Our bonds, in black and white

Do you still look twice at a mixed-race couple? With our history, you probably do, some with favour and some with censure. But what is it like for the couples themselves? Murray Williams asked two of them

...

IAN BREDENKAMP AND ELANA AFRIKA-BREDENKAMP

Your skin colour differs. Does this matter, even vaguely, in 2014?

Ian: It didn’t impact on our courtship – we didn’t really notice!

Elana: After knowing Ian for 13 years, I see him as a made-over Ozzy Osbourne. I really didn’t notice. Interesting thing is that people often ask where we are from… until we open our mouths and speak Afrikaans.

Do you even believe in the notion of “race”?

Ian: I understand it from an anthropological point, yes. But do I think that makes one race better than another? No.

Elana: I understand it, because I grew up with people who pointed it out. However, I didn’t learn it from my parents. It came from extended family, school and work.

Do people see you as being “different” from each other?

Ian: Yes, we’re aware of it. But does it give me sleepless nights that they think so? Not in the least.

Elana: I think people are generally very careful around me because I work in the media, and they try to not offend or speak out around me. I think they may view us as different behind our backs. Once someone pointed out that our kids will be “cappuccino” – only then I realised my babies might not look like me.

Recently I had a jealous fan speak out on Twitter after I worked a charity event on Mandela Day. She didn’t like the fact that I was using my own money to improve schools in previously disadvantaged communities. She wanted to see me in the townships. She called me a k*** married to a white guy. It’s the first time that anyone has done that. (She was black.)

How do you feel about that perception, as held by others?

Ian: That’s the beauty of a democratic society – others can think as they please. It only bothers me when I see inherent racism passed on to young, innocent kids.

Children learn the concept of race from parents and teachers. I’ve seen and heard utterances from children about that (not in reference to Elana and me) and it chills me to the bone.

Elana: But we are different. We don’t look the same, and the way we were trained to speak by our parents was different. I grew up in an Afrikaans house, and after working in media for 15 years, I speak mostly English. I changed religion at 17, and cut my hair. I think one’s perception of “difference” should come from oneself because when others see you as different it’s called “judging” and I don’t handle that well.

Do your children have any “race”?

Ian: I have children from a previous marriage. They’re both in a progressive primary school – they understand some kids look different from other kids, and they know of apartheid and what it meant for divisions in our society. Kids are great though – they couldn’t care less what colour their friends are, or (about) their hair texture.

Elana: I don’t have any kids yet. They will be South African. For years people have tried to put me in a box. It’s interesting, when I am in Cape Town (where I was born), people ask where I am from. When I am in Johannesburg, where I work, people ask where I am from. I guess they will ask my kids one day.

How do you describe yourselves as a family? Do you include any racial definition?

Ian: If anything, we’re probably a modern, contemporary family. Our peers and friends date and marry other races and religions. We know many people with mixed kids, and it’s barely noticed and certainly not frowned upon.

Elana: I often say I am Afrikaans because that is my first language, before I speak or read Hebrew and Xhosa. It’s usually either a conversation starter or killer when I say that I am, in fact, an Afrikaans-speaking Jewish Xhosa. Hope that describes it.

How does South African society treat you, as what was described under apartheid as a “mixed marriage”?

Ian: We were in Turkey on holiday last month. Mixed marriages draw as much attention there as (here). Some people take notice, some don’t. The vast majority of people don’t treat us any differently. Do they look and take notice? Yes. Does it bother them? I doubt it. We’ve only encountered one incident – some months ago we were turned away from a restaurant in Sea Point we’d been frequenting for some time.

Elana: I must say, when people stare I assume it’s because Ian and I are on radio and TV. We are media people. And I always try to be polite and friendly. I think more questions will come when there are kids.

When I walk with my husband’s kids (my stepkids), people point at them. Adults point at my kids, because I look different from them. I want to keep calm but I shouldn’t. I think people understand a mixed marriage but they don’t understand boundaries. They think they need to protect them or point them out. They are my kids. I protect them. Stop pointing.

Is South African society changing in this regard?

Ian: We really believe it is. It’s more commonplace... we see more mixed couples than in the past. We both travel a fair amount and the truth is I see mixed couples more frequently in Cape Town and Johannesburg than in London.

Elana: I don’t know if we are changing. Even I look when I see a mixed race couple.

What I don’t like is when people stare and smile, like they are making it “okay” for us to be together. Go on with life. Don’t stop and smile.

I fell in love with a white guy, because I fell in love. I don’t care if he is white. We don’t expect everyone to give us a pat on the back because we are Madiba-friendly. I actually don’t care.

...

MMUSI MAIMANE FIELDS THE QUESTIONS

Has “race” in any way defined your love?

Naturally, I was attracted to my wife, and as our courtship progressed, our attraction became based on common values. We met at church. To say I did not see she was “white” and she did not see I was “black” would be disingenuous, but we were able to look past this.

But it took time to accept stereotypical responses. For example, we would go to a mall and another black South African would applaud me, as though I’d achieved something extraordinary, and some white South Africans would look down on us as if it were an unnatural occurrence.

But it was important for us to be with each other – not fight a cause, not prove a point, but simply be.

Do you and Natalie believe in the notion of “race”?

If you do not see that I am black, you don’t see me. Race is a big part of who I am, but it doesn’t ultimately define who I am. Given our history, not seeing race is to deny where we come from.

Race gives us hooks into one another’s stories. For example, I went to the apartheid museum with a friend of mine. He is white. He saw the riots, oppression and development of Soweto. He saw me in context, saw what black South Africans experienced, which I am a part of. Similarly, for Natalie and I, race gave us links to who we were.

Large parts of South Africa and global society still see you as “different” from each other.

On the outside we are different from each other; even our children are different from us. We are a South African family. My wife and I would just need to adopt an Indian child and we would be the Rainbow Nation. But remove race from the equation, and we’re not very different.

I celebrate the legacy of President Nelson Mandela, and the freedoms which many died for. But I am aware that South Africans have lenses with which they see different races. And I respect their views, as I would hope they would respect ours.

We don’t believe in South Africans being colour-blind, but rather to have a rich sense of diversity.

How much have we changed?

We have a long way to go in our healing process. It’s especially difficult when someone sees either one of us selling out, having betrayed our races.

This is still an oppressive and suppressive mindset in my view, because it rings of the old apartheid government where anyone departed from the norm was named and vilified, called words such as “K-Boetie”.

In the words of Steve Biko, the greatest weapon of the oppressor is the mindset of the oppressed.

So our hard work is to help people see that as a black South African I don’t suddenly lose my identity by marrying a white South African. Neither do I deny my culture.

Each of our children has names from our backgrounds. Our daughter Kgalaletso (whose name her mother gave her) has a Tswana first name and an English second name. We try to speak to them in both languages, Tswana and English.

Do your children have any “race”?

The census people always catch us out with this one. South Africa has fascinating categorisation of children from different races. They are mixed, and have the right to self-identify. So for now they may identify in whichever categorisation they so choose.

Our children are aware of race, but it does not matter significantly. They do not question why I am black and their mother is white, or why they look different to both their parents.

Is South African society changing, in this regard?

Indeed, I see it in young South Africans, and we have a great future and beautiful story to tell in this regard.

I celebrate my white friends who come to terms with the privileges they inherited as a result of apartheid, and thus join the struggle for the emancipation of South Africans.

And I celebrate my black friends who work tirelessly to acknowledge that race is still a proxy for advantage or disadvantage, and so each of us must join the project of reconciliation.

My friend, Herman Mashaba, has written a beautiful book about how to maintain African values and build the South Africa we want to see. That we must all build a social capital which was stolen out of black communities, that we can now all contribute to.

Once we heal and rid ourselves of inequality, when you ask someone, what they are, they will proudly answer: “I am a South African, first and foremost.”

So we have hope?

We have beautiful hope. I’ll sum it up with my hope for my little girl. She is 3 now, and one day she may choose to marry. Who that person should be must not be a question of race.

I hope one day in her lifetime race will not determine privilege or opportunity, or lack of thereof. It’s for that reason that we have to make BBBEE work, and strive for an equitable society.

This will liberate us all from the bondages of our past and fully, finally, set us free.