on South Africa's Beauty

Our South African Rainbow Greeting

Today I write from Cape Town, South Africa, two days into my trip. On a drizzly and windy evening, I’ve already come to realize that even when it rains this city is absolutely beautiful.  In one direction you find the Atlantic Ocean, stormy waves breaking off the rocks only to recede and crash again, creating a soothing cycle. In the other direction sit steep cliffs with a blanket of clouds draped over the flattened peak of Table Mountain. This puffy white sheath is referred to as the Mountain’s “table cloth.” The clouds descend so close it feels like after only a short drive up you could reach out and tear a piece off, just like cotton candy. Cradled between the reflective water and the etched mountains is the cosmopolitan scene of city lights, flickering white and orange in the dark sky.

Cape Town is picturesque, despite June being the middle of winter for the coastal town. The city’s beauty is one of things that has captured me the most on my first trip to Mama Africa. And though the city is more beautiful than I could have ever imagined, the striking beauty doesn’t seem to blur the legacy left by South Africa’s ugly history of apartheid.

Nearly 16 years after the end of the policies resulting in the segregation of blacks and other people of color from whites, Cape Town is still largely run by white people, or Afrikaaners. The president may be black and the people 80 percent black, but in most other economic aspects the Afrikaaners still run South Africa. The businesses are white-owned and the servers and other support staff are mostly black. The neighborhoods have remained still overwhelmingly segregated as they were when all nonwhite South Africans were displaced and relocated to separate communities known as townships and many of Cape Town’s black citizens still live in derelict shantytowns.

I know that years of racist sanctions take far more time to reverse then they do to institute them, but I never expected to travel to an African country and ask, “Where are all the black people?” Seeing monuments to Nelson Mandela and how the country honors his famous political platform of reconciliation and forgiveness, makes it even harder to accept the whiteness of Cape Town. The feeling of being a minority on the shores of the motherland sits uncomfortably in my gut. Traveling the distance of ocean only to be confronted with the same questions of how race became such a worldwide marker for social inferiority is disheartening.

I am thankful to have been given the opportunity to travel to South Africa, a trip that most won’t make in their lifetime. And although I wish I could arrive back in America reporting that a rainbow welcomed me into South Africa, that wouldn’t be the truth. In reality, I was greeted by the roofs of the impoverished shantytown sitting underneath the landing path of incoming flights into Cape Town’s airport.

South Africa may be gorgeous, but for me its beauty is blemished by the inequality that remains from the years when apartheid reigned.

Part of the Gugulethu Township that sits along the landing path of the Cape Town International Airport

on Gender Identity

PIECE IN ATHICA EXHIBIT PROVOKES GENDER DISCUSSION

The current Athens Institute of Contemporary Art (ATHICA) exhibit, “Nurture,” by New Hampshire-based Amy Jenkins is a series of short videos and photographs tackling provocative issues.

In Audrey Superhero, the artist’s 7-year-old daughter is dressed up as Superman and tells her mother she would rather be a boy. She speaks with an eloquence so astonishing it’s hard to believe the video is unscripted. “I never gave her any cues,” said Jenkins. “There’s nothing there where I said, ‘You need to say this.’ Everything was coming in a natural, pure way.”

Jenkins’ piece reveals the internal, uncensored dialogue of a child navigating gender identity. “What I was trying to do with the piece was just to reflect her reality as best I could,” Jenkins said. “I wanted to celebrate her honesty and her exploration and just her youthful vigor and desire to be whatever she really wants to be.”

Responses from exhibit-goers are varied. Some have interpreted Audrey’s behavior as a phase, while others think she is being used for her mother’s feminist agenda, said Lizzie Zucker Saltz, founder, artistic director and curator of ATHICA.

But the 9-minute video takes on another meaning for those who were born biological males, but identify as female. A small group of transgender women gather at ATHICA for an intimate screening. They instantly identify with Audrey’s desire to be a boy.

It was around age 6 that Ali Taylor realized that she felt more like a girl than a boy. Growing up, she preferred playing with dolls and dressing up, and as an only child Taylor didn’t spend a lot of time around other children.

But after her father enrolled her in pee-wee baseball, Taylor became aware of feeling like she was different from other little boys. “I started to realize that what I was like was not like what boys were like,” Taylor said. “I had different interests, one of them not being sports.”

It’s more than the simple act of a girl dressing up as a male character that is most striking about Audrey Superhero. “It’s some of the things that she talks about that have nothing to do with dressing up as Superman,” Saltz said. “That’s not playing a part. They’re her passionate feelings. Maybe they’re temporary, but they’re obviously sincere.”

In the video, Audrey’s mother reminds her Superman is a man. Chest puffed out, proudly displaying her red and yellow S, Audrey proclaims, “I don’t like being a girl, it’s embarrassing.” In another scene, Audrey declares earnestly in childlike grammar, “I wanted to be borned a boy in your tummy!”

Audrey’s ability to articulate her feelings doesn’t go unnoticed by the group. “I was happy that she could express herself so well at a young age and not feel the need to suppress those feelings,” said Janine Aronson, who was born a biological male. At age 56 this past January, Aronson has finally made the transition to living openly as a woman. “There’s nothing better than knowing who you are before people start influencing you,” she said.

For Taylor, who hopes to fully transition by the end of the year, lack of funds to afford new clothing, makeup, and electrolysis has impeded her transition. “The earlier you do it, the easier it’s going to be, the more effective it’ll be, and the more time you get to spend living life correctly instead of trying to pretend and hide,” she said.

Aronson and Taylor agree that the journey to transition is difficult regardless of how early you do it. “It’s a very painful process to go through,” Aronson said. “It’s a two phase thing. It’s joy in being yourself and intense pain in other people not perceiving or rather refusing to perceive that is the true you.”

Taylor expresses similar sentiments. “I’m not denigrating anybody who is transgender. I’m not saying they shouldn’t transition. But it is a hard road no matter how young you are.”

In Jenkins’ art piece, Aronson and Taylor have found a mirror of their own childhood experiences. For the artist it was about depicting the nurturing she must do as a mother. “I was thinking about the ultimate act of nurturing that every parent has to do and that is letting go and letting your child be whoever they want to be.”

This type of support is important, Taylor said. “The only real answer for what’s going to be right for a person is what they know,” she said. “You can’t tell someone else what’s right for them.”

“Nurture” is available until February 28 at the Athens Institute of Contemporary Art (ATHICA), Athens, Ga. (706) 208-1613, www.athica.org.