South Africa is a nice place to be white and well-off. But isn’t the same thing true of the USA? Why does it feel so wrong to me to be served by black people there, but I almost never stop to consider the Mexican service sector back home? I suspect most of the discomfort lies in the seeming inescapability of skin color, and the promise of upward mobility.
I grew up in the ‘70s, on TV shows like Roots, and Chico and the Man and The Jeffersons, and this bit of Saturday morning cultural indoctrination, which convinced me that immigrant assimilation was a done deal, something to pat ourselves on the back for and forget about while enjoying our manifest destiny.
We spent a lot of time during the European phase of our vacation talking about culture and colonization, laying the groundwork for visits to Latin America and Africa. But how should we feel about the vibrant, fun-loving, passionate Spanish after visiting Peru? How could we appreciate the practical yet goofy Dutch so much in Amsterdam, after spending time in South Africa? And even more unsettling, what does that mean for us as white Americans, living in a land that wasn’t exactly devoid of indigenous people when we found it?
I wish I could tell you we’ve tied it all in a bow on this trip, and that the kids have a compete grasp of what the spread of Western Civilization has meant for the globe. But life isn’t that simple. I’m glad this trip has given us a chance to start asking the questions.