BLACK, WHITE AND MAYBE GRAY

Sometime in the winter of 2007-2008, I went to a fundraiser for an African-American woman who was running for Judge of the Cook County Circuit Court. It was held at a place called Jazz Club in the south loop. I had never heard of it. It was hard to find as it was small and dark. There was a long, dark entranceway, with a dark curtain and a man who appeared to be a bouncer at the end of the entrance. But, inside was a large space filled with a long and beautiful old style mahogany bar. Past the bar was a stage for the jazz band. The background was a well-lit bright blue. The room was large and beautiful and filled with African-Americans dressed in business clothes and carrying briefcases. It seemed like a time warp. I thought of the stories of the African-Americans in the segregated south who made the inside of their homes very attractive but left the outside dilapidated so that it looked to the white folks as if they were living in poverty.

At about the same time I was talking to an acquaintance who is a white Afrikaner from South Africa. He teaches archeology at the University of Wisconsin. He told me about South Africa under apartheid. We know that black South Africans were confined to townships such as Soweto. Most of us do not know that black South Africans were also confined to what were called reserves. The reserves were in rural areas and all food had to be grown or cattle raised on a small confined space. Here many people actually starved to death. I asked him how apartheid had started. He said that during the 30's, many Afrikaners went to school in Germany and accepted the ideas of eugenics, ethnic purity and separation of people, and thus apartheid in the 1940’s.

These two incidents caused me to start thinking more about racial issues. And, lo and behold, a brochure advertising a Chicago Bar Association trip to South Africa arrived in my mail. It was actually sponsored by the Black Women’s Bar. It also was to give 20 continuing legal education credits. I signed up immediately. I looked forward to this trip and planned to throw myself into it and thought that I would grow from the experience.

Each year the bar association sponsors a trip, usually to a place where the president of the bar association or his or her family is from. The 2007-2008 president was an African-American from Queens. He did not think that a trip to Queens would be popular. Thus, South Africa.

On April 3, 2008, we (60 attorneys and judges from Cook County) left Dulles airport in Washington on South African Airways on a non-stop flight to Johannesburg, a 15 hour flight. We arrived at 3:00 p.m. the following day. On that day, Thabo Mbeke was still the President of the Republic of South Africa and Jacob Zuma was under indictment for bribery and other crimes. We were driven to a 5 star hotel, the Westcliff, built up the side of a cliff in a beautiful area of Johannesburg.

That evening we had dinner at a restaurant in Mandela Square, located in a suburb of Johannesburg. In the midst of the square, there was a statue of Nelson Mandela, the approximate size of a 3 story building. The restaurant was very integrated with an even number of black and white patrons. The next evening we were told we were going to an African restaurant in the middle of Johannesburg. I was concerned because I don’t do well with strange and/or spicy foods. I felt it would be rude if I could not swallow the food. I thought it would be rude to say I didn’t want to eat there and skip the dinner. So, I went. Dinner was buffet style. The food consisted of a salad bar, just like a Chicago salad bar, chicken and scalloped potatoes, no impala. So much for African food.

The following morning we went to the Constitutional Court in the heart of Johannesburg. The Constitutional Court is the equivalent of our Supreme Court. It was Sunday and the court was opened just for our group.

We were shown around by the young law clerks working for the justices. There are 11 seats on the court representing the eleven official languages of the country. In front of the justices is a black cowhide with a different white symbol for each justice. I did not understand what each symbol meant. We were told that there had been grave concern about the cowhide. Everything in South Africa is to be equal and there was concern that the Indian community to whom the cow was sacred would be offended. The Indian community was consulted before the cowhide was put in place. They said it was all right and only then was there a final decision to use the cowhide.

The only windows in the court are low and small. You can only see the feet of people walking by. Are they black? White? For the most part you can’t tell and that was the idea.

At one of our seminars, a man who was one of the first constitutional court justices spoke about their first decision. It was an issue regarding separation of powers. The court found a law which was supported by Nelson Mandela to be a violation of the separation of powers clause and, therefore, unconstitutional. The justices were worried. Would the new system work? Then they heard that the new president was going to give a radio address. Now, they were very worried. Nelson Mandela came on the air and said that he was disappointed by the court’s decision but it was the law and he would follow the law. The justices breathed a sigh of relief. The new government might work.

After the seminar, we took a tourist type bus to see Soweto. I was concerned and uncomfortable about being on a bus to look at poor people but I apparently was the only person to feel that way. I knew that Winnie Mandela had a nice, modern home on the edge of Soweto. I was surprised to see that Nelson Mandela had a large, nice, modern home on the edge of Soweto. There were several other large nice homes in the same area. But, most surprising were the numerous small, but nice, modern tract like homes surrounding Soweto. Each home had a nice lawn and one or two cars in the driveway. Clearly, a sign that life had improved for some.

However, the rest of Soweto was the same as I had read about and seen pictures of many years ago. It was a huge area. It took at least a half hour to drive around the perimeter. The tin shacks did not seem to have changed since the days of apartheid. Much remains to be done.

The following day, we went to the apartheid museum. We were met at the entrance by a guide who pointed out the entrances. One door said “Blacks only” the other door said “Whites only”. The guide informed us that we could go through the door of our choice. I went through the blacks only door as it was the closest.

The inside of the museum had a lot of metal which frequently clanged and banged, and there was the constant impression of cages. There were narrow passages with many twists and turns and dead ends. One had the feeling that one was walking through a frightening prison. One exhibit was one of the yellow buses that we saw on television going into the townships to arrest residents. The buses had looked huge on television but they were actually rather small. They were, however, still very forbidding.

Interestingly, part of the exhibits showed not only the horror of what had been done to the black South Africans but that there were white South Africans who fought against apartheid. It became clear that the prison cells, the doors of which made a dreadful clang when the door closed, housed some white prisoners who opposed the regime as well as the many black political prisoners.

There was a clear message that not all white Afrikaners or other white South Africans did this to us. It was also clear that black South Africans will not forget what was done but they will follow Mandela’s idea of forgiveness. Mandela said, “We will forgive but not forget and now throw your guns into the sea.”

When I had visited Chicago’s DuSable Museum in Hyde Park, there was an exhibit of the lynching of black men in the south. Everyone seeing the exhibit, with the exception of myself and my companion, was African-American. There was a young African-American child present who reacted with horror, as well she should, and anger with all those who were white. Would it not make a difference to racial feelings in this country if there was a picture of the white members of Congress who helped put an end to lynching or other white people who helped to end the Jim Crow era or the white abolitionists who labored to end slavery?

In between our touring in Johannesburg, we did have many seminars about the forming of the new government when apartheid ended. I asked all of our guides if the embargo had helped to end apartheid. To a person, they said “no”. I don’t know whether the embargo really did help or whether South Africans had to feel they made the changes themselves.

I will never forget the man who told us that when faced with the task of undoing apartheid and forming a new government, people involved looked at each other as if to say “How do we do this?” They asked, “Should we be realistic or hope for a miracle?” Someone then said, “We need a band of Angels to come down from heaven to help us clear up this mess.” They needed a new constitution, a new judiciary and most of all they needed to end apartheid.

Some panel members described the new constitution adopted by the Constitutional Assembly on May 8, 1996. Much of it is based on the Dutch Constitution, as it was thought to be overly difficult and time consuming to start from scratch. The Preamble of the Constitution, in part, states:

“We recognize the injustices of our past” ...

“And we adopt this constitution to heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights ...”

Some of the founding provisions were:

“The Republic of South Africa is one, sovereign, democratic state founded on the following values: human dignity, equality, human rights, non-racialism, non-sexism, universal suffrage, all citizens are equally entitled to rights of citizenship and that the constitution is the Supreme Law of the land.”

It names the 11 official languages. The official languages include English, Afrikaans, Sepedi, Sesotho, Satswana and six others that I cannot even begin to pronounce. The Constitution also created a Pan South African Language Board who must ensure respect for all other languages commonly used by communities in South Africa including German, Greek, Gujarate, Hindi, Portuguese, Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Urdu and several others including languages used for religious purposes in South Africa.

It should be noted that most South Africans are not descendants of natives. Most black South Africans are descendants of people who emigrated centuries ago from other parts of Africa. Thus, the plethora of African languages. White Europeans arrived in the 1500’s and Indonesians and Malaysians were brought to the country as slaves or servants 300 years ago.

One of our guides actually said she felt badly about herself because she was only able to speak 6 of the official languages.

The constitution also gives recognition to traditional leadership and customary law which may explain why Jacob Zuma can have 3 wives and maybe four. He is criticized by those who believe he is undermining the government’s campaign to deal with the HIV pandemic which speaks about being loyal to one partner.

A few more words about Johannesburg before we leave for Cape Town. We constantly hear about crime. I saw none. Perhaps this was because we were mostly in groups of sixty. I did read in Johannesburg newspapers that doctors and nurses were being attacked and robbed in the elevators at various hospitals. All white people seem to live behind high walls with barbed wire on top and the wealthiest have security guards. My acquaintance from South Africa tells of the murder of his sister at the back door of her home as she took out the garbage. His sister had been a well known and respected mathematics professor at a Johannesburg university.

Before I left Chicago I had heard about problems with electricity throughout South Africa. I was told that it had to do with drought, but I’m not sure that is correct. It may have more to do with an infrastructure that has not been able to keep up with the growth in the country. It was correct that there was a problem with electricity. The first night I set my alarm so that I would get to the first seminar on time. That did not happen. In the morning, my clock was flashing 12:00. After that I asked for a wake-up call. The electricity went out every night and every afternoon.

Then it was time to move on to Cape Town. We flew there as it is a thousand miles from Johannesburg.

We stayed at the Mount Nelson Hotel. My room was larger than my large 2 bedroom, 2 bath condo in Chicago. It had heavy living room furniture and drapes that must have weighed a hundred pounds. It had the best bed that I have ever slept in. There was a dressing area about the size of a usual hotel room. It was an old hotel so I assume this was where British royalty must have stayed when Cape Town was part of the empire.

The following day we went to the Jewish Museum. We were greeted by a middle-aged woman who asked where we were from. When we told her Chicago, she began talking about the most wonderful place she had ever been - Millennium Park. To say the least, I was surprised.

The Republic of South Africa is always surprising and contradictory. You remember the Afrikaners who went to School in Germany during the 30's and brought back the idea of apartheid. South Africa then took in many Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. The bulk of the Jewish population in South Africa today are made up of the descendants of these refugees. Exhibits in the Jewish Museum seem to indicate that many of the refugees were put on ships often thinking they were going to America but the ship went where it went. Many times, it went to South Africa.

The Jewish Museum is open, light and airy as opposed to the Apartheid Museum. This is because the experience of the Jewish people in South Africa has been very positive and successful.

The museum had extensive exhibits on Helen Suzman, the member of parliament who fought against apartheid with great vigor and Nadine Gordimer whose novels opposed apartheid and who was under house arrest for many years. Several African-American members of our group were surprised and pleased at what they had done and remarked that they had never known that some Jewish people had fought apartheid.

This tour should have ended on a happy note but it did not. As we were leaving, the older man who seemed to be in charge said, out of the blue and out of the hearing of any African-Americans, that the Jewish people had done well because they believed in education but those others, that is the black South Africans, did not do well because they were not educated. He seemed to have no understanding that the black Africans were penned in the townships and the reserves with no schools.

Cape Town is certainly one of the most beautiful places that I have ever visited. The beauty stems from the blue Atlantic and Table Mountain that towers over the city. Of course, the beautiful part that we see has been largely the home of the white residents.

Unfortunately, I missed going up Table Mountain. I would have liked to have climbed it. There is a path up the back side. There was no time. The other way up was by cable car. But I had to choose between the top of the mountain or a trip to the Cape of Good Hope, which is not in Cape Town. I felt I had to go to the end of the world so I took the bus down the peninsula to the point where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Indian Ocean. Along the way, we saw beautiful small Dutch looking fishing villages built on the shores of False Bay. False Bay was named by the first Europeans who thought they had rounded the horn of Africa but they had just turned into a large bay and thus False Bay. We saw hills that we were told would burst into flame in the summer heat of January and February. The Cape of Good Hope was a narrow, high cliff that required a cable car ride from the parking lot. From the top, you could see the different colors of the two oceans. The Indian Ocean is warm and the Atlantic Ocean is cold, which makes for a rich diversity of marine life.

Robben Island, where Mandela was imprisoned, is just a few miles from Cape Town. In between our seminars, we took a small boat to the island. One of the surprises on the island is that it is overrun with tiny penguins. The guides on the island are former inmates who were imprisoned with Mandela. We were shown the barracks where most of the prisoners lived and the cell in which Nelson Mandela was kept. About 30 prisoners slept in each barracks building. No one ever tried to escape as they believed that only criminals would escape and they were not criminals but political prisoners. Nelson Mandela was once taken to a hospital on the mainland to be treated for tuberculosis but he made no attempt to escape. It would have been tough but not impossible to swim from the island to the mainland despite the current, cold water and sharks but no one ever tried.

The guide told us how in the evenings they discussed the new government that they hoped to form. They fought and argued about the philosophy and the psychology. This arguing continued for years until they finally agreed what kind of government would be best in South Africa. Judging by the constitution, a good job was done. The imprisonment of opponents of apartheid and the apartheid government did not work.

When the prisoners were freed, they worked with numerous white South Africans who were part of the establishment. The first issue was should it be a majority government or a coalition of black South Africans and white South Africans. The idea of majority government, that because of the demographics is mostly black, won the day.

We were also shown the lime pit to which the inmates were taken every day. They would dig in the hot sun but there were places where they could escape the sun and talk to people from other barracks. Our guide felt that, although it was forced labor, and useless at that, the exercise helped with depression. If you have been to Robben Island or seen the movie Invictus, you have seen the lime pit and Mandela’s cell.

Our guide lived on the island. His next door neighbor was one of his former guards. I asked the guide how he felt about that. He said he still hated him but that, as neighbors, they exchanged minor pleasantries and never spoke about the past. He believed that the guards had apparently accepted that things were different but whether or not they had changed their minds is unknown.

We were also told a story of the ministers from the Dutch Reformed Church. I don’t know whether or not it is true. The ministers would come to the island on Sunday, bring Bibles and preach. The minister would shout that you are all sinners and will spend eternity in hell. They would then leave Bibles for the sinners. Inside the Bibles would be messages from the outside.

The following day, we went to Khayslisha Township, a home to some 500,000 people. At first glance, this township appeared to be Cape Town’s Soweto. We had seen other townships with the tin shacks on the way into Cape Town from the airport. The main part of Cape Town had been all white. Then there was a circle of the descendants of the Malaysian and Indonesian slaves, known as the coloreds, and the outer circle was the black Africans.

Near this township we stopped at a large gym where members of a township choir sang for us in an African language none of us understood. Everyone thought the music was pleasant.

Khayslisha was different from Soweto in one way. Some of the women living there arranged for houses, very tiny, but nevertheless houses, to be built and they obtained mortgages to pay for them. We were told about this in the same gym where we heard the choir. We were also told that the men were hopeless. They spent their time in a shabeen, the word for a bar in South African townships. The housing allowed people to have an address and to receive mail.

There were many wonderful items, including jewelry, made by the residents that could be purchased there. Some were made from the pop tops of soda cans. Some were dolls that looked a little like voodoo dolls, but were very popular with our group and sold out before I got inside. It looked hopeful. All items for sale were made with micro loans. On the other hand, a recent New York Times article in July of 2008 referred to the severe problem of tuberculosis and HIV in the Khayslisha township.

The women we met there looked well nourished but many had lost most of their teeth.

On the whole, I thought that the thinking in South Africa is beyond ours. The ideas of forgiveness and truth and reconciliation are wonderful. Although truth and reconciliation was not really discussed in our seminars, some panelists mentioned that it was not used as much as it should have been. Oddly, Desmond Tutu was never mentioned, although I would consider him to be the moral conscience of South Africa.

South Africa still has to work at employment, poverty and housing. The government is still in the early stages. The young are enraged. We don’t know yet if the government will be successful.

Jacob Zuma was elected, after the charges against him were dismissed on procedural grounds not on the merits. It was believed that he would solve the problem of poor black education and joblessness. Three months after Zuma’s election, there were violent protests in several South African townships. Protesters were quoted as saying, “People want it now and it’s not happening. They promise every time to give us water and electricity . . . It’s a long time now, but nothing changes.” The townships that I visited had some water and electricity. Many townships have none.

Complicating this problem are two factors. First there are numerous new squatters camps made with corrugated iron and plastic sheets. There are people crossing the border from Zimbabwe and Mozambique. There are no fences. These camps are regularly torn down only to be rebuilt the next day. The second complication is that black South Africans from the rural areas are moving to the more established townships near the cities hoping to find employment.

Many panelists at the seminars spoke of the South African decision to move slowly in correcting the problems of the past as opposed to Zimbabwe which thought it was resolving all problems quickly. South Africa decided that land should be redistributed by purchasing at a fair price the farms of white farmers who were willing to sell. Zimbabwe made great strides but then the leaders decided their own power was more important. Zimbabwe took the land from the white farmers by force and sometimes murder then gave the land to friends of the leader who either did not bother to work the land or did not know how to work the land as they were politicians, not farmers. This month there have been several newspaper articles on unrest in South Africa. An angry young man has been singing old apartheid songs whose lyrics suggest killing a farmer. A white farmer has been murdered, although it may not be connected to this. The young man has traveled to Zimbabwe to meet with President Mugabe because he believes his way is better. Will we hear from this person in the future? It is not yet clear whether or not South Africa’s way will work.

Then there is the story within the story.

One of the seminars in Cape Town involved racial issues. The panelists included members of the Chicago Bar Association and members of the Cape Town Bar.

One of the Chicago panelists was a bankruptcy Judge in the Federal Court. She spoke about a male court employee who constantly harassed her with racist and sexist comments. She made no complaint. One day he said these things at a meeting with others present. He never harassed her again. She thinks that other people at the meeting must have spoken to him.

The other Chicago panelist shall remain nameless but is a name that you would immediately recognize and would have seen on television frequently. She talked about the terrible racism that she suffered during her public employment. She said that white people would approach her and make a comment about something that they might have in common. She saw this as racism, and stated adamantly that “African-Americans were not the same as white people”. She clearly implied that African-Americans were better.

The Cape Town Bar talked about how the black bar members and the white bar members often disagreed completely on how certain cases should have been resolved. One issue was should shacks be torn down. Black attorneys and judges said “Yes”. White attorneys and judges said “No,” if the people living in the shacks were not being offered some shelter. The white judges had expected the black judges to be more understanding.

And then, the person who accompanied us and set up the seminars, a person who had spent years working with various groups in Africa, suggested that we have our own meeting regarding racial issues.

We met in the hotel meeting room for as long as we could stay, then later moved to the hotel lounge. When I got to the lounge, there was a white couple from our group already there. I sat with them. Then 3 or 4 African Americans arrived, walked past us and went to the opposite side of the room. This was not a good beginning.

The white people in the group said things, such as a circuit court judge who said that his parents were born in Ireland and grew up with dirt floors or, in other words, that his background was one of poverty. Another white male told of a story of growing up middle class in a Chicago suburb but was always told by his parents that all people were equal. I’m not proud of what I said. It was some kind of gobbledy-gook. I should have told the story of my mother taking me to a new school sometime in the 40's. I was to go to the Catholic school, so my mother took me to the school across from the church. Ninety percent of the children were black. My mother was upset and wanted to leave. I saw a happy little African-American girl in that first grade and I wanted to play with her. But I was 6 years old and afraid to say anything. But I have ever since wanted involvement with African-Americans. By the way, the Catholic School was up the hill, behind the church and that’s where I went. It was ninety percent white. My mother had taken me to the public school by mistake.

Some of the African-Americans in the group belonged to the Trinity Church where the Reverend Wright had been the pastor. One African-American man in the group said that he believed everything Reverend Wright said. You remember Barack Obama’s pastor who ranted and raved about bad America and nearly ended Obama’s quest for the Presidency. Our meeting took place after the first rant by the Reverend Wright and before his rant at the National Press Club.

A very highly placed white man in our judicial system said that if his rabbi said these things that he would no longer be his rabbi. This justice has always been known as a fair and very civil rights oriented justice. Another young highly educated, well-employed African-American woman talked about how she suffered as a black woman but refused to say how. Some white members of the group complained about a meeting that took place with South African attorneys and judges and African-American attorneys and judges. Some African-American attorneys slammed doors and said that those who were white were not allowed. Several South African attorneys had wanted the white attorneys and judges to attend so that more ideas could be exchanged. An African-American judge did apologize for this. Some African-Americans complained that the white people on the trip did not like the choir at the gym in Khayslisha township. This was a big surprise to those of us who were white as we thought it was quite nice. The meeting left both African-American and white participants with a fair amount of hostility and the feeling that there was still a huge unresolved racial divide. At the hotels, the African-Americans were always together in the central part of the hotel, while those who were white were rather isolated on the edges. Since we were staying in high crime areas, this was at times a bit uncomfortable.

At times, I had moments of great understanding. At the African restaurant with the potatoes au gratin, instead of the impala, the African-Americans spoke about their concerns and worries about their children. Their biggest worry was that their sons might go to prison. If you ask my sons, they will tell you that their mother is the biggest worrier in the world. But it never occurred to me that either of them could wind up in prison.

Very early the next morning, some of us flew to Zambia, formerly Northern Rhodesia, to see Victoria Falls. Zambia is poor but stable. The falls were spectacular but I don’t think they are nearly as spectacular as Niagara Falls.

However, Zambia had other attractions and non-attractions. Our hotel was on the banks of the Zambezi River. There were signs that warned of crocodiles emerging suddenly from the river. On the positive side, every morning there were zebras and giraffes just outside our hotel room doors which opened directly onto the grounds. There were thousands of monkeys on the hotel grounds. All restaurants were open to the grounds and the monkeys would fly across the tables and grab your food if you were not very watchful, except after dark when the monkeys were sleeping.

It was easy to talk to people in Zambia, since everyone spoke English. Our guide told us that there were about 70 languages spoken in the country and, therefore, all schools taught in English.

There were hotel employees standing guard outside our rooms every night. I had many wonderful conversations with them. But I was disturbed by the way they were dressed, in white shorts, white shirts, knee socks, and safari type hats looking like servants looked in colonial days.

Near the hotel was a huge statue of Stanley Livingston, which, of course, we could not help but say “Dr. Livingston, I presume.” The name of the Zambian town where the falls are located is Livingston.

A group of white South Africans were at the hotel that weekend. They were dressed in colonial costumes. I was disturbed. Some of the African-American members of our group thought they were just having fun.

At dinner one night, the judge who had made the comment about his rabbi, and who was not with us in Zambia, was denounced in absentia as a racist. Most of us still did our best to get along.

While in Zambia, we were told that we would need to go into Zimbabwe to get a flight to Johannesburg. This was the day that the results of the election in Zimbabwe were to be announced. When faced with this we, black and white, seemed to come together. We were in the same fix.

Numerous Zimbabweans were at the border, with all their belongings in bundles on their backs, trying to get out. In that area, it was necessary to cross the border officially since the border was the crocodile infested river and the falls. Guards with machine guns were very much in evidence. Every Zimbabwean that we saw along the way to the airport had a look of extreme stress and strain on their faces. The roads were poor. We went through several check points on the way to the airport. Fortunately our driver seemed to know those who were manning the check points and we went right through.

And finally we arrived at the airport. We were safe. Or were we? We were told there were no seats for the 25 of us on the small plane. After several hours, they suddenly found an extra 25 seats out of the 35, on the small plane. How did this happen? I don’t know but I can guess. Happily, we were on our way home.

To conclude, we only got 10 CLE credits. But that was ok! It was the trip of a lifetime and there were some important things learned.

South Africa has a fantastic constitution but has yet to deal with the problems of unemployment, poverty and millions of people living in shacks. We have a fantastic constitution, and, although not to the degree of South Africa, we still have poverty. I recently saw a television show on C-Span showing thousands of white people attending programs on the mall in Washington, D.C. Then the program showed the black poverty in Washington, D.C., not at all far from the mall.

Just last month, people angry about the passage of Health Care Reform hurled racial epithets and spat on a black member of Congress right outside the Capitol.

Then there was the hostility between black and white members of the tour. There is still much work to be done to resolve the racial problems both in this country and in South Africa and it is a complicated matter.