Apartheid education, rarely mentioned in the press or openly confronted even among once-progressive educators, is alive and well and rapidly increasing now in the United States.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Together we have travelled a long road to be where we are today. This has been a road of struggle against colonial and apartheid oppression.
As a young woman, I attended Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, South Africa, which was then not segregated. But I witnessed the weight of apartheid everywhere around me.
Yes, I learned history at school; I know everything about apartheid. My dad, he bought the books about it, stuff like that. But I just move on with my life. It's completely different for me.
The fact that apartheid has been tied up with white supremacy, capitalist exploitation, and deliberate oppression makes the problem much more complex. Material want is bad enough, but coupled with spiritual poverty, it kills.
Education in this country is about how to maintain the status quo and to perpetuate racism.
Apartheid is inherently a practice of violence.
One can't erase the tremendous burden of apartheid in 10 years, 20 years, I believe, even 30 years.
My life had been defined by the apartheid years. Now we were going into an era of democracy... and I believed that I didn't really have a function as a useful artist in that anymore.
Apartheid either is or is not. And it must not be.
I'm fascinated by how much has changed from one generation to another. There are young people growing up now for whom apartheid is just a distant memory and the idea of military service is an abstract notion.