Tag Archives: KwaZulu Natal

This week’s post is written by PPI-SA Managing Director, S’bongiseni Vilakazi. He offers insight into South Africa’s current social and racial complexities, even though it has nearly 17-years since the end of apartheid.

Sbo (right) at a leadership retreat sponsored by the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation

A key element of PPI – SA’s vision is bridging divides among the various sectors of South Africa’s society. Chief among these is the racial divide and the impact it has on the interactions between members of different races. The results of actions or utterances of individuals, driven by ignorance or stereotypes about people of a different race, can be shocking, funny or even sad. They point to the importance of PPI – SA’s work in addressing this issue. Here are a few examples that I have experienced or heard of in the recent past.

PPI-SA participants playing together at a past City-Wide Tournament.

A friend of mine of African descent is married to a Caucasian woman. One day while working in his lawn, he heard the buzzer ring at his gate and went to investigate. A white male was standing at the gate. My friend asked the man, “Can I help you?” The man looked past my friend and said, “I’m not interested in talking to you, I want to talk to your madam.” Unbeknown to my friend, his wife had come out of the house to answer the ringing buzzer, and was walking behind him towards the gate. It was her the man was referring to as my friend’s “madam.” The term was the title commonly used in the days of apartheid to refer to the woman (usually white) master in the home where a black servant worked. Obviously, the gentleman at the gate still lived in those days. It was inconceivable to him that the lady could be my friend’s wife.

I recently needed to take one of our organization’s vehicles to a repair shop to get it fixed. Talking by telephone to a gentleman of Indian origin at the business, I asked him to give me their address. “Ask your boss, Mr Taylor. He knows the address,” he responded. “Actually, I’m Taylor’s boss,” I said. “I’m the Managing Director.” The gentleman totally ignored this remark and continued to refer to my ‘boss,’ Mr. Taylor, throughout our conversation. Taylor is a Caucasian who volunteers with our organisation as a skills development officer on a two year contract. He reports to our Programme Manager, who reports to me. The colour of his skin seems to have led the gentleman to whom I was speaking to believe that he must be the one in charge.

Durban, PPI-SA's home, has a particularly diverse ethnic millieu, with large numbers of Caucasians, Africans, Coloureds and Indians.

When my wife and I moved into our new home a year ago, in a suburb previously considered a ‘white’ suburb, we had many experiences where people of various races seemed to think that, being African, we could not own the house ourselves. We asked a builder (white) to make some repairs and he asked us if we had got permission from our landlord. We invited some black friends over just after we moved in. After showing them around the property, one friend asked me how long we would house-sit such a big house before going back to our own small one. On several occasions, various people have mistaken the tenants (an Indian couple) in our granny cottage for our landlords and us for the tenants.

This tendency to see and treat each other according to race and the associated negative impressions continue to plague our country, even as we approach two decades after the end of apartheid. The local media regularly carries stories of atrocities or injustices resulting from racial discrimination. Our national politics is still dominated by issues of race, with our leaders often setting a rather poor example of the ‘rainbow nation.’

PPI-SA's tournaments and events are the first time many of its players will interact in a substantive way with those of another race.

It is heartening then to see the impact PPI – SA has achieved in bridging racial divides. PPI participants come from all the official South African racial classifications: African, Asian/Indian, Coloured and White. [A note on race in South Africa: South Africa's three largest ethnic groups are Africans (those of descent from the original native people of South Africa), "Coloureds" (those of mixed race), and Caucasian or White (those of European ancestry). In addition, the Durban area, where PPI - SA is based, has a very large population of immigrants from Southeast Asia - the largest outside of the Indian subcontinent.] Participants of various races tell of how they have come to have friends of different races through participating in PPI activities. Independent evaluations have found that children in PPI – SA’s programme have more positive attitudes towards people of different races than children not in the programme. The principal of an ‘African’ school in the township of Umlazi said that the only time she ever saw coloured children in her school was when they were taking part in PPI activities.

Speaking recently at a meeting of principals from our partner schools, one of our staff members, an African, declared “I am coloured,” as a way to grasp his audience’s attention. He then went on to describe the tremendous impact his coloured PPI coach had on him in primary school. “He was the first coloured person to have such a strong positive influence on me, and I eventually found myself very comfortable among coloured people,” he said. The close association between the two continued when the participant joined PPI’s high school programme, then became a coach himself, to this day where former participant and coach work together as Area Coordinator and Operations Manager, respectively, in the PPI office.

There is clearly a long way to go in bridging the racial divide in South African society. As PPI – SA celebrates its 10th year of existence in 2011, it will continue to do its bit towards this worthy cause.