INTERRACIAL VOICE - Interviews

Interviews

Ruth Jacobs Spector

Ruth Jacobs Spector attended the Multiracial Solidarity March in D.C. last July. At some point during the fours hours or so of speeches and singing, Ruth came up to me, handed me a Rolodex card and let me know that she'd be interested in speaking with me at some point in the future. On the card she had scribbled the following in pencil: "I'm a South African born mixed- heritage person. I'm now an American. I married a white American after surreptitiously leaving South Africa. The race laws in 1976 forbade our marriage. I come from a nearly 300 year tradition of mixed race living. I have two children categorized as 'black' here in the U.S.A. I'd love to talk to you or at an event like this in the future. Ruth Jacobs Spector."

I thought of Ruth after news accounts of "colored" unrest in South Africa flashed across the wire services last month on February 6, and she agreed to be interviewed by IV. Hopefully, you'll find the conversation as interesting as I did.

INTERRACIAL VOICE (IV): Who is Ruth Jacobs Spector?

RUTH JACOBS SPECTOR (RJS): I'm South African born, from Johannesburg and of mixed-race heritage. As you say, over a period of three-hundred years, I can trace my ancestry back to 1700.

IV: Can the average South African "colored" trace his or her ancestry back that far, or is this specifically you?

RJS: I can, and people are now beginning to trace their ancestry. For awhile, because of race law, records were not publicly available. Now records are open, and people are intent on discovering their family tree.

IV: Why were the records not available before?

RJS: Because of the South African race laws, black public access to libraries in the early days was restricted. We could not obtain books in the large libraries outside our communities. Certainly during my childhood we could not. Those laws no longer apply, and, so, records are open now.

IV: Did these laws apply to both blacks and "coloreds?"

RJS: They applied to...you know in South Africa, all people who are not of fully-white descent are essentially classified as "black." So too are mixed-race people. Now, I am of Caucasian, Asian and African descent. My African side is part "Khoisan" or "bushman." "Khoisan" is the acceptable term. "Bushman" is the unacceptable word. We try not to use that term at all.

IV: Is that considered pejorative?

RJS: Yes, particularly as it was used historically. I'm also a descendant of Asians who came to South Africa. They were both political prisoners and indentured slaves brought by the Dutch from southeast Asia. Other parts of my heritage are Dutch, Swedish, German and possibly French.

While I was growing up in South Africa, I was classified as "colored." That used to be the term referring to people of mixed race/heritage.

IV: Is that term not used today?

RJS: That is not the term preferred by people of mixed-race.

IV: What is?

RJS: There is not yet, at this point, a preferred term. My preferred term is "mixed-race" or "mixed-heritage." Many people don't like "colored" very much, because they've been stereotyped with it for some time. It's not a definition really of who we are which is a people of mixed-heritage. Sometimes we're dehumanizingly called "so-called Colored."

Anyway, I regard myself as "black," although that is not necessarily the case with all people of mixed-race. I regard myself as "black" as a political identification because of my political, historical experience. It defines me more clearly. But, that doesn't mean it defines my children who are born in the United States and who a have different cultural, racial, religious and identity than me.

IV: So you're a mixed-race South African who self-identifies, for political purposes, as "black."

RJS: Yes.

IV: How old are your children?

RJS: 17 and 13. I thought that when they came to the U.S. (after the South African laws I had experienced), they would be free of any kind of racial identification, but in fact, because I'm "black" or mixed, the children are categorized here. They've had particular questions and problems here with regard to filling out forms in public circumstances. We've had the experience, for example, where I've refused to fill out the forms only to be told "Well, if you don't fill out the form, we make a choice for you." It sounds awfully much like the old apartheid South Africa. There's a lot that infuriates me about the racial characterizations here.

IV: What kind of characterizations?

RJS: Let me say that I don't want to dwell too much on my kids. I think they're still in their formative stage, and that's something they have to work out for themselves. I should be dealing with my questions.

IV: Okay. For the record you live in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

RJS: Yes.

IV: What do you do for a living?

RJS: I'm a teacher at an international school in Washington.

IV: You're married.

RJS: Yes, to an American.

IV: He's white.

RJS: Yes. We've been married for twenty years.

IV: Did you marry here or in South Africa?

RJS: We met in South Africa at a time when intermarriage was illegal under the Prohibition of Mixed-Marriages Act.

IV: Illegal to have a relationship between a mixed-race person and a white?

RJS: Any romantic relationship between mixed-race, black or Asian people and whites was illegal. So we left, got married in Swaziland, and came to the U.S. It's weird to remember that in those days, under those laws, I could have been jailed for a period of several years for being a part of an interracial marriage. Thankfully, the Immorality Act and Prohibition of Mixed- Marriages Act are now defunct.

IV: Have you been back to South Africa since 1976?

RJS: Oh, yes, several times. I've lived there with my husband and kids fairly recently.

IV: Have you been back since apartheid fell?

RJS: Yes, we were there at the time Nelson Mandela was released.

IV: What were your emotions at that time?

RJS: Well South Africa has been undergoing a transformation over a period of a number of years. Nelson Mandela's release was obviously a marker, a dramatic and important marker along the way, but also it's very impressive in South Africa to see the transformation of the thinking of white South Africans. For example, before Mandela was released, in the neighborhood in which I lived, my neighbors...once they discovered I was "black South African" had some hesitation in associating with me, but the week after Nelson Mandela was released, my neighbors came over with offerings of peace: "Sorry that we didn't show the appropriate hospitality when you arrived, but here we are and we apologize." It was amazing. And that happened throughout the country, and I think it was a great relief to white as well as to blacks that they could finally say "enough is enough." Racial reconciliation in action!

IV: Is the new South Africa totally race free? A raceless society?

RJS: Well, people strive to have a raceless society. It's obviously not totally race-free, but all of the laws which were in place to make apartheid and the separation of races legal have been dismantled. So, the legalities that made it possible to call this a legal form of behavior have come to an end, and that's very important for people -- for black and for white.

IV: How are people getting along with each other in the streets?

RJS: Great. They are getting along very well. South Africans generally, with each other, are much closer maybe because we're a black majority -- as compared to the U.S. where there's a black minority. There you see black people all of your life, all of your day. The chances of total physical and mental separation one from the other has never been -- except in where you might live. (Residential communities were separated by law in South Africa in the past.) Each workday the races have to interact with each other. In the U.S. people have to go out of their way to make racial connections. It's that separate. In South Africa, mutual survival is intrinsic in racial interaction.

IV: In a previous conversation, you spoke of mixed-race individuals in South Africa as having a sense of community, of having their own community, and you don't find that here in the U.S.

RJS: Well, you know, the thing is, I think, that people of mixed-heritage have objected very strongly to being called mixed-race people and being separated. But on the other hand, it served as a place for people who were culturally mixed, religiously mixed and racially mixed. All these people melded together to form a community of their own where they understood "mixedness." I think we're a group of people who are culturally more flexible, naturally gregarious and racially encompassing. After all, in one family one may find an entire range of racial and physical appearances. So, you develop, certainly over three-hundred years, a philosophy which is inclusive. We also encompass an array of religious beliefs.

IV: How do you compare the two country's mixed-race populations?

RJS: As you know I've traveled and lived all over the world. I think mixed-heritage people throughout the world, in other words people who are racially, culturally, religiously mixed as I mentioned before, have a number of things in common. They recognize each other in the world. I could meet someone in Japan who would come and speak to me thinking that I'm Asian, mixed-Asian. People may recognize an Asian part in me. I meet people here who think I'm Hispanic, because they recognize something mixed in me. I meet people who are African- American who recognize me as part of them. I think that African-Americans and mixed-race people in South Africa have a racial mix in common, though the African American culture is different from ours.

IV: What are the cultural differences between mixed-race South Africans and black Africans?

RJS: Well, there are closer cultural relationships between mixed-race/heritage South Africans and African-Americans than there are between African-Americans and people of pure African descent. People of pure African descent, who know their African traditions well, have strong, binding traditional cultural ceremonies and activities that bind. This is different from African-Americans in a way. They are like mixed-race people who really come from a number of different cultures and who are Western acculturated. I think, in a way, African-Americans are always kind of striving to find themselves. They feel their home is somewhere else, yet they are American. They are not traditional Africans any longer.

IV: Well, what about mixed-race Americans who are a combination of those African- Americans looking for their home and people of European descent?

RJS: That's a very interesting question, because you know their home is on both sides, everywhere. For example, as a mixed-heritage person in South Africa, my home is among blacks as it is among whites. I can feel comfortable in both worlds, as well as the Asian world, too. Because all of those worlds are mine. On the question of mixed-race in the U.S., can anyone purely define an African-American? Who is really a mixed-race African-American? Are you talking about something broader? I think you're talking about people who are clearly mixed...for example your mom is white and your dad is black. You are mixed-race, right? Now, both my parents were mixed, and their parents were mixed, and their parents before them were of mixed-heritage.

IV: So you came from a family that was mixed for generations.

RJS: Right...so, I don't think in terms of biracialism. I'm really thinking of multiracialism or interracialism -- or even non-racialism. Now, especially here in the United States, there are problems filling out forms. Now what are my choices? Am I Caucasian, black or Asian? There's nothing here on this sheet that defines me. There's no mixed-race/heritage option. I'm not black, and I'm not white. Quite frankly, from my point of view, as I'm sure from yours as well, we could just as well do without any of these categories at all. You have to find something, but please for God's sake don't create the dehumanizing "other" category.

IV: America is obsessed with race, and it does require you to choose one.

RJS: Well, I was amazed that when I became an American citizen, one of the things that I had to fill out was the tone color of my skin. Was I white, black or medium?

IV: The tone color of your skin?

RJS: Yes. When you become a citizen of the United States, an official form asks that question.

IV: What tone did you put down?

RJS: Well, they had medium on there, so I checked it. But, you know, it's ridiculous. I said to my husband "I don't believe this! They want the color of my eyes, the color of hair and the color of my skin." Of course, I'm sure that immediately goes into a Census.. I had thought I'd left racism in South Africa to come to a race-free America, a melting pot...

IV: Are your kids lighter than you?

RJS: My children are very fair. They look like some of their own cousins in South Africa.

IV: In terms of how Americans construe "race," how do they identify?

RJS: My children, in general, go through intense identity problems here because, culturally, they have...because of where we live, because of our socioeconomic level, they identify with everything that is white, and yet they are uncomfortable with the absence of everything in our community that is black. I don't think there are too many white people who are comfortable with it either, but everybody here is sort of a victim of where they find themselves.

IV: Do you find, therefore, that America's racial model is more restricting than that of South Africa?

RJS: I think it's less conspicuous, more nebulous, more difficult to deal with here, because you don't know what you're dealing with. At least you feel what you're dealing with, but it's abstract. It's in the unspoken social behavior. It's in the attitudes, the nuances and discrete racial attitudes.

IV: It's not that way in South Africa?

RJS: It used to certainly be that way in South Africa, and probably in some circumstances still is, but South Africans are very verbal about race.

IV: Meaning what?

RJS: People talk about race. They argue about race. They'll confront each other about race. And people do not confront each other about race here in a healthy way. They do it in an unhealthy way, kind of in the O.J. sense. To me the most appalling thing about that...whether O.J. is guilty or innocent is not the question. The question is how the groups are responding. And each of the groups is responding in very racial ways. They're not dealing with feeling, individual people. They're dealing with an abstract racial thing. They don't think of the person behind any action on either side, actually. There aren't channels for people to express these deep feelings they have for or against each other. There is too much real distancing fear.

IV: In America, "mixed-race" is seen as merely one position or location along a black- white continuum, where you're never really allowed to take a stand on your own.

RJS: Right. You have to take a stand. It's like a war.

IV: So, mixed-race in America is forced to choose a particular side...

RJS: Even when you don't want to.

IV: Correct. Is it different in South Africa? Are you obliged to align yourself with black?

RJS: No, I don't align myself with either side. I align myself with what I think is right.

IV: You make a political decision as to what you think is right.

RJS: Not political. I make a decision based on conscience as to what I think is right -- not based on race.

IV: You did mention earlier, however, that you identify as black for political purposes.

RJS: In the old South Africa. Not here. My conscience decides my politics, not just my color.

IV: Okay. How do you identify here in the states.

RJS: I'm certainly black. I'm black and happy to say that. I don't necessarily always agree with viewpoints that are strongly anti-white. I don't think all blacks do either. I don't think people take the clear side that seem to take based on media reports. We seem to imagine that people are always on two sides of the issue, of the line. We're being simplistic.

IV: What do you think about the political battle over mixed-race folk in America wanting a separate category?

RJS: I think there should be a separate category, because I think it would give people a right to have their own identity -- "not one race" -- not being forced to take one side or the other. People should regard this as a great opportunity of having a group that bridges both sides beautifully. I do not see what the objection is. There cannot be anything wrong with having someone see two points of view.

IV: The political objection from blacks is that it would diminish their numbers, even if only by a small percentage, and here in America, numbers equate to political power and to disbursement of government funds for certain entitlement programs. It has to do with representation in Congress, etc. It's more of a numbers game than a celebration of culture or of ethnicity.

RJS: Yes, but we are people, not numbers.

IV: You can't tell that to some black leaders.

RJS: Well, I still insist! The point is that this doesn't only affect African-Americans. There are mixed-heritage people among all the other mixed races across the country. They have exactly the same problem. I was the chairman of a human relations committee of a school, and we discussed this a lot. If you have someone coming into school whose father is Asian and whose mother is Egyptian, how do you classify that person? If you're Brazilian, how do you classify yourself? You're certainly not Hispanic. If your father is Russian, and your mother is from the Middle East, how do you identify yourself?

IV: So, America obsesses overly with black versus white, and we need to realize there are other mixtures, not only abroad, but within our own borders.

RJS: Right. So, when you're talking about this mixed-race category, you're not just talking about African-Americans. You're talking about the range of people in the country who also have problems with having to make themselves be identified as something they are not.

IV: Do you agree that "race" is an artificial construct?

RJS: Absolutely, especially in our case. Look at this ridiculous thing here with Madeleine Albright. She was a person two weeks ago. Suddenly we've discovered that her grandparents died in the Holocaust. She's not simply a person anymore. She's a Jew. She now has ethnic and religious confinements. Before she was just simply Madeleine Albright. Now she's become an ethnic or religious even "racial" entity. She's the same person, but some people, maybe even the media, are interpreting her life differently -- some almost accusing her of having hidden something from them. Almost offended that she might not have known something that was important for someone else to have known about her ethnic identity. It's really ludicrous.

IV: Concerning the recent unrest in South Africa which culminated in mixed-race riots, is this payback? Are blacks upset at the "coloreds" for having, supposedly, sided with the white National party for so many years?

RJS: I think that there are many misunderstandings and misconceptions about this. When the election took place in South Africa now, the large majority of people who lived in the part of the country where the majority of mixed-race people live, in the Western Cape, did vote conservatively. That does not imply that those were all of the mixed-race people who did that. In fact, some of the foremost figures in the change that took place in South Africa were people of mixed-race.

IV: People like Alan Boesak?

RJS: Yes, he's one. The present ambassador from South Africa, who's here in Washington, Franklin Sonn, is another. Now about this issue that took place the other day. Newspapers tend to oversimplify things and make them look like, perhaps, what they are not. From my understanding, it appears to have a been something to do with payments or rents. And incidentally, there were lower income whites involved with the "unrest" as well as concerned high-income whites. It was not a purely colored thing.

IV: It had to do with utility rates.

RJS: Yes. Those rates were waived for blacks in certain low-income areas. It turned out that people in the mixed-race area who felt they were of equally low economic standing, also felt that if it was waived for one group, that it should be waived for another group. Now this does not mean that you're talking about all of the "colored" people or mixed-race people in the Transvaal, in that city or in South Africa. You're talking about a small community of people here. You're talking about hundreds of people as opposed to the millions that they are. It's not accurate to characterize an event based on the actions of a small group of people for an entire race. It's a very dangerous thing to do. In a place like South Africa, particularly, it's not a healthy way to spark good relationships. I think the press has to be very careful about how they talk about this. My advice is to not make too much of this.

IV: The story did make the New York Times.

RJS: Of course it did because you're obsessed with race. It's understandable that mixed-race Americans would take interest in it, but you don't want to "O.J." this thing out of proportion. On a new note! Hey, there are lots of things that mixed-heritage people share. Good company, obsessive analysis of their family backgrounds. We're permanently fascinated about intermarriages. We're interested in all the exotic racial, ethnic and religious or cultural mixtures. In my family some of us are married to Jews. Some of us to Christians. Some of us to Muslims. We give these questions little second thought! Why should there be? Were all just people. So, we have fun with race, with difference.

IV: Would you say that a majority of the "coloreds" are totally behind the new South African government?

RJS: I can't speak on behalf of all people, but some of the strongest people in the present administration and cabinet are mixed. It's a blend. There is a conservative side to some of the mixed-race people, but that doesn't mean, by any means, all of them.

IV: Is it similar to the U.S. where you have people who are identified as black but who are of mixed background in reality?

RJS: Of course, in South Africa people could shift between races. People could get themselves reclassified. Some did, but most were pretty comfortable in the mixed-heritage community. Interesting, huh?

IV: Can that still be done under the new government?

RJS: I don't know. Obviously there are people who are presently classified as white, a large number of people, who are of mixed-race origin. There are also many of us who don't deny being mixed but who choose to identify, as I do, as black.

IV: Are there many mixed folk who choose to identify as such, not as black or white?

RJS: Oh, most of them identify as mixed. Almost all. I think, though, that South African mixed-race people have gone through a political process where they identified as "black." They identified with the hardships, and most people empathize with black, empathize with the hardships and what it is to be black. We've all been through the treatment of black laws, and we understand discrimination perfectly. As long as you understand discrimination, you can identify that way, even if you do identify as a mixed-race person.

IV: What do you think about the future of race relations in the U.S.? What's in the cards?

RJS: I think that race relations are in trouble in the Unites States. I think that this country is so obsessed with race, and people fear each other a great deal more than I recall in the '70s. There's a schism, a distance, a scary distance developing between people. They're beginning to mistrust each other, because they're not in contact with each other. Remember, "You fear what you can't see." I think it's become conservative. I think much of the division between people is sort of veiled in a way that we can't define, but it's there.

IV: We tend to be able to see both sides of the game, so we want to, perhaps, guide the game along in a positive direction, if we can, without sinking it altogether.

RJS: Mixed-race people are cultural nomads, cultural chameleons. You know, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. You can adjust to your circumstances, to your environment. Now some people might not agree with that...they're poorer for it.

IV: There's a whole range of viewpoints here in the U.S. over what it means to be mixed, black or white.

RJS: Perhaps it's about an individual's right to be himself. You should think and move the way you want to, not to be forced by a group to follow a group way of thinking.

IV: One of the objections that some people of mixed-race in the U.S. have to being identified as "black" is that you're lumped in with a group mentality. A mentality that might have served blacks well back in the '50s or '60s during the civil rights era, but that is now seen as being restrictive of the individual.

RJS: Right, and also you don't want to be lumped in with what has become a stereotype, because on the other side, people who are not black have stereotyped black people. They stereotype anyone of color. If we can start breaking the stereotyping, that's a place to start something.

IV: So, you don't see a mixed-race designation in the U.S. as being harmful to blacks.

RJS: I don't. Not at all. No one should tell you how to identify, if you know what your cultural identity is. Why deny any side of your experience? For example, if your dad happens to be Swedish, and your mom's African-American, you share just as much of the culture of your father as you do your mother. Denying identity is hurtful and harmful.

IV: In the U.S., however, we still live with the one-drop-rule, a legacy of the post- Reconstruction period, which says that if you have at least one African forebear going back as far as you can possibly track it, you're black and no other identity is possible.

RJS: Are African-Americans in favor of living out that legacy?

IV: In general, yes, and African-American "leaders" are the most opposed to any legal multiracial category. You seem to suggest that people outside the U.S. take a much broader view of the world than do Americans in terms of race and culture.

RJS: In other countries...look at Brazil, for example. There are social distinctions that people make, but there are no legal distinctions. It's a matter of personal choice, of personal identity. You don't tell someone to be what they're not.

People should just accept you as you are. In fact, there are so many people who are of a mixed background all over the world. It's fun stopping at the airport and seeing some other colored looking person behind the desk and saying, "Gee, are you from Cape Town?" and he or she will say "No, I'm from Barbados." or "Are you from Durban? -- "No, I'm Puerto Rican." And it doesn't matter, because you speak to people. Just like one can recognize what it feels like to be discriminated against, so one can recognize what it is to be of mixed-race in any circumstance.

IV: Well, I've also wanted to travel to South Africa and visit the Cape area.

RJS: When you go to Cape Town you would see all the physical characteristics of people who are mixed, not just black and white, but Portuguese, Chinese. You name it, and you've got the mixture. People are in the same community. The fun is, having been a community for three-hundred years, we've developed a culture, a cuisine, a language we share, our own jokes and informal proverbs and a sort of "put down race sense of humor."

So, there is a mixed-race culture, but it's not that terribly different, really, as we found after the apartheid walls were dismantled, than any of the rest of South African culture.

IV: Do you have some humor to share?

RJS: Well, I'm not personally very humorous. Traditionally, some of the jokes are very funny, very earthy. I think one of the things that mark us is the talent to laugh at oneself, and to find the weirdness in the whole life and race thing.

IV: Let's hope the future for mixed folk is less wierd.

RJS: Yes, ja, yebo, I agree. Don't forget, mixed race is the future. Time magazine was right! It can't be denied at all. We're natural bridges. Mixed-race is undeniable as long as cultures blend, as they surely do in the United States.