Monday, 14 July 1986: Watching White School Boys Taunt Black Children

 I get up at first light before the little monsters.  A black janitor is sweeping trash in the corridors.  The teen-age munchkins made quite a mess last night.  To avoid being trampled by kids, I go down to the end of the last car where I can take photos in peace.  We are stopped in Queenstown.  Mountains are all around.  Nice setting.   South to Cathcart.  Great countryside.  Two 1 km long tunnels before we get into the town.  Some good photo opportunities.

Cathcart is located at the foot of the Amatola Mountains for which our train (the Amatola Express) is named.

 

We stop for a few minutes at Thomas River, a black township, where I witness an ugly scene.  It’s feeding time at the zoo.  Several little black kids (probably 5 to 7 years old) scamper around outside the coaches begging.  The white school kids laugh and laugh.  They throw biscuits, pennies, etc. at them and watch them grovel and go after the stuff like hungry dogs.  God, am I pissed off.  I say nothing and take photos of this circus scene.  I suppose this only encourages them.  One kid holds a piece of tomato on a fork and drops it in the direction of a little black urchin who misses.  Several white kids pass lighted cigarettes down to the children and laugh as the latter puff and choke away.  This is an ugly face of this fucking country.  It’s a symptom of what these kids are taught and the attitudes that are encouraged or at least allowed.   A sick society.  I suppose you can’t blame the kids for what they’ve learned from white South African adults.  After we leave Thomas River, Stephen tells me it’s a regular ritual when the school kids go back and forth to Jo’burg.  He and the other kids act as if throwing scraps to black children is perfectly normal, good clean fun.  Perhaps even charitable.  Jeezus Christ!

Treating black kids like circus monkeys:  “Please, massa!  Throw me some scraps.”

 

Most of the racists-in-training finally get off the train at Blaney near King William’s Town.  A huge herd swarms on to the platform like ants and off to waiting busses.  I notice that Stephen and the other kids have put their blazers and ties back on.  

Now for some peace and quiet…and breakfast!  I go down to the canteen car.  It’s too late for breakfast, but the fat old Afrikaner says he can fix me a sandwich.  I notice piles of crispy fried fish which have just come out of the oil.  Looks like great stuff.  “Oh, can I get some of that?” I say gesturing in the direction of fish.

“No, that’s only for the black people.”

“You must be joking.  Come on, I’d like some of that fish.” 

"I can’t sell it to a European.”

I turn livid. “My friends back in America will be interested to hear about this!”  I say storming out of the canteen car.  I usually try to keep my cool in South Africa but this is the most ridiculous fucking nonsense I’ve ever heard of. Christ, apartheid even applies to food.  Makes you wonder if something is wrong with the fish.  Maybe they put drugs in it to keep the blacks docile?  I don’t want another fucking sandwich.  After watching the school boys “feed the animals” and now this bullshit, I don’t feel like eating.

The train is now heading through a huge black township called Mdantsane.  Uniform but adequate-looking tiny box houses appear all the way to the horizon.  A few minutes later I see East London and my first glimpse of the beautiful blue Indian Ocean.

Shack near Thomas River.  It reminded me of the homes of poor blacks that I saw in the 1950s when traveling through the southern USA with my parents.