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S. Africans Learn About U.S.'s South During Visit
July 12, 2006
By Jason Wiest
Arkansas Democrat Gazette
June 28, 2006
Nearly 9,000 miles from Little Rock, across the Atlantic Ocean and south of the equator, 21-year-old Travis Dell decided he wanted to study race relations in the American South.
On Tuesday, the South African's journey brought him to the William J. Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock.
There, Dell and 31 other students participating in the University of Mississippi Lott Leadership Institute Exchange learned about the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service's mission, which is to prepare students for public service and leadership roles.
The visit to the Clinton school was one stop of many they will make during the fiveweek program as they study trade, health, environment and culture while discovering how leadership connects with global society, said Brian Miller, a faculty representative from the University of Mississippi trav- eling with the group.
Some of the most telling characteristics of Southern race relations came during everyday activities throughout his capital city visit, Dell said.
A Tuesday Arkansas Democrat-Gazette front page headline about the Little Rock School District's desegregation case caught his eye, Dell said.
It's interesting the city is still dealing with the aftermath of segregation, while U.S. segregation laws ended decades ago, the film studies and English major said.
South Africa's apartheid system ended in the early 1990s.
Although the U.S. has had more time to adjust, Dell said, judging by Southerners' reactions to the diverse group he's a part of, he thinks his home country has progressed more than the American South.
He said he thinks Americans are uncomfortable discussing racial issues.
"Everyone's polite in the South, so they don't say anything," Dell said.
Even the 17 University of Mississippi students studying and traveling with the 15 students from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, clam up when race related topics arise, said Ellen Marobane, a human resources major at the South African university.
"In America, it's still taboo to speak of," Dell said.
In South Africa, on the other hand, discussion about race is open, and the effort to move away from racial discrimination is more unified, Dell said.
But Marobane pointed out that South Africa is much smaller geographically than the U.S., making a quicker transformation possible.
But parallels do exist between the two countries' situations, Dell said.
"Racism is the exact same," he said. "There's no big divide."
After a visit to Washington, D.C., and a stay in South Africa, students will present the commonalties they discovered between the two countries.
When the program is over, administrators of the federally funded Lott Leadership Institute hope relationships will remain between the South African and American students, some of whom might become leaders of their countries, Miller said.
Those relationships would foster international relations between the two countries, while the knowledge gained in forming those relationships could help them exact change in their native lands, he said.
Many students said they have already endured personal changes.
Zanele Nondzimba, a master's media studies major, said she came to the U.S. with the idea that Americans were arrogant.
Besides some rushed and rude people at the airport, she said, many Americans have the spirit of ubuntu, or humility, she said.
"You are warm, you are considerate, you empathize," she said.
University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service
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