Today, I went to a lecture by Gabeba Baderoon entitled "Slavery, Islam, and the Construction of 'Race' and Sexuality in South Africa." It was one an excellent lecture. She talked about the idyllic image of Dutch colonial Cape Town, and that it suppressed the slave presence. Images of the tourist Cape Town portrays slavery as a submissive and happy thing, which is similar to how slavery in America was portrayed before the Civil War. One of the most interesting things that Gabeba talked about was that unlike in the U.S., South African folk memory has tried to forget slavery because of the shame applied to slavery because of the sexual abuse that slavery in South Africa meant. If one can distance themselves from slavery, they don't have that shameful stigma attached to you.
I had lots of things to think about after her lecture. For example, the art that a society produces shows a lot ab
out that society, and it also shows a lot about what that society doesn't want you to see. I learned that the food of a culture often has symbolism. I learned that slavery for a woman basically guaranteed that you would be subjected to sexual predation, which I knew occurred in an American context, but had never thought about it being in a worldwide context.
I thought that Gabeba was a beautiful woman. Her skin was a tan color and her dark hair was partially curly. She is from South Africa, and speaks in a very cool accent, half British and half something else. She was petite and had a friendly smile. She is a poet and a scholar.
I checked out her website, and I think that her poetry is awesome. I will probably buy some of her poetry collections. Check it out: www.gabeba.com. She has some readings of some of her poetry. I really liked "The Art of Leaving" and "Learning to Love Failure".
So that is my intellectual fun fest of the day! Whenever I go to things like this I get so excited about school and learning and all the different things there are to study.
