When Penny Sparrow left a racist Facebook message aimed at black New Year’s Day beach revelers, the overwhelming national response was based on South Africa’s peculiar relationship with a central symbol of inequality.
Beach goers celebrate New Year’s Day at the ocean in Durban, South Africa, January 1, 2016.
- By Ryan Lenora Brown Correspondent@ryanlenorabrown
January 8, 2016|JOHANNESBURG
Only 20 miles separated the farm outside of Cape Town where Jerome September grew up in the 1980s and the nearby resort-studded coastline.
The psychological distance, however, could well have been measured in light years. For one thing, the best beaches – whose powdery white sands and turquoise waves graced international travel magazines – were reserved for white people. Mr. September’s family was black. And even visits to the segregated beaches where they were allowed took months of planning by his parents – a farm laborer and a domestic worker – to save for transportation and arrange for a day off from work.
Yet for September, that isn’t the part of the experience that has stayed with him.
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Author: Trevor Davies
I’m Trevor Davies, a senior consultant, creating my own media training deliverables. Forty years of experience with scores of NGOs and hundreds of trainees mentored to successful careers in visual storytelling are amongst the many reasons we should work together. htttps://trevordavies.org
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