Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 21 February 2002 — Page 9

The Muncie Times, February 21. 2002, page 9

RHODESIA FROM PAGE 6 whites were unwilling to surrender political, eco nomic, military, police and social power. Blacks were equally adamant in their demands. This resulted in a white minority government, led by Ian Douglas Smith, unilaterally declareing Rhodesia independent on Nov. 11, 1965, with a boast that there would be no black majority government in Zimbabwe for a thousand years. Blacks, some of whose leaders had fled into exile, accelerated preparations for guerrilla warfare. By that time I was in exile, after I had fled racial oppression in Rhodesia. Thousands of young blacks flocked to Botswana, Zambia,

Tanzania and Mozambique. At bases in Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia, they received military training and began returning home to battle Rhodesian soldiers and police. Many of my friends perished in that fight, which I almost joined but was dissuaded from doing so at the last minute so I could go to school. Two of my younger brothers joined the freedom struggle. One of them, Musekiwa, fought, was wounded, but survived. The other one, Farai, died in the war that eventually liberated Rhodesia. Contrary to Smith’s boast about whites retaining power for a thousand years, just 14 years after that statement, in 1979 black and white Rhodesians met

in London and agreed on an end to the devastating guerrilla warfare. Elections at the beginning of 1980 ushered in independence on April 18, 1980, and the birth of Zimbabwe as a country under majority rule. By that time, all adult Africans had the vote. All racist laws were eliminated. But the cost was staggering: more than 30.000 people dead, about 100.000 wounded or maimed and tens of thousands displaced. The number of whites in the country, meanwhile, had declined from a high of 250,000 to about 100,000 and 60,000 today—or from 4 percent of the population to 1 percent. At least Zimbabwe is a country where racism is becoming a distant past. People can

live anywhere, work anywhere, go to any school or church of their choice. Racial discrimination is now illegal. The racist pariah of the past has been transformed. After years in exile, in 1982 I moved my family to Zimbabwe and boughta house in Mandara, a suburb of Harare. This formerly allwhite community was now integrated. My neighbors were white. When I left Zimbabwe, a white couple bought the house from me. It was also strange being an editor at formerly all-white newspapers, patronizing hotels, restaurants and other facilities that had previously been all white and being able to chat with police officers,

without fear of being harassed or arrested. The transformation from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe meant the end of the era of racism and the dawn of a new chapter. My children attended schools that were integrated, rode on integrated buses and had teachers from across the racial spectrum in Zimbabwe. I returned to Los Angeles, where I had been one of the early reporters toi join the Los Angeles Times, in 1986, worked for two magazines and also taught journalism black studies courses. I came to Muncie in August 1989. Today, my neighbors are mostly white, although across the street from me are an Arab American family and, next to them, an an interracial couple.

Black customers forced to buy meat through back windows

by Tendayi Kumbula As I think about life in the old, racially-torn Southern Rhodesia, some vivid memories come to mind. One is about how, in some stores, Africans could not come in through the front door. They had to make their purchases from outside, through a window in the back of the building. One time, I was on my way back from Harare, the capital. I stopped in suburban Queensdale. I wanted to buy a pound bologna. I got off my father’s bicycle and walked up to the butchery (meat market). Outside, in the back, was a queue of more than 20 Africans, all of them domestic servants because of their uniforms, with purchases to make. The procedure was to place your order from the aperture in the back. It would be filled and then you paid for it from the window, through which you also received your meat. This was a time when there were “freedom

rides” going on in the country. A tew whites and some blacks were trying to integrate the buses and eating places by sending multiracial groups into segregated establishments. Sometimes the protesters were assaulted or arrested. Occasionally they were also served. I was almost 14, but on this day, I did not feel like joining the Africans who were queuing outside for their purchases. After parking my father’s bicycle, I walked to the front door of the meat market and, as the black domestic servants tried to tell me that I should join them, boldly stepped inside. The four white customers inside turned, looked at me, and then returned to their business. The white supervisor inside looked at me and then instructed his three black subordinates to tell me that I had to buy from the back window. One by one, the blacks told me in Shona, the country’s main . r v. . / ? '

African language, that I had to go outside. I calmly ignored them and announced, in English, that I wanted a pound of bologna and a pound of sausages. I am not sure what I would have done if they had called the police on me. Rhodesian police were known for their brutality to political protesters. After I had waited for 15 to 20 minutes and the shop was empty of white customers, the white supervisor asked what I wanted. I gave him my order. He personally sliced the bologna, weighed my sausages, wrapped up my order and gave it to me. I paid him, as the three black employees and the blacks outside looked on in disbelief. As I walked out, now realizing what I had just done, the blacks outside applauded. As I cycled the remaining 4 or so miles back home to Epworth, I wondered if the police might show up and arrest me. They did not. (When I stopped at the same location in

September 1981, after 18 years in the United States, the situation had changed. Segregation had been eliminated. Blacks and whites could now walk in through the front door.) Another thing that remains etched on my mind is how my father got over the meat market at Park Meadowlands, the white suburb closest to Epworth. Over time, he had noticed that whites hardly ever did any grocery shopping for themselves. Instead, they gave shopping lists to their black domestic servants, who did the actual shopping. It was the same thing when it came to shopping for meat. In Southern Rhodesia, meat was purchased from meat markets—not supermarkets. It was common practice that the best cuts of meat—roasts, steaks, rounds, brisket, liver—were reserved for white customers. These customers sent their servants with lists of the kinds of meat they wanted and the meat markets filled

them. African customers were reduced to buying the poorer cuts. The favorite of these was called “boys’ meat.” This consisted mostly of bones, with strips of meat, similar to soup bones in this country, as the kind that could be sold to black customers. My father hit upon the idea of scribbling notes and giving them to my older brother, Joseph, or I. The notes usually read, “Please give the bearer...” and list the kinds of meat ordered. My father would scribble his signature. He would warn us to take the note in and not say anything beyond, “yes sir” or “yes baas.” That way, by pretending to buy the meat for our white “employers”, our family would have access to better meat than was available to other black customers. He never explained to his friends how he got that meat. We never talked about it. But it was sad to have to resort to deception to get what any customer who could afford it should be able to buy.