2008 Woodie Awards
A Walk to Remember
Jason Braff
Issue date: 1/30/08 Section: Features
Braff, 12 students and three professors traveled to South Africa for three weeks as part of a lab for their documentary making class this spring semester. The group spent time in Cape Town and Kruger National Park from 12/28/07 to 1/19/08. Entries from Braff's travel journal appear in italics.
Upon my arrival back to the United States, I sat on the plane reflecting on the whirlwind three weeks I had just experienced. I thought about what I had come away with, and how I would become a better person by having been on this trip. It did not take me very long to know that what I had seen would change my life forever.
I was a couple feet away from lions, cheetahs, leopards and baboons in their natural habitat, was almost stomped on by elephants on two separate occasions, and climbed a 3,500 ft. mountain. But these experiences, which were great ones, pale in comparison to the experience of setting forth into the townships of Cape Town.
Walking through these townships was like walking through a different world. We were witnesses to lives we would never live. All 13 of us were witnesses to a human injustice; witnesses to remnants of an era that reverberates through the 2 million shacks lined up in a row built by hate.
"Yesterday we went into the townships. I knew it would be bad, but not this bad. These townships epitomize what is wrong with our world. People should not have to live like this. Thousands upon thousands of shacks lined up, some made of cardboard, the rest of tin and even newspaper. I remember walking down the street in the first township, and my brain just could not process everything my eyes were taking in. This can not be real. How is this happening? How can we allow this to happen?"
The townships are a result of Apartheid, which was a system of legal racial segregation drawn up by the South African government that lasted from 1948 to 1994. The country was led by the all white National Party even though the vast majority of South Africans were of color. The white governemnt was unmerciful to people of color, often censoring, imprisioning, torturing, and even murdering people of color for unjust reasons. Apartheid categorized people into different racial groups and had separate laws for each group. During Apartheid, blacks were stripped of their citizenship and by extension of their right to vote. Meanwhile, the government created townships to house blacks in communities on the outskirts of the Western Cape while they provided cheap labor inside the city.
Upon my arrival back to the United States, I sat on the plane reflecting on the whirlwind three weeks I had just experienced. I thought about what I had come away with, and how I would become a better person by having been on this trip. It did not take me very long to know that what I had seen would change my life forever.
I was a couple feet away from lions, cheetahs, leopards and baboons in their natural habitat, was almost stomped on by elephants on two separate occasions, and climbed a 3,500 ft. mountain. But these experiences, which were great ones, pale in comparison to the experience of setting forth into the townships of Cape Town.
Walking through these townships was like walking through a different world. We were witnesses to lives we would never live. All 13 of us were witnesses to a human injustice; witnesses to remnants of an era that reverberates through the 2 million shacks lined up in a row built by hate.
"Yesterday we went into the townships. I knew it would be bad, but not this bad. These townships epitomize what is wrong with our world. People should not have to live like this. Thousands upon thousands of shacks lined up, some made of cardboard, the rest of tin and even newspaper. I remember walking down the street in the first township, and my brain just could not process everything my eyes were taking in. This can not be real. How is this happening? How can we allow this to happen?"
The townships are a result of Apartheid, which was a system of legal racial segregation drawn up by the South African government that lasted from 1948 to 1994. The country was led by the all white National Party even though the vast majority of South Africans were of color. The white governemnt was unmerciful to people of color, often censoring, imprisioning, torturing, and even murdering people of color for unjust reasons. Apartheid categorized people into different racial groups and had separate laws for each group. During Apartheid, blacks were stripped of their citizenship and by extension of their right to vote. Meanwhile, the government created townships to house blacks in communities on the outskirts of the Western Cape while they provided cheap labor inside the city.
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