Black, White

Our first impression (and yes, it changed...) of Johannesburg, besides being physically beautiful in its hilly green setting, was a fundamental difference in where you see black and white people. Our B and B is in a leafy suburb of large houses. At least you assume they're large houses, because from the street all you see are tall walls, topped by electric and/or razor wire. Almost all the cars (in this neighbourhood) are driven by whites. Every pedestrian was black, walking from their jobs tending the big homes to places where they pack into 'combo' taxi vans to take them to wherever they live, which sure isn't around here. There were black neighborhoods as we drove around, and more of a mixture or car drivers, but in huge swaths, the pattern is stark: white people like us driving nice cars, black people lined up for buses. Mandela's vision of a rainbow nation has to wait until there's more economic equality. Tricky, because black empowerment programs are criticized for promoting people based on race, not merit, thus harming the economy, and there's a huge education gap to be overcome.
But there are a lot of positive things happening here too, and a will to break through racial barriers - see the next post. And lest I get too smug, think of the number of black or indigenous people living in my community of Mount Albert (close to zero), and the unemployment levels of black vs white youth in Toronto. It's just more obvious here, and especially shocking when you consider that whites are a small fraction of the population. Such a long way to go...