To the naked eye, Cape Town probably looks like a cosmopolitan African city where whites and blacks get along well and go to the same places. Like a Norman Rockwell for inter-racial living. But…well, I’ll just say I have to think it’s not the most tolerant or integrated place in the world.
Sure, there are plenty of inter-racial couples and such…but look down the street and you’ll see that in general the whites still hang out with the whites, the blacks with the blacks, and the Indians with the Indians. Openly gay people still get yelled at by the religious right. Blanket statements such as “The Jews in South Africa are all rich” are thrown out and easily accepted in conversations.
And the Asian-American girl gets asked, “You’re Jayna? You don’t look like you’re American,” from the hostel receptionist. And she gets put in a dorm room with the only three other Asians (who were all also traveling separately) at the whole multi-room hostel. And every day when she walks down the street, locals — blacks and whites — would yell behind her “chong chee chong chong” and laugh at their mimicry of Asian languages.
I read this note that Victor wrote on Facebook about living in rural Virginia. Kids do the whole “ching chong” and “let’s go get egg rolls” kind of banter behind him in the halls. They also ask why his eyes are so small and why his skin is yellow, etc. He refers to his classmates as “ignorant hicks.” It’s interesting how even parts of America are like that. He had no problems at Parkway Central in St. Louis, though.
Oh, and new boy (who’s already on the outs) makes a HUGE deal about me being 100% Asian, as opposed to mixed. Weird. People are weird.
Such a problem all around the world. Here they do the same to Asians, and with black, oh my gosh, don’t even get me started. You would think that the people of Chile had NEVER seen a “negro” in their entire lives.
And as for being white/blond, it’s like a reverse discrimination, they assume you’re a rich bitch basically and hound you for money until you want to scream.
Yeah…I mean, I heard it in rural MO…and a Chinese girl (family friend) was always called “Pu Pu Platter” by her classmates at the religious school she went to. Pretty clever, I have to say, for 6-year-olds. But horribly damaging to her self-esteem…
But it’s like…is there no where in the world where racial harmony exists? Granted I’ve only been on four of the earth’s continents, but I’ve yet to see it.
Such a problem everywhere, but sadly, racism will never go away. I did experience similar situation when I was travelling the world. People just don’t think you are an American if you are not “white”.