Dispatch: What Do I Say?

When you put work out into the world, there are some things you can control and others that you cannot. Some things that you want to control and others that you want to just let happen. I have been thinking a lot lately about what I try to control and what role I can play as things just happen.

In June & July when there was talk of a resurgence of xenophobic attacks, I had several screenings with young people, some of which I have already written about. I have been thinking lately not of what they said, but of my responses. There was often debate in the room, there was guilt, there was sadness, inevitably while some welcomed foreigners, others expressed animosity, shared the rhetoric about them stealing jobs and houses, were angry at their presence in South Africa.

With talk of anti-foreigner sentiment rising outside of the auditoriums where we spoke, I found myself not pushing and challenging these young people’s perspectives of foreigners, but rather just pushing them to think about humanity. My goal became simple and certainly much smaller and more limited than my true goals. Yes, I want these young viewers to accept, if not embrace, foreigners in their communities and their country. And I really want them to think about how to stand up, how to take action, on whatever level is appropriate, in these situations and in others like them. But that moment, in that auditorium, in that 30 minutes or hour I had with them, I just wanted them to walk away, to not join in.

I’ve found myself thinking a lot about this lately. Was I compromising? Was I just realistic about what could be accomplished in that moment? Had I not been there, had someone else been facilitating, where would that discussion have gone?

I had a different kind of experience at a diverse, well-resourced school a few weeks ago. That conversation and my role in it challenged me more. Some students expressed views about Black South Africans that were troubling, discriminatory and racist – one boy said that “locals” are lazy and don’t want to work at all in life. Another said that his South African gardener came to work drunk and didn’t do any work while their Malawian gardener works very hard and often for free. I was bothered not just by the stereotypes and racism the boy invoked, but also by his sense of authority and entitlement over an adult employee of his parents.

What also struck me was some students' lack of understanding about who was in the room. There seemed to be no awareness of the fact that other students were Black South Africans or perhaps even non-South Africans and of how they might feel. Often we talk about "the other" but don't think of our friends or classmates within that group. I imagine that when one student said that Black South Africans were lazy, he wouldn't imagine the Black classmate sitting next to him as a member of that group.

There were certainly students who disagreed with their classmates. Some brought up arguments and challenged their peers. Others just shook their heads. There were also other great points made and questions asked – although I don’t remember them. Sometimes it’s the negative that sticks with us, I guess.

When I enter these dialogues, no matter my opinion, I never want a student, or any audience member, to feel that they cannot express their honest opinion. I don’t want to tell them they are wrong. So I stood in front of this group and struggled about how to respond.

I ended up starting with something about not judging people as a group and avoiding stereotypes. I tried to challenge some of them. When one said that Black South Africans are lazy, I asked for a show of hands if any of them know classmates who are ever lazy. When one boy referred to Black South Africans as “locals” I asked him if he was South African. When he said yes, I asked if that meant he is local. He said yes. But I don’t really know if any of that sinks in.

In the many interviews I did before filming started on Where Do I Stand? I encountered many young people with racist and xenophobic beliefs. At those moments though, I was a filmmaker, a journalist, in the room simply to listen, not to debate or educate.

But in these screenings, I am there to educate and to encourage debate. At the same time, I am not a teacher or rather I am not the teacher. As a visitor to a school or a youth program or a community, how far should I go in challenging and pushing youth? How far can I go to try and change opinion? I could ask these same questions about an audience of adults as well, and I don’t have that answer either, but with young people the lines are even blurrier, I am perhaps more careful. What would the principal have wanted me to do at that moment, as I stood there, listening to prejudice falling out of the mouths of 15 year olds?

I like to think that if I had been a teacher in that room, I would have spoken up, shown a visitor how we handle these moments in my school or classroom. What I wanted right then was a bit of guidance. What I wanted was for one of the teachers in the room to raise a hand. But no one did.

As I stood there, at the end, searching for the right balance of words, what I wanted to do was ask, “Where did you get that idea? Do you understand what you’re saying is prejudice? Do you hear your parents’ say that? Do you understand why what you are saying is wrong wrong wrong?” I wanted to get on my soapbox and rant about the wrong, racist, prejudice, untruths I heard. Lucky for me, two final hands popped up and instead of struggling for words, I let these kids respond and was relieved when they talked about difference and stereotypes and rejected what their classmates had to say. It was probably more powerful than whatever I might have said, simply because it came from their peers.

Then, after the screening, when I was finally in the quiet of my car, I did let out my rant, for only my ears to hear.

And here are just a couple notes about upcoming opportunities to see my films:

I am planning a trip the U.S. in before the end of the year and will screen Where Do I Stand? in Washington, DC and New York and possibly elsewhere. The film is also now for sale at www.wheredoistandfilm.com/buy-dvd/

Testing Hope will be broadcast on RMPBS, Colorado Public Television, on September 19th at 12:00 p.m. Please tell your friends in the area. For 2 weeks, starting the 19th, you will also be able to watch the film on the RMPBS website www.rmpbs.org

Dispatch: Witnessing the Contradictions

I don’t remember a specific moment when I learned right from wrong. Clearly I learned it, over time, from my parents, grandparents and teachers and others, but I don’t remember a single conversation where I was sat down and told right, wrong, good, bad, moral. Moral. That word has so many connotations. In the last several years it seems that and the word values have been co-opted– people talk about “values education” and whether or not our leaders and politicians have the right values. Often that word “values” is directly associated with things like abstinence education, prayer, republicans, but whose values some people ask? Whose values are we talking about? Whose values are we supposed to follow? And how do we develop our own? Who helps us grow them, who nurtures our values and beliefs when we are young and helps us to get to the place where we can make our own choices, to follow our own consciences. How do we become the kind of people who step back or walk home when a crowd of friends is looting a shop instead of diving in to grab chips and 5 kg of rice? To not act simply because “my friends were doing it.” To feel shame or sadness at seeing someone’s humanity being stripped from them. And to put that before one’s own hunger?

The one word in my mind lately is contradiction. When I set out to do this film, I had four categories in my mind – the victim, the perpetrator, the bystander, and the resistor. It turns out that these categories are somewhat fluid, that the 16 year old who tried to stand up identifies as a bystander. That the perpetrator didn’t act out of hatred for foreigners but for other reasons. That the perpetrator is ashamed of his or her wrongs, says the violence was wrong, and admits that the pull of wanting to join friends and of one’s own stomach is powerful, but also offers that there are more disadvantages than advantages to having foreigners in South Africa.

Luyalo’s story is unique. He saw his Zimbabwean neighbor bleeding on the street and he and his father brought him into their home. This was a risk and the only story I have encountered where a young person stood up amidst the chaos to help someone. I am sure there are others but this is the only one I have found, after talking to over 100 youth who live in areas where looting took place. Why was this a risk? “My friends might think I’m against South Africa because I help those people [foreigners], but I’m not against them, they are the same as us.” One’s immediate assumption then might be that Luyalo feels it is good to have foreigners in his community and in his country. “They bring opportunities, they sell us things at good prices,” he said, affirming my assumption. But when I probed further I got a different answer. Having foreigners in South Africa, “its bad and right. Shopkeepers can stay, but people who bring disease and take low salaries should go.” So its 50, 50 according to Luyalo. Those he perceives as helpful can stay. Some foreigners are okay, others are not. It doesn’t depend on where they are from, it doesn’t seem to be fear of the other completely, perhaps more those he perceives as a threat or who could cause problems must go. Again, so much contradiction wrapped up in this young man.

Sometimes it is the contradictions of this country that become illuminated for me. And sometimes the words of the young are unnerving. I recently conducted more interviews at a suburban (privileged) boys school. I heard sympathy for foreigners and talk of foreigners who come here illegally or bring and sell drugs. I heard stories from boys who participated in the relief effort and aided refugees and boys who wanted to stand up but were afraid. Some of what I heard disturbed me. The boys are 15 and 16. They are boys.

One said to me:

“When foreigners come they do little things (like selling goods on the side of the road) to get money but South Africans take it so easily, most people who were mobbing are hijacking people instead of buying at a shop. We had a hardworking Zimbabwean domestic worker. Now we have a South African and she doesn’t work as hard. Just the work ethic from foreigners to South Africans is such a big difference…Its just another point of how South Africans value other people’s lives. It has the highest crime rate in the world. People are hijacking. No South Africans find jobs, they just hijack people and have food for a month.”

I have heard this sentiment echoed out of the mouths of many young people, both in the suburbs and in the townships. Not the criminal, hijacking piece. This boy was the first. But I have had young people in townships tell me that members of their community do not take initiative, do not create jobs for themselves like foreigners do. I have also had one young boy tell me that, “Black people don’t know how to work. They think that money floats into their hands.” I never know what to do with these statements and sentiments and generalizations and I am invariably still surprised to hear them, but I share it here in contrast to the above and as something for you to contemplate. The boy above, of course, has little to no exposure to the people he is stereotyping. Then again, we usually don’t.

And here are a few other thoughts I found interesting:

“The scariest thing for me wasn’t that a guy [foreigner] was being hit, but it was the people who were walking away from him and not paying attention.”

“The first time I found out [about the xenophobia] through my dad because our domestic worker came and said there was unrest in Mandela Park [township]. I didn’t think much of it, it seems far away, you think its not coming to Hout Bay. One morning on my way in the car I saw guys attacking another guy with a panga and that’s when I realized. At first it doesn’t seem real, you don’t think much of it but then it is shocking how people value people’s lives and say, “they are foreigners, they mean nothing.”

“I didn’t know how far the xenophobia would spread and what it could turn into. You began to worry about your own safety. You wondered would they come to your house? Next thing foreigners are kicked out then it could have been White people attacked and killed.”

“We tend to make reasons why this is happening. White South Africans were also worried. My family got passports ready because if they could attack their “brothers” what is stopping them from attacking us, we were worse to them in apartheid. White people tend to live in their own perfect world and tend to think it won’t happen to them, what life is like for blacks and coloreds is happening (like poverty or violence). I talked to my friends and my domestic worker and I asked them how long has this hatred for foreigners been around and my domestic worker said that her mother and father hated foreigners and I asked them why and they couldn’t give a reason and I think they were just waiting for an excuse.”

“All I know is that foreigners have rights. But if you look at first world countries and all the immigrants they have and the strict control they have and look at us, we are third world, we have bad hygiene and water and we have weak border control. We let everyone in and we’re third world and can’t cater for them. If first world countries are so strict then we should be too.”

I am troubled by some of this and saddened by the massive divide in this country. But I believe it is important not to judge, and certainly not too harshly. To remember that these -- the boys who speak above, the other young people I have talked to, the perpetrators, the bystanders, those who stood up, are all kids. Kids with massive, perhaps disturbing, preconceptions of other South Africans, kids who have learned to fear, kids who have learned that they are better than others, kids who are convinced there is a difference between stealing and taking when they are looting, but yes, kids. Kids who are still learning and can still be taught, who will grow and change as they experience life and encounter new people, who are each still looking for and finding their own moral compass.

The working title of this film is Where Do I Stand? I don’t presume to ever try and understand where all of these kids come from nor all of their baggage and I don’t wish to make them think exactly as I do. But I know where I’d like them to stand – or at least near – and I am making this film to help them get there, or help them start thinking about it. And perhaps it is as much a question now of what we as adults, teachers, parents, friends – of what you do -- to help them get there.