by Reggie Yates
Anna had a good handle on every stage of my varied and eclectic career to date, and how it’s shaped who I am on screen today. In reading the piece, even I had to take a moment. There were so many lessons learned with every turn and none more pertinent to my more recent work than Famous, Rich and in the Slums.
In September 2010, the project was shot as part of Comic Relief, the BBC’s biennial comedy-driven fundraising night. Spending a week living and working in the sprawling Kenyan slum of Kibera, I was made to immerse myself in the issues residents faced daily. The slum was populated entirely by a poverty-struck black community, and seeing as we were in Africa, I couldn’t help but see my own family members reflected in the people around me.
Thankful to find myself back home after what was a difficult and testing project, I never thought I’d be shooting in an African slum again. But being the loudmouth I can’t help but be, I made the universe-baiting mistake to openly announce, ‘I’ll never do anything like that ever again.’ How wrong was I.
The Extreme South Africa series consisted of three films equally challenging in their own unique way. It was 2013 and I was still establishing myself in what was a whole new area for me. I was yet to figure out my rhythm in making documentaries, and was in all honesty running on instinct. I’d go on to find out so much about myself and the filmmaking process predominantly due to the mistakes I’d learn from and never forget.
I realised the importance of having the right team, of challenging contributors on camera, and that putting my thoughts and feelings out there – right or wrong – would only help the film and, in the long term, me as a man. One film in particular brought together the above and so much more. This film would deliver experiences I’d go on to draw from, helping me in the long run to be better on screen. This film was The White Slums. It was the first that went to air in the Extreme South Africa series and pulled no punches in telling the complicated and heart-breaking history of race relations in South Africa.
One of the things I’m most thankful for is just how much looking inward was required to honestly tackle what I was faced with. This film stirred up some unresolved issues with the realities of poverty I’d only really begun to confront in Kenya. Seen as one of the continent’s biggest success stories, South Africa has a recent past that some people would prefer to forget.
I landed in Cape Town and was taken straight to the beach. I’d got off the flight still wearing way too many layers, but I was so excited to see Table Mountain for the first time, I did my best to ignore the heat. Standing beneath one of the continent’s most famous landmarks I was in awe of its natural beauty. I stared and smiled like a proper tourist, but probably should have dropped my winter coat and the stupid grin.
Only twenty years prior, my coat would have been the least of my worries. With Apartheid laws in place, my skin colour alone would have made my presence on the beach illegal. Between 1948 and 1994 South Africa was racially segregated; this institutional discrimination that brutally oppressed black people only ended when Nelson Mandela was elected president.
But twenty years on and some people were convinced the country was still governed by racist policies. What I didn’t expect to find were some of the loudest voices on this issue saying it wasn’t black South Africans who were now oppressed, it was the whites.
Since the African National Congress (ANC) came into power, they have been accused of replacing one kind of racism with another. Some believed that the new government was openly ensuring all available opportunities were now afforded to black South Africans with a view to give them a greater share of the economy.
With the swing of power taking a recent dramatic turn, I expected those years of hatred to force black and white South Africa towards reconciliation. That was the picture painted to my naïve British eyes during the 2010 World Cup. South Africa played host nation and didn’t shy away from the country’s history; it embraced its progress as strength and presented a united country.
Within hours of arriving in Johannesburg it was obvious this wasn’t the case. As we drove into the city, the large plastic screens either side of the motorway did a poor job of masking the endless townships that seemed to go on as far as my eyes could see. Then, getting closer to downtown Jo’burg, the townships disappeared and visible wealth was everywhere.
That was until I arrived at Coronation Park. On the edge of the city sat a place where some of the hardest-hit white South Africans had made their home.
You’re one pay cheque away from this place
Worried about how they might receive me, I was forced to consider who I might be in their eyes. It hadn’t occurred to me until I laid eyes on their living conditions that I appeared to be everything they were battling with. On appearance alone, I probably typified the kind of privileged twenty-first-century young black man they felt was robbing them of valuable opportunities in life.
During Apartheid, the park had been a picnic place exclusively for white middle-class families. I pulled in to the now empty and unkempt public space, and it was obvious Coronation Park had become something totally different. Garden sheds and tents were smashed up against ramshackle single-storey buildings; rows of small wooden boxes were surrounded by a chain link fence clearly marking a huge chunk of the park as living quarters.
This was a tiny village of self-built dwellings. This was a slum, but a slum created exclusively for a white underclass.
Barking dogs and litter filled the walkways between houses. Kids covered in mud playing barefoot in the dirt seemed to be doing so without any supervision. This was poverty and a version of it I’d never seen before.
In the UK, the regular televised charity appeals calling for donations for Africa almost leave you desensitised to the plight of those in need. The pictures I’d grown up confronted by were African children who through no fault of their own were subjected to poverty. Those posters, TV appeals and music videos I’d seen since I was a child myself all featured black kids just like me. Now I was looking at kids living in the same conditions, but these children were white.
I felt ashamed that I’d connected poverty and race. My knowledge of white South Africans didn’t fit this picture and my mind was racing. What I thought I knew died; I’d never seen what was now in front of me. Poverty is poverty and seeing white people living this way didn’t make it any worse than if I’d have found black people in Coronation Park. But the shock of my own expectation, of placing the black experience as synonymous with struggle, upset and embarrassed me and fired me up at the same time.
I met camp leader Irene who’d set up home in the park eight years prior. She believed most people living in the park were there because there just weren’t enough jobs for white people any more. ‘You’re one pay cheque away from this place. Something can happen to you and you’ll end up here.’
Described by Irene as a white squatter camp, she explained that residents could build their own homes and didn’t need to pay to be there. With 287 residents running their homes on generators and no power in sight, the camp had its fair share of fires. Smoke from wood burners and blackened pots holding stew sat outside most doorways.
The way these people were living made me totally forget that a 200-yard walk in any direction would bring me within view of a major and busy road. We were smack bang in the centre of the city and I’d totally begun to forget. My surroundings were suddenly a world away from life beyond the park.
With no proper sanitation and stray animals everywhere, health was a real concern. Repeated attempts to shut the camp down had failed as new people arrived constantly. Mainly Afrikaans speaking and white, Coronation Park was unlike the Africa I knew.
Of course, with both my parents having been born and raised in Ghana, I fancied myself well versed in Africa. I’d travelled there for the first time aged four and several times since, giving me what can only be described in hindsight as a rose-tinted view. My experiences in Ghana led me to see the motherland solely in the context of progress. I’d always stay in
Accra (Ghana’s capital city) and get off on the development I’d see. International investment and a growing multicultural community made my pride for Africa something I’d never hide.
Taking every opportunity to get on my soap box about why it’s so special to friends, I became that annoying guy shouting about where everyone should be spending their precious holidays. This broken and segregated version of South Africa wasn’t what I knew Africa to be, this wasn’t what was presented during the World Cup. This wasn’t what I wanted to be exposed to.
We are not the chosen ones
I was introduced to twenty-seven-year-old JD who lived in the camp with his pregnant wife, mother and two children. An artist making a living by selling beautiful photo-like pencil portraits, his quiet yet analytical eye made his take on the situation refreshingly objective. With a fading smile, JD explained his reasons for living in the camp as being, ‘Hit by life, hit to my knees’. Reflecting that so many white South Africans, through no fault of their own, now find themselves on the back foot, he simply stated, ‘We are not the chosen ones.’
With roots in Europe, most white South Africans are called Afrikaners, being direct descendants of the Dutch settlers. During the Apartheid years, this white community separated themselves from the black majority, with many – most – seeing themselves as a superior race. Gaining power and control led to this minority affording themselves only the best education and the best jobs. A super wealthy white elite emerged making the wealth gap synonymous with race.
Then in 1990, the release from prison of Nelson Mandela saw a seismic change. As the leader of the black resistance, alongside his freedom-fighting wife Winnie, the Mandelas changed South Africa forever.
Even with this all being such recent African history, more than 50 per cent of privately owned assets in South Africa are still controlled by the same white minority. The stunning beachfront homes and modern dream mansions I purred over on my drive in, suddenly took on a whole new meaning.
I was working with Sam again as my director, and he and I had found a rhythm. Between knowing when to keep pushing even if we were totally obliterated and when to down tools and rest, we’d previously delivered films we were proud of and had developed a strong shorthand. He still had an unhealthy obsession with pastel colours and short shorts, but by now I’d accepted his fashion choices and he’d accept the insults.
A few days in and my presence in the camp was no longer news; it was common knowledge. Most people didn’t bat an eyelid to Sam and I skulking about the place. I say most people; the kids had found something new to play with and it was us.
We fascinated a small group of boys all under fourteen, none more than the super-inquisitive Winston. I found it hilarious that this white Afrikaner kid had the most West Indian name but had no idea. As soon as he shared it with me, I couldn’t help but to shout it with a broad Jamaican accent, made funnier by the fact that he and his friends adopted the pronunciation too.
After a lot of thought, I decided to stay on site in a tent. I don’t know who I was kidding as I’m definitely not the camping type, but needed to get under the skin of the camp. Showing willing to sleep in Coronation Park I figured could only help gain the trust needed to really understand the place better. To be totally transparent, that willing came with a lot of arm-twisting from Sam, and it worked.
Having only ever camped on screen and never through choice, putting up a tent was like building an entire IKEA kitchen with no instructions. There were poles, forks and things I’d never seen before. It just wasn’t going to happen without help, even if Sam was having the best time filming me struggle.
The boys packed in their game of cricket and decided to give me a hand. As the seemingly random pile of materials started to look like somewhere I could sleep, I got chatting with Winston. Affable but shy, Winston was sweet, handsome and full of questions. It was when I started to quiz him that his voice got smaller with every answer.
Representing nearly one-third of the camp’s inhabitants, children under sixteen are a huge part of Coronation Park. Winston had started his life in a world unlike his nearest neighbours on the other side of the park gates, but I wasn’t sure if he was bothered. As soon as we started speaking, however, he quietly let me know just how aware he was of his lot in life. Totally clear about the way the world saw the camp, Winston was embarrassed about where he lived and said that he wouldn’t want kids from the outside world to know where he was from. His main dislike was the issues with addiction he’d been confronted by. Witnessing regular fights and arguments was his biggest gripe and understandably so as I couldn’t imagine anyone in a rush to call the police to break up disturbances in what was an illegal settlement.
Irene decided to introduce me to one of the few people living in the park with a regular job to go to. Squelching our way through the wet muddy grounds after a day of light rain, we arrived at a wood-walled shack belonging to her son Gerry.
Stocky, broad and all eyebrows, Gerry worked as a welder and shared his home with a young wife and three children. Gerry was young himself and wore a not quite-there beard, unknowingly showing his age. As one of the few working men living on the camp, he had one of the bigger homes with separate rooms and a big-screen TV. Regardless of his employment, his wage wasn’t enough to afford a place outside the park.
The conditions in the ‘house’ weren’t fit for anyone to live in, let alone people trying to raise small children. Gerry and his wife made it as clean and homely as possible, but no matter what they did, the dirt and dust they just couldn’t keep out continually made their children ill.
Afrikaner charities believe a new underclass has formed with whites-only settlements just like Coronation Park across the country. Gerry and his family were a great example of people doing everything in their power to progress but unable to, due to a system they saw as racist.
Working since the age of sixteen, Gerry believed he was doing the best he could for his family, but between his qualifications and the opportunities afforded to the white working class, his potential to climb the ladder at work was minimal. With tears in his eyes, Gerry couldn’t contain his emotions as he expressed his frustration. His family was suffering and no matter what he did or how hard he worked, he saw no change in their future.
Playing the race card was something I’d only heard people that looked like me be accused of. To hear so many white people blame their quality of life and prospects on their skin colour was a first, but it was a belief I’d hear more and more as the days went on.
It was my first morning waking up in the camp. My cheap tent was sweating and I had a pain in my lower back after spending the night laying on a rock. Schoolboy error. I shouted for Sam, who’d apparently had a great night’s sleep. I had a sneaking suspicion he’d snuck off in the middle of the night and had a few hours in a nearby hotel, but he was at least making an effort to make me feel we were in this together.
At the first sign of movement, Winston and the boys rocked my tent. They were like kids on Christmas morning and I was their new toy. It’s always nice to feel in demand, but not at 7am while you’re swearing at a rock for giving you a bruise.
Shaking off the excitable boys and their offers to join them for a pre-breakfast game of cricket, I helped JD start his morning fire for tea. Months away from his fourth child being born, JD knew that once delivered, his little one would be brought to the camp. With Irene on board and the support of the camp, JD felt as if his new child wouldn’t just survive the harsh conditions but be safe in the community it was being welcomed into.
Social housing felt to me like the best way to protect and grow a young family of his size. But with over two million people on the waiting list for rehousing in the city, JD saw a government-assisted roof over their heads as a dream.
Diamond in the rough, in need of some polishing
Heading back to the centre of Johannesburg, I reconnected with an old friend and Jo’burg resident Sizwe. As one of the leading faces on MTV Africa, Sizw
e and I met through one of my now best friends, Yemi Bamiro. At the time, Yemi-Bam (as I called him) was the director I’d always be paired with for MTV, and that particular gig saw us covering the European Music Awards in Germany.
We were shooting a crazy sequence with a few hundred dancers having a pillow fight in underwear (it was MTV, don’t ask), while Sizwe was doing the grown-up thing asking really smart questions to some of the biggest names in music. Catching up on his corner of the globe was perfect as I couldn’t think of a better person to give me a breakdown on what it meant to be young, South African and black.
Gerry and Irene had laid out the way they saw the world, but just how different would Sizwe’s take on the country he loves so much be? We hopped into his just-washed Mercedes Benz and I was instantly in a different world. Sizwe was educated, international and successful with a huge job in media. Given his lifestyle, there was no way Sizwe could possibly identify with the lens Gerry viewed the world through. Surely?
As we drove through the shiny apartment buildings and skyscrapers that dominated central Jo’burg, Sizwe pointed out countless developments and the growth of the city. This was a man proud of the changes he saw around him, and an obvious embodiment of the successful black contingent we hear so little about in the West.
Introducing me to the excitement associated with young black success, Sizwe explained how he’d been lumped in with a group now known as the ‘Black Diamonds’. Originally coined to reflect a community growing almost as quickly as their spending power, the Black Diamonds were affluent and influential young black South Africans. It evolved from a word thrown around by marketing types carving out a corner with ever-increasing earnings, but ‘Black Diamond’ is now used almost exclusively as a pejorative term. Laughing off his connection to the label, Sizwe referred to himself as a ‘Diamond in the rough in need of some polishing’. He was proud of his hard-earned success, with or without the title.
