It feels like America

One of the images that I have never forgotten during my first trip to South Africa in 1998 was the sight of a mall security guard armed with an automatic rifle. I was visiting a mall in a few miles down from the University of KwaZulu- Natal in Durban. Pulling into the parking lot the mall seemed like virtually any other strip mall that you’d encounter in the United States. Up to that point, I kept on thinking how Durban’s proximity to the ocean and lush rolling hills reminded me of parts of southern California. However, as soon as I saw the security guard with the machine gun, all those analogies disappeared. I became obsessed with imagining what it must feel like for the teenagers in that community to see heavily armed guards every time they want to kick it at the mall. That mall guard became the personification of a hyper-militarized state…one which…in all honesty…I took comfort in not residing.

I was transported back to that shopping mall in Durban this weekend when I 600x338spotted this photo on a friend’s facebook page.  These are police officers. They are not mall security guards.  For some that’s reason enough to explain the assault-rifle strewn over the officer’s shoulder as he talks to these children on their way to school.  For me, I see a different picture, a different explanation.  For me I see the answer to that question that lingered in my mind for days upon first encountering that guard in Durban: “what does it feel like to grow up in a community where people are so heavily armed?”

In 1998 the answer was a mystery.

In 2014, I now know that it feels like America.

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