Conversation with Dr. Pillay at dinner

At dinner last night we had a discussion with Dr. Pillay after dinner that I found very enlightening. He explained how he grew up in South Africa and what it was like to have four different segregated communities living in their society. He also mentioned how if anyone was caught violating their segregation laws how people would be prosecuted. I cannot fathom how cruel society might have treated people of a different race during his childhood. Another point that cleared up some of the racism for me was our discussion of how government divided up the funds. Caucasian’s received about eighty percent of the funding, Indian heritage received about 5 to 7 percent, Colored (mixture of white and black) people as they were called received about ten percent and then Indigenous Africans received the lowest amount of money in the budget with less than five percent even though they were the majority of the population in South Africa at the time. There was one college for Indians, Blacks and Coloreds and many university and colleges for Caucasians. The government had it fixed so that the other three races were not empowered. Dr. Pillay discussed how he was a rare case to success because he was granted a scholarship by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Without this scholarship he would not have had the funs for the education he needed.

I was shocked when he explained how much he has developed since he was young and how he to had prejudices. I find it fascinating how he took that anger and education and used it to help people understand their own cultural biases. Dr. Pillay set a goal of helping people think about and change their cultural awareness through education. I can personally say he has done that for me. Where I was a year ago and where I am now are completely different. I always wondered why he would want to live in a small community like Athens where there might be a lot of racism or misunderstanding. Now I understand that he wanted to take students who are misinformed or misunderstand cultures and help them come to the realization that we all have biases and prejudices its how we deal with them and how we over come them that matter. I always thought of myself as culturally aware but now I realize that I just thought I understood different races, not culture.

After my trip to Africa I can say I understand that culture is more than skin color, more than heritage, its how one views their own life determined by their morals and values and that each and every individual on earth has their own culture. Although we do have cultural norms in a society that make up generalized cultures, I like to think of it like religion. People of the same religion might have the same belief however some may approach aspects of their life differently and that no one sees every circumstance exactly the same. My favorite quote from the night came from Dr. Pillay “Where there is different races, there will always be racism. Where there is different gender there will always be sexism. Thank you Dr. Pillay for helping me see that through academic course work and this amazing experience in Africa.