I'd been noodling with how to re-commence my blogging life, and this seemed to be a good way back in.

Apartheid. It's extraordinary to me that a grown woman in the early 1990s couldn't have known about Apartheid. Here's the beginning of the Wikipedia entry on Apartheid:

Apartheid (meaning separateness in Afrikaans, cognate to English apart and -hood) was a system of legalized racial segregation enforced by the National Party government of South Africa between 1948 and 1990. Apartheid had its roots in the history of colonisation and settlement of southern Africa, with the development of practices and policies of separation along racial lines and domination by European settlers and their descendents.

So, at that time, the time the best-selling romance author didn't know what Apartheid was, Apartheid had just ended, and it was a HUGE victory for humankind, for human rights. It's beyond belief that anyone in the entire kingdom of the world could not have known not only what it was, but that it had ended...and the enormous costs of that ending.

Getting to Know Apartheid First Hand, Just a Little

When I lived and worked in Botswana (twice) in the 1970s, I went through South Africa mostly for travel. During one period, I had to frequently go there in order to return to Botswana and refresh all my permits and visa as I struggled to get legal.

During that time, I understood ever more fully the destructiveness and crushing-ness of Apartheid. I couldn't even walk with Black African friends on the streets.

My parents, when they came to visit me, on their way up to Botswana, still in Johannesburg, got on the wrong bus...the one for blacks. The Black Africans on the bus waved frantically to them to get off. My parents were slow on the uptake, but obeyed instructions. To them, it was just a bus, not part of an intricate system of oppression.

To be in South Africa now, Post-Apartheid, was such a joy, such a relief.

Seeing Color as a Way of Honoring

In conversation with my blogging buddy Damaria Senne at her kitchen table in Johannesburg recently, we spoke about how folks say, "Well, I don't see color." We both laughed, expressing how outrageous we felt this belief to be.

I said, "I want to say to these people. 'Oh, is there something wrong with your eyesight? Have you been having problems focusing recently?'" And then we laughed some more.

And then Damaria, with her delightfully wicked sense of humor, said, "Yes, maybe we could loan these people some glasses that would allow them to see color and all the rest that makes each of us unique."

And we continued talking, in perfect agreement that seeing color was not the same as being a racist and that to see color is to honor the completeness of the person you are seeing. To see color is be comfortable with color: one's own and others'.

We Walk Down the Street...Together

And, now, in 2008, 18 years Post-Apartheid, Damaria Senne and I can walk together all around her neighborhood and over to a street with swanky shops without fear of being picked up by the police simply because a white woman and a black woman walked together. A black woman and a white woman walking together? It is unremarkable, as it should be.

So, no matter what anyone wants to say about the state of the nation...we have now have that in South Africa. And, to me, that's quite a bit.