beauty and undercurrent

i’m currently in south africa for family ties and to test whether we could live here. over the weeks, it became clear to me that everyday racism still shapes ordinary interactions, at least in the family circles and social white spaces we were moving through. this isn’t me trying to summarise south africa. it’s me trying to be honest about what this visit has shown me, and what it means for my life going forward. i’ve never heard so many labels used so casually to sort people by skin colour and culture. some were too crude to repeat. others were used as if neutral, as if they carried no weight.

ordinary conversation would introduce skin colour as if it is part of a person’s name. We went to a new restaurant, and the manager is a black man. this is a mild example, almost polite, but it’s offered like it explains something essential. sometimes it was so subtle it could almost be denied: calling a domestic worker by their race instead of their name, as if the category mattered more than the person. i’m supposed to place people in a certain context because of their skin colour. the label arrives automatically, as if it carries meaning even before the person does.

other phrasing kept appearing too: “those people.” as if they are a separate category of human. often this was followed by words i don’t wish to repeat, harsh and demeaning. like echoes of the past, but heard clearly in the now. and it’s not only been the language, it’s the undercurrent in behaviour. a white waitress treated better than a black one, small dismissals and cruelties that add up. a hierarchy taking place in public, treated as normal.

and of course, this doesn’t exist independently. it rests upon history, wealth, land, education and the question of who receives safety without considering it.

i’ve heard this phrase often: ‘i’m not racist, but…’ my eyebrows immediately rise. it’s a warning. i listen carefully, because what follows is usually what they believe, and also what they want to deny responsibility for.

what makes it worse is the assumption that i would be fine with it. because i’m white, and part of the family, i’m expected to laugh along and be party to it. i never did, but i still felt the weight of the social constraints and expectations and was surprised at the proclamation of christianity within the context of practicing neighbourly love.

i’m not writing this to shame specific people. i’m writing because i don’t think many truly hear what they are saying, or what the language does in the room, and inside the person it lands on. i don’t want to be a silent accomplice.

i was born in uganda and grew up in ethiopia, a privileged white boy with dutch parents. i was never exposed to racism at anything like this level, and privilege is part of why. the international school and missionary schools i attended were genuinely multicultural, at least in my experience. i’m aware that missionary schools sit inside a colonial history, even if my day-to-day experience there felt mixed and ordinary. it was an extraordinary way to grow up: friendships that didn’t require explanation and crossed cultures without needing to be justified. i took that into adulthood not as innocence, but as a reference point, and i’ve tried to stay alert to race and power, checking myself as i go.

that background doesn’t make me innocent. it does mean i know what it feels like when difference can simply exist in a room without becoming its organising principle. in south africa the labels kept returning, framed as humour or “just the way people talk,” but it did something. it set the terms of belonging.

i’ve spent many days cringing, suppressing my opinions for the sake of maintaining peace. often i had to shrink myself to feign interest in a conversation, tempering my rage, letting things pass because challenging them would mean an unending confrontation. but staying quiet is costly. it eats away at one’s authenticity and values.

i spent years as a social worker, working with refugees. years of watching how quickly people normalise what surrounds them, what they excuse, what they choose to keep. i’ve seen how culture forms opinions, how surroundings and religion can dictate behaviour, and how, left unchecked, it causes pain. i see the pattern everywhere, but it’s been particularly clear in this experience. and i’m not pretending i’m the one who carries the weight. i leave next week. most people can’t. they have to manoeuvre, accept, reject, and live inside whatever becomes “normal.”

there is so much beauty here, often overwhelmingly so, especially the klein drakensberg mountain range i’m looking at right now. but beauty can also mask a strong undercurrent. i can feel it even when no one names it: bitterness, grievance, the claim that everything was better in the past. it shows up in entitlement, in tone, and in who gets to be treated as fully human without having had to earn it.

choosing to live here, acknowledging that i’ve only seen and experienced a small part of south africa, would mean living in a small bubble. not fully participating in the culture or the social life we’ve been seeing around us, at least not in any honest way. it would mean constantly enforcing boundaries, and that is fucking hard work. in the circles we’ve been in, alcohol lubricates everything. once people have had a few drinks the conversation starts spilling unchecked, and the bitterness gets louder. i could manage silence for a short time. i could ruin the mood for a while. but i would be tired. and if i’m tired all the time, i’m not working. not working means no expression and a depressed state. that is something i can’t afford.

what i learned is that i don’t want to live inside this particular social atmosphere. not because it’s unsafe for me personally, but because the constant categorising, the casual language, the assumed complicity, and the tension it creates in my body would erode my authenticity in life and in work.

the other side of the coin is that it gives me so much material to work with. these undercurrents get to the core of human nature: social masks, loaded history, shame, denial, resentment, and the stories people tell themselves in order to live with what is and what has been. i would love to work with that through my art, but i’m careful. i don’t want to turn other people’s pain into my aesthetic, especially as i have the privilege of stepping out and leaving at the end of the week. if anything comes out of this, it has to begin with what i’ve seen in myself. i’ll take what i’ve experienced, keep distance, use restraint, and see what arises.