Because of the colour of my skin

So my last post was on privilege. This one is on racism. 

We took the teens and their mates camping, choosing a close resort/oord as a quick and easy-access get away. It's quite different to the usual spots, and definitely easier in many ways with lots for the kids to do. Plus, this was the first time we've ever taken mates camping and we went big as they each took 3 mates. We piled everyone into our two cars and it was fabulous. Such amazing human beings!

South Africa and colour - it's real. I had a hmm moment when I looked around and realised that we were the only family of our skin colour at the resort. Interestingly, no black African people at all. But our little teen group was very mixed: one Indian girl, one Chinese, 6 European (two blonde, the rest brown haired). 

I commented to my husband on the second day, and he asked "Does it matter?" And no, it didn't. There were some cultural differences (swimming in full cover suits), language differences (lots of Afrikaans) and the usual people differences (one campsite had a hookah and people piled all over the place). But kids are kids, I loved seeing multi-generational families spending time together and also knowing the sport-mad boys had stuff to do while the girls had naps (I kid you not!).  

Would I go back? No. 

On the morning we left the boys went off to play a round of putt putt. Some teen boys and girls turned up and started mocking my boys. They tossed very racial comments at them: "white privileged kids, give us some money, look can't you even play putt putt properly, buy us some stuff, rich kids, whitie ***, who do you think you are coming here". 

When I arrived the group had gone, but my boys were super subdued and told me what had happened. I was super proud of my boys for not responding back to the group and staying respectful. T told me that his heart was so sad about it and he had to remember that Jesus loves them. L was super mad and said they had boys at school who are like this and that they are the dirt-bag dudes with the same grunge factor. He really wanted to punch them. Since one of our boys was wearing a school branded shirt, they were reminded to hold the reputation of their school high. And they did. 

My heart is sore that these teens, with their cool fade cuts and low slung baggies, are perpetuating racist attitudes. For flip sake. I fought and voted against attitude like this. I work hard every day to use my privilege to serve others and not live with race attitudes and/or false white guilt.

My mommy heart wants to take these brats back to their parents and tell them to deal with their sons and daughters. 

We are 30 years in. How do we ever have a rainbow nation if this continues? 

Trying to find the good stuff in this: learning how it feels to be discriminated against, how to be comfortable in places where you are different, understanding where hate comes from? Blast it. I don't know.