Memories and regrets of a former spoilt white brat

* Jacqui Bunting
* July 18, 2008
WAtoday.com.au

ON MAY 10, 1994, I was a 13-year-old brat accustomed to plonking my white arse on my whites-only toilet bowl at recess at my whites-only school in South Africa. I was oblivious to anything outside of my circle of friends, my latest "relationship", which had hit the 14-day milestone and was thus "fully serious", and the pursuit of driving my parents suicidal. That was the day Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa, ending the country's era of racism, exploitation and terrorism of non-whites, known as apartheid. I wish I'd noticed.

All I recall is that one day our playground was a sea of pasty pales and the next we had a few caramel faces and braids scattered across the lawn. No one new entered our circle, not because we were racist (we told ourselves), but because we had nothing in common. After all, what did a white girl who lived in the biggest house on the best street in town (tended to by a domestic servant and a garden boy) have to discuss with Andile Somya, a black boy who walked 10 kilometres to school in thongs because his parents rightfully considered food more important than shoes?

My friend Stacey would screw her face up and ask, "Why does he smell? Doesn't he own deodorant?"

Our class sizes expanded from 30 to 40 and our teachers started to look frazzled as they struggled to cope with an influx of students whose education had, until then, been in shanty town schools made of corrugated iron. How dare Mrs Thomas, my English teacher, stop noticing the brilliance of my essays? One on "My European Holiday" was entirely overlooked. In the absence of attention I resorted to insolence, stomping into the house after a "rough day" and refusing to eat my laid-out lunch of tuna salad with croutons and freshly squeezed orange juice. "I want a hot dog!" I screamed at Jeanette, our African maid. Dressed in her uniform complete with apron and headscarf, she would sway her hips behind the ironing board as the radio sang songs of liberation. "She should count herself lucky," Mum would say, "She has the best madam in Port Elizabeth. I know she steals teabags, but I've never complained."
Continue...