation at UP -post Apartheid- meant overcoming the fears and racist tendencies that had become a part of university culture. Jansen writes, "This was university change in the context of a country that was itself transforming dramatically in the aftermath of apartheid." This was a long and ongoing process. The desegregation and integration of UP in recent years, means that it has a vastly different feel and look today. Outside of the rugby and cricket teams, most of the athletes we saw at UP were black. Still, all of the service workers were black, all of the cafeteria workers were black, and there seemed to be an air of elitism among whites that was palpable. A group of white American students studying abroad at UP told us how white Afrikaners would speak to them in Afrikaans, as if to test their ethnic allegiance. The seperation among races at the University was so striking that our multicultural group, a group who dined and laughed together, and generally liked each other, seemed a bit of a novelty.



The unspoken tension was never more apparent to me than the day I wore one of my favorite tee shirts. On the front, the sillohette of a naked black woman with a Pam Grier, 1970's Afro... On the back, the words Black Beautiful and Bad.



As I walked into the cafeteria that morning, no less than 3 black women approached me and exuberantly greeted me with "I love your shirt." Others nodded in my direction, gave me clinched fists of solidarity, and smiled at me with their eyes. I felt like a super hero...

...and I wondered, if the blacks are this excited about my tee shirt, what will the whites, specifically the Afrikaners, think? Hmmm... well it didn't take me long to find out. I enjoyed my breakfast and the celebrity status my tee shirt granted me. It was almost time to leave for our daily adventure, and I needed to run upstairs and grab my camera. On my way down the stairs from the 3rd floor, a group of 4 young, blonde haired Afrikaner males exited the gym on the 2nd floor, and were perfectly positioned to get a bird's eye view of the back of my tee. What I heard next was a grumbling of angry words from one of them in Afrikaans. Some words sound the same in every language... so I slowed my gait, squared my shoulders, and stopped...

...complete silence now screamed in the space that was once inhabited by angry words... The silence sounded like, "Oh my God. I hope he doesn't speak Afrikaans."

...no movement... I slowly turned my head to see the 4 youngsters standing frozen about half way down a flight of stairs...



I glared at them... ...the smallest of the 4 then decided to walk past me. As I stared at him, he refused to make eye contact, his face contorted with anger and defiance. What was said? I'll never know, but as he scurried out of the door and the others waited for me to resume movement, it was obvious that he was the culprit. When I resumed movement, so did the group behind me. I told our group what happened after I boarded the bus, and Krystal noted, "It was probably the 'Beautiful' that got to them."

"I bet you're right," I said.

Written by Frederick A Hanna

I Believe

"I watched and listened to a child, a girl, who lives in a shack, walk to the front of the classroom, with dirty close cropped hair, and dirty, high-water pants, and they weren't Capri pants, and I distinctly remember the big hole in the elbow of her sweater... I watched her look into my eyes and listened to her tell me that she was going to be a doctor, and I believed her." ~ Frederick A Hanna

But That Doll is Black

Our first night in Johannesburg and we are walking down Melville Street looking for a place to grab dinner, when something catches my eye. Two black rag dolls in the window of a toy store. I had been looking for a black rag doll for a special little girl, and here was a matching pair. One male and one female, and the male was wearing a bow tie, so you know this was meant to be. Right? Well, unfortunately the store was closed as it was late in the day, so I made plans to return before we checked out of the B&B.

Two days later and I finally made it back to the store the morning we were to check out. I was excited to make this purchase as I walked into the store and cautiously asked to see the 2 dolls in the window. Why cautiously? Because in the light of day, I noticed something different about these dolls as I spied them in the window. While they were cleverly dressed, well made and priced right; they didn't exactly look like me. When I say "me" I mean "black people."

After I asked to see the dolls, something else happened that was peculiar.
The shopkeeper (and owner) said, "You will be the 1st black person to ever buy a black doll from me!"
I said, "really?"
She said, "Yes, the white people buy the black dolls and the black people buy the white dolls."
"Strange," I thought as I looked at this doll. "I wonder why that is," I said.
"Well the white people say they remind them of their gulley's! The ones they had when they were children. " she exclaimed, which she explained to me was what they called this kind of rag doll regardless of color.
"That's a relief," I thought to myself.
"Well," I said, "I don't know if I can buy this doll because its black, like black, like I'm not black, not like this. But that doll is BLACK." She looked at me strangely and I said, "You know, like you're not white. You're pink, and none of the white dolls are white."

What followed was an insightful conversation between an American Black man and a White South African woman about the Clark Doll Test:



...And other matters of history, race and children. I explained to her that this black rag doll could have a profound affect on a child, and how I wouldn't want my daughter to look at this black doll and think it was ugly, and perhaps think of herself as being ugly by association. Without going into all the details, the conversation ended like this... The shop owner said, "If you can come back before you leave South Africa, I will have brown dolls for you, and if you don't come back, don't worry - someone else will buy them. Thank you for educating me. May we all continue to educate each other, and evolve together."

With that, we hugged and parted ways.

This is one of the reasons why I love South Africa. The simple act of buying a rag doll in South Africa can have so many implications, and can turn up such complexities and such opportunities.

Written by Frederick A Hanna