Week 5: Civil Rights in Pop Culture

This blog title isn't mean to minimize the gravity (and excellence!) of the two films I watched this week, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom and Selma. I say "pop culture" because the films made it into the public realm, or mainstream media.

With that disclaimer out of the way, watching these films back to back on a bitterly cold Monday is an emotional way to start the week.

It's difficult to translate my emotions evoked by the films into full, coherent sentence so I'll just take the easy route and lay out some words that come to mind: Anger. Sadness. Disbelief. Solidarity. Hope. Togetherness. Notice the transition? Three bad, three good. That has to do with the fact that the civil rights movements of both the United States and South Africa were ultimately successful, but at a huge human cost.

Simply put, I learned a lot from the films about both the details surrounding the movements and the personal lives of their two iconic leaders.

I knew that Mandela had a wife while he was in prison, but I knew nothing of Winnie's political action. Watching the rift develop between her and Nelson about the nature of the movement (Nelson's non-violent approach vs. Winnie's more radical, militant perspective) throughout the film was interesting and sad.

Here's a quote I admired from Winnie, after she was released from 18 months of solitary confinement:

"I say to my jailers, Thank you'. And I say to the government 'Thank you.' You've helped me grow up. I was very young when I married Nelson. I'm not young anymore. And I am not afraid anymore."

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The march scene in Selma - and also ones leading up to the big march - was amazing. The overlap of the shots and the music was phenomenal. I cried.

If anyone is interested in learning more about Spider Martin, the photojournalist whose photos inspired many of the scenes in the film, check out this New York Times article. 

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I have to mention, some details about the personal lives of Mandela and MLK was uncomfortable and confusing to process. As someone who takes domestic violence extremely serious, my heart dropped during the scene where Mandela pushed his first wife. On that same note, the scene between MLK and his wife that hinted at an extramarital affair was tough to watch.

Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that these men were actual human beings. Sounds simple, but the idea is that because they are complex beings (and not picture-perfect characters in a book) they're not going to be perfect. Their imperfections don't downplay their incredible historical significance and selflessness for the improvement of South African and American society.

Having watched Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, I definitely feel more knowledgable about the nature of the anti-apartheid movement. The film especially contextualized its complexities (non-violent vs. violent sects) and the public perception of Mandela - before, during and after prison.

Week 4: Mandela & MLK

It's impossible not to drew parallels between South Africa's Nelson Mandela and the United States' Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., both key leaders in their nations' respective civil rights movements. 

As iconic as these names have been, I haven't studied either of them in depth. I knew that King wrote his "Letter from Birmingham Jail" during his eleven days in prison, and while I could have guessed that Mandela made the most of his time in prison (a shocking 27 years), I had no idea he earned a bachelor of law degree from the University of London. Perhaps it was common knowledge, but you learn something new every day.

Other similarities I see among them include a religious background and non-violent resistance as a method of protest.

In terms of power and political influence, Mandela became president of South Africa in 1994 but the reality of a black American president didn't happen until 2008. That's an interesting contrast considering that legal segregation ended decades earlier in the United States but it makes sense in the context of South Africa's free elections and blacks being the majority.

Another obvious (but significant) difference between the two is the fact that MLK was assassinated in 1968 while Mandela died from a respiratory infection in 2013 at the age of 95.

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"For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others." - Nelson Mandela (Madiba)

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'" - Martin Luther King Jr. 

It's hard to zero in on just one quote by each man. From looking at a collection of both their thoughts, they are on the exact same page about various concepts: the power of education, combating hate with love (and working with your enemy to get a job done) and perseverance in the face of seemingly important obstacles. 

That being said, I choose these two quotes because they reflect the bigger picture of why they were who they were and did what they did. 

Week 3: There's Always Something to Learn

Before reading up on some history and current events, I've decided to lay out what I know about South Africa point blank.

• Apartheid, the word for systematic racial segregation in the country, ended in 1994. I was one year old. 
• I've never been to any African country. From observations of friends who have been to Cape Town (and by observations I mean stalking Facebook photos), the geography of Cape Town reminds me a lot of Rio de Janeiro's landscape. Meaning beautiful, but also starkly unequal. When you're on the beach in Rio, you can look up and see the favelas (slums) in plain view. I wonder where the townships in Cape Town are situated. 
• South Africa has eleven official languages, one of them being Afrikaans (which sounds similar to Dutch). The wealth of culture is pretty overwhelming but equally exciting. 
• The people I'm met from South Africa have really cool accents. 
• Has anyone gone through a Die Antwoord phase? I know they're a controversial group, and I'm curious to see what people in South Africa think of them. Putting this out there: 

• 25 years ago today, Nelson Mandela was released from a 27-year prison sentence. Here's a photo of him raising his fist in triumph with his then-wife Winnie on that sunny Feb. 11, 1990 afternoon in Cape Town.

Although I knew the general idea behind apartheid, reading details about specific laws in the 20th century emphasized how much of a parallel can be drawn between the history of the United States and the history of South Africa. Knowing this, and considering the current issues still facing the United States, I'm curious to see race relations as they exist in South Africa.

Both a strength and a challenge for the nation is its diversity. Richness of culture is a beautiful thing, but the society suffers from stark economic inequality. Since it's so freshly democratized, it will take time for the legacy of decades of oppression to lift. It's shocking to think that the Afrikaners of Dutch, French and German descent make up only eight percent of the population and have such few points of contact with South Africa's black majority.

The African Union (AU) Summit just occurred in late January, and I'm happy to hear the main issue on the agenda was the empowerment of women (with a focus on ending child marriages). Since women make up half the population (aka, half the work force!), their contributions to the continent should be valued and their rights protected. It's a fundamental issue. Not only because we should respect all human beings regardless of their gender, but because women are significant players in Africa's growing economy.

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Background on our guest speaker Mr. David Gilmour, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs:

He managed academic and professional exchanges and cultural presentations during South Africa's transition to democracy in the early 1990s.

It's been 21 years since the official end of the apartheid system. A question I had for him is what kind of specific economic changes have taken place in those years to advance the poor socioeconomic reality of South Africans? 

Week 2: Privilege: A Big, Scary Word

It can't be overstated that race and privilege are taboo topics in the United States.

Peggy McIntosh describes white privilege as an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks.”

But try to get a white friend of yours to admit that they grew up with privilege, and you'll probably get a variety of responses that range from explicit denial to defensiveness to anger. People will try to come up with examples of how they were different, how they didn't have it easy growing up and how class and privilege shouldn't be assumed to go hand in hand.

What are we all so afraid of?

Acknowledging white privilege does not mean we have to be burdened by white guilt, because feeling guilty doesn't do anyone any good. But it does mean we have to be honest and objective about our experiences and identities.

I'm Romanian, the daughter of immigrant parents who left their country in their late twenties to offer me a better future. While Romanians aren't the most respected nationality in Europe, I recognize that a combination of my father's hard work, my mother's sacrifice and my light skin have all granted me access to a variety of opportunities in the United States that others have been systemically denied.

"Colorblindness will not end racism."

This statement deeply resonates with me, because there have been more than a handful of times that I've heard white friends of mine whimsically say, "I don't see race. We're all the same" or "Why do we have to have all these ethnic and cultural groups at the university? They're segregating themselves" or "Why can there by Black and Latino communities, but there's no White community?"

While it's true that skin color is only skin deep, choosing to ignoring the influence that race (as a social construct, not a biological trait!) has in our society does not help to improve the day-to-day realities of those who have to think about race all the time.

As Beverly Daniel Tatum mentions in "The Complexity of Identity: Who am I?" people of a dominant group (white, heterosexual, male) typically don't mention these labels when they're asked about their identity because it is one that they take for granted. Since being white is "the norm" in the United States, asking white Americans to talk about their racial identity is kind of like asking a fish to talk about water because many white people haven't given much thought to how being white has impacted their life.