So you call yourself a producer…

In the car one of the two ladies, Jill, introduces herself and is pleasantly chatting away about the weather in Durban and the festival. Her daughter is performing in the fringe festival. Jill is a retired schoolteacher who has come to festival to babysit her grandchildren. Throughout our conversation it became blatantly apparent that the thin veil of bigotry covers everything in this country. Even writing this I find myself cycling back to race in a way that I don’t necessarily in the USA. But back to Jill…. I told her I am a producer for a regional theatre in Connecticut and we talked about books and art. I asked her about integration in the school system and she explained “I taught in a private school so we integrated before the government forced it. We had several colored children in 1990. The president shocked everyone in 1994 by releasing Nelson Mandela and the other political prisoners and then stripping away so many of the laws that were part of our original government, apartheid government.” I am sure it was indeed a great surprise. I asked about the quality of government-supported schools and the payment required for primary education in South Africa. She explained, “Well yes, there are many differences in the quality of education within the government schools. The families pay school fees, books, uniforms – but there are some schools where you are not supposed to pay if your family cannot afford it. But you know I still hear of students who cannot get there grades released until they come up with the school fees you know so it is still a problem…. Well the problem with integration is that they offered to let white teachers retire early because they wanted to promote black teachers, and I don’t think they should have done that… I mean they weren’t ready and there weren’t enough of them. I think they should have held on to all of the teachers as long as possible until things were settled.”

I described the public school system in America and talked about integration in the states. And she suggested, “It’s different for you because you people were the minority, there weren’t a lot of you. But here they are the majority and they need lots of help.” Help. Hmmm…. we stopped talking for a little bit.

At some point later during the conversation, she turns to me and says, “you call yourself a producer – My daughter in law IS a producer. She worked on the movie bunny chow, have you seen it….” Marcus and I look at each other, recognizing she couldn’t have meant to be so condescending, but it cuts just the same.

“You call yourself a producer” – No, the people who sign my checks do.