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May 2010: “If you can pay for them, then you also can pay for us!” was the shockingly racist statement of the white Africaner woman on the table next to us. I was at the GEO Work Plan Symposium near Pretoria South Africa. That evening two of my colleagues, a black lady from Cape Town, a CEO, and another black lady from Pretoria, working for a ministry, took me out for dinner at a nice Turkish restaurant. I had invited them for dinner, and they found this nice place, where we could sit down on the cushins, have deep conversations about humanity' needs for Earth observations, while enjoying good food. Some very nice belly-dancing rounded up the experience. I felt honoured by the fact that the two ladies, who had done a lot for their country and humanity, found the time to have dinner with me.

Sometime towards the end of the dinner, three middle-aged white women came and sat down at the table next to us. They were noisily speaking Africans and definitely not adding to the experience.

At the end of our dinner, I asked for the check, and when I took out my wallet, one of the Africaners started to talk to me in Africans, obviously assuming I was one of them. I told her that I do not understand her language. She translated her insulting and racist statement: “If you can pay for them, then you also can pay for us!” “Them” obviously referred to the two black ladies. The Africaners obviously assumed that I was one of their men being out with two prostitutes. I was too surprised to react to this insulting statement in the way they deserved to be reacted to.

It is amazing how much racism persists more than 15 years after the atrocity of Apartheid. The racism of these women was only surpassed by their stupidity: if they really assumed that I was out with two black prostitutes, then their request for me to pay for them made them prostitues as well.

I felt very bad for my colleagues, and once more I wished the color of my skin was not as pale as it is.


If you have a story, thought, or picture worth to be considered as story, thought or picture of the month, please feel free to inform me about it by sending an e-mail to hpplag@unr.edu.