Under the baobab: State High incident offers reminder of journey toward forgiveness, reconciliation

A community will thrive depending on how well it teaches, nurtures and loves its children. A nation will survive depending on how well it treats the children of others. Recently some of our children in the State College Area High School community were involved in a racial incident. Four students circulated a Snapchat of a box covered with antisemitic symbols, racist slurs and homophobic references. Tonya Black, SCASD Director of Equity, Inclusion and Belonging, said, “We are deeply disturbed and offended by such intolerant and hateful action and strongly condemn this type of behavior.”

The students have since apologized. Some parents and others have called for disciplinary action against them, including expulsion, claiming the incident created an atmosphere of fear and distrust. Some of the nonwhite students feel threatened. We are reminded of another incident.

In 2007 four white Afrikaner students at the University of the Free State (UFS) in South Africa published a video in which they humiliated five Black domestic workers at their dormitory. The four students were filmed urinating into a stew before feeding it to five Black staff members, four of them women. The women can be seen on their knees eating the stew from metal cups and then spitting it out in disgust. Internationally it became known as the Reitz 4 Case and became one of the most inflammatory incidents in South Africa’s tortuous journey toward racial reconciliation. Many feared that the incident might signal a return to apartheid. There were demands that students be expelled and severely punished. Prof. Jonathan Jansen, the first Black African to head UFS, chose a different tactic. He said:

“In a gesture of racial reconciliation, and the need for healing, the University of the Free State will withdraw its own charges against the four students. The University will not pursue any further action against the four young men implicated in the Reitz incident. In this spirit of toenadering, (rapprochement) the University will go further, and invite those four students to continue their studies here. Also, in recognition of our institutional complicity in the Reitz saga, and the need for social justice, the University of the Free State will not only pursue forgiveness but will also pay reparations to the workers concerned for damages to their dignity and their self-esteem. And, in a determined commitment to the urgent task of reconstruction, the University of the Free State will re-open the Reitz residence and transform it into a model of racial reconciliation and social justice for all students.”

A year later there was a public ceremony attended by Bishop Tutu where the white students asked forgiveness of the workers, who compassionately bestowed it saying, “we must forgive you because you are our children.” A dance narrative based on that incident and the forgiveness and reconciliation ceremony was performed at UFS and here at Penn State in 2012.

The arts continue to teach our children civility. The Central PA Theatre and Dance started its annual festival with a kickoff in MLK Plaza. Central PA Dance Workshop, Hot Styles, Van Dance and Adam Schwartz Puppets performed. Later Jon Vickers Jones presented “Dylan Thomas, My Neighbor,” at Webster’s. The festival’s flagship performance was Tempest Theatre’s production of “Macbeth: Something Wicked This Way Comes,” wonderfully adapted and staged by Cynthia Mazzant. It featured Elaine and Megan Irwin, brilliantly portraying Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. The excellent ensemble cast also featured: Kathy Morrow and the Swartz Family (Adam, Arthur, Emmett, Penelope), Drew Pirrone-Brusse, Laura Waldhier, Stephanie Gates, Elizabeth Bagley, Mike Casper, Luke and Evan Marcinkevage, Beth Resko, Tina Konrath, Aurora White, Mary Rose Valentine, Whitney McMullen and Ann Van Kuren (who also designed the imaginative choreography).

Congrats to Jalen Pickett and Seth Lundy, the first two PSU basketball stars drafted to the NBA in the same year. Also drafted was another local boy made good, Dereck Lively II.

“Rage, Rage against the dying of the light”- Dylan Thomas

Charles Dumas is a lifetime political activist, a professor emeritus from Penn State, and was the Democratic Party’s nominee for U.S. Congress in 2012. He was the 2022 Lion’s Paw Awardee and Living Legend honoree of the National Black Theatre Festival. He lives with his partner and wife of 50 years in State College.