Anna Gordon: Growing up under apartheid
by Scott Achelpoh $ ^{1} $
As a child in South Africa, Anna Gordon occasionally played with black children her own age.
She never realized that the same children were sentenced to grow up and live under a white-supremacist government.
Gordon, Wilmette III, junior, lived until the age of 12 in a segregated neighborhood in Johannesburg, South Africa, 25 miles from Soweto, the largest black township in the country. Since then, she has considered herself a conventional U.S. college student with an unconventional past.
tional past.
What's that wrong with the South African government simply by being able to observe from a distance and having the ability to base those observations on what I've seen and heard." Gordon said.
She thought a sheltered childhood was instrumental in her naivete about apartheid and its effects on blacks.
heid and its effect" he said. "I lived in a house with a huge wall and window, but she said. "It was so hard growing up that way because you didn't know the difference between right and left."
wrong. I was 10 and didn't know what was going on.
living
going on"
I would think if you were living there, racial bias would be obvious," she said. "You don't see anything if you're white.
"Everything is censored. The television is censored and the newspapers and magazines are censored. I noticed that the older white people treat black people a lot worse. They're more set in their ways."
once they're set in place she noticed the tension between races in the halls.
races in school. "School is very strict," she said. "It was hard to learn." We had bomb practices in school all the time, just in case someone would throw a bomb into the school."
Her awareness of apartheid began with exposure to her parents' anti-apartheid attitudes, closeness to her black nanny, Margaret, and a visit to Sowe, said she
"Margaret would come in crying sometimes," Gordon said. "She said that her husband was in jail because he didn't get back to the black township.
back to the back town, "If my parents weren't aware of it, I think we would be just as bad as half the whites there," she said. "My father
worked closely with the government. He was very against apartheid the whole time."
time.
Gordon said an inner struggle developed between racist attitudes in her neighborhood and her parents' attitudes.
"Personally, I guess it was a fight between what my parents said and what I use." she said. "The black people were being treated like second-class citizens and not being able to work their way up in society. To be completely honest, I started thinking that that was the way things should be. I'm lucky I got out at 12."
Scott Achelpont/Special to the KANSAS
should be. I think she should.
Her one trip to Soweto when she was 11
made a great emotional impact on her,
she said.
I did asked if I
"Children ran up to me and asked if I had food," she said. "They surrounded me."
me." Her father's leadership was instrumental in eventually moving the family out of the country, she said.
"He said he knew exactly what was going on," she said. "He talked about moving with us but had to be very, very quiet about it. He kept saying, for a long time, that we had to get out."
Anna Gordon
tunnel.
Sidney Gordon, Anna's father, said he was concerned about his children's future in a country where racial tension was erupting.
"The future for us lacked continuity," he said. "The political climate bothered me tremendously. It took me nearly 10 years to the decision to leave and find somewhere suitable for the family to go in America. We made the commitment to leave because it was what we wanted and had to do."
had to do.
Once the family decided to leave, Anna Gordon said they had large hurdles to overcome, including unfavorable monetary exchange rates and her father's position with the government.
position.
One allowed to take interest from family savings and $30,000 worth of furniture, the family left with practically nothing, she said.
she said.
"Upon their arrival in the United States, their transition to a new way of life was not financially or emotionally smooth, she said.
"My parents got divorced, we had some money problems and my sister had emotional problems," she said. "My own adjustment was probably the least difficult of any of us."
During winter break in 1986, Gordon was able to revisit Johannesburg, relatives, her old neighborhood and home, but was unable to visit Soweto for a second time. She said that white visitation to the township had been made illegal by the government and that Soweto was too dangerous for whites to enter
"Whites can't go into Soweto anymore," she said. "There's killings
"It's unbelievable how much I've noticed since living in America and then going back the last time," she said. "When I returned, I noticed the difference because here I can walk down the streets in complete freedom. In South Africa, you can't go anywhere by yourself, black or white."
Racism is a serious subject in the United States and at the University of Kansas, Gordon said, but it is not nearly as lethal as in South Africa.
"Yes, there's a lot of racism here, but I don't think it's as life-threatening here as it is in South Africa."
'You would think if you were living there, racial bias would be obvious. You don't see anything if you're white. Everything is censored. The television is censored and the newspapers and magazines are censored.'
Despite the publicity about South Africa and apartheid in the 1980s, she said that people she met still didn't understand the problems in her homeland.
"When I meet people today, them 'I'm from South Africa, they're pretty naive about the whole issue," Gordon said. "At first, they don't believe me. After that, they are surprised I'm white. I've lost my accent."
"My father usually lies and tells people he's English when they hear his accent. It's a bad stigma to be white and from South Africa in the business situations he's in."
in.
She said her lifestyle today was American and hardly reflected her upbringing in South Africa.
"I'm here," Gordon said. "America's my home now. I'm not as South African as my parents are today."
Gordon said she had never encountered hostility from people in the United States because of her heritage.
because of her encounters any problems being white and from South Africa," she said. "I think Americans are sympathetic to the South African situation."
Patricia Gordon, Anna's mother, said that, unlike herself, her children were much more accustomed to life in the United States.
"I don't consider myself American," she said. "I still feel like somewhat of an outsider. I still have pangs of homeiness. Anna and her sisters have lived well. That might have to do with a generational gap rather than a cultural gap."
Sureendra Bhana, associate professor of history, said black and white youths Gordon's age would together influence the future of apartheid in South Africa.
future of apartheid in south Africa.
"Clearly, in fact, things will change and I think black and white youths will be influential in the change." Bhana said.
"They have been at the forefront of the movement already."
Bhana teaches two courses on South Africa and its history of white supremacy. He has lived in the nation sporadically for the last 40 years. He said his own children grew up in South Africa.
in South Africa's population imbalance favoring blacks would also be a factor in the downfall of apartheid.
"Today, blacks make up 74 percent of the population," he said. "In the year 2020, they'll make up 85 percent of the population. They must feel the numbers are for them. Because of this, I think white rule will simply wither away. There will be a great emotional cost to maintaining white supremacy."
Gordon said she thought a black civil war, would end apartheid.
"Something big is going to happen," she said. "There's definitely going to be a lot of bloodshed. Something catastrophic should have happened years ago."
10 KANSAN/Profiles/April 12, 1989