About a block away from our apartment is the High Court. I had walked by a few times before I noticed this:
As Aaron and I were having dinner tonight, I put on U2's "Rattle and Hum," one of my favorite records. I had completely forgotten that during "Silver and Gold," Bono makes an impassioned plea to end apartheid. I had already planned to write this blog post, but I can't tell you how weird it was to hear him say, "This is a song written about a man in a shantytown outside Johannesburg. A man who is sick of looking down the barrel of white South Africa. A man who is at the point where he is ready to take up arms against his opressor. A man who has lost faith in the peacemakers of the West, while they argue, and while they fail to support a man like Bishop Tutu, and his request for economic sanctions against South Africa. Am I bugging you? I don't mean to bug you honey."
I'm no expert on the subject, and I feel like I haven't been here long enough or learned enough to speak about this in a way that is respectful or useful. So for now, I just wanted to share how shocking and chilling it felt to be taking these photos.
A plaque near these benches reads:
Race Classification Board
1959-1991
In the 1960s a room in this building was the scene of formal hearing of the most bizarre and humiliating kind as ordinary people came before an appeal panel to argue about what "race" they should be labeled. Between 1950 and 1991, apartheid's Population Registration Act classified every South Africa as belonging to one of at least seven "races" -- and accordingly granted or denied them citizenship rights on a sliding scale from "White" (full rights) to "Bantu" (with the fewest.) The classification was subjective, and families were split apart when paler or darker skinned children or parents -- or those with curlier hair, or different features -- we placed in separate categories.
I'm speechless! COMPLETELY speechless.
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