Saturday, August 28, 2010

Monday, August 23, 2010, 11:24 PM Cape Town Time- My Dorm (LBG)

Today in history class we started talking about the creation of Afrikaner nationalism, which was a pretty interesting topic to cover and it worked well with the trip to Jo'burg and the Apartheid Museum from over the weekend. African Lit was also decent. After class I went to the gym and got a good run and workout in also.

In the afternoon we had our CIEE seminar and we discussed the different parts of our trip to Jo'burg. After that we talked about Values and how they vary from country to country. We were presented with an example of a misunderstanding that happened a few years ago when a white South African girl who was a radio host at UCT played a rap song that used the N word multiple times. After the song she continued using the song and sang the N word and also proclaimed that the artist was "her nigga." An African American student who was studying abroad at the time heard this and was very offended. He complained to the station but had his complaints totally dismissed.

We discussed the repercussions of that and about use of the word in general. It was a complicated thing to think about. One thing that I found interesting was that out of the three black students in the group I was the only one who didn't wholly condemn the use of the word. It's something I've thought and read about a lot and I know why I use the word and my rules of engagement for it but it becomes difficult to explain or apply those when everyone else around is saying its wrong or too afraid to have an opinion. It was an interesting conversation. One thing that we did learn was that in South Africa, however, a person (of any color) can be taken to court for saying the word "kaffir." I don't know if a similar rule would work or be constructive in an American context but it was very interesting to see how South Africa went about dealing with its own troublesome epithet.

This evening I also sat in briefly on my fraternity chapter's retreat via Skype. It was annoying because Skype kept dropping the call but it was very good to see some of my brothers and to hear about the plans for the year. It kind of made me miss them also.

"what's the deal broski? i know its been awhile."

-vic spenser

peace,

nate

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