Now that headline seems like a pretty profane thing to say. Could you imagine the little loin clothed Indian man with the cute mustache uttering the words, “leave my elephant alone n!@#!$#@.” The crazy thing is, he’s on record saying something pretty close to this.

I’m watching the epic Gandhi on TV with my son and I realize I’ve never been up on his exploits in South Africa. According to the film and other records, Mohandas Gandhi’s expulsion from a railroad car launches him down a revolutionary path to fight the injustices of the pass laws upon the Indian population in South Africa by White Afrikaners. He eventually forces South African Prime Minister, Jan Christiaan Smuts to draft an acceptable compromise.

Oddly enough, in his quest to show his worthiness to Europeans, he joined the South African army in their war against the Africans. This is what piqued my interest. What side did Gandhi fight for, the oppressed majority Black population or the occupying colonial forces?

As it turns out, he fought on the side of the Europeans and continued to denigrate the personage of Black Africans, railing against Europeans for their categorization of Indians with the lowly Black Kaffir.

During a public meeting in Bombay on September 26, 1896, while discussing the struggle of Indians in South Africa, Gandhi is attributed to the following quote:

“Ours is one continued struggle against degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the European, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness.”

I stumbled across this as I was pushing to introduce my son to the life and works of Gandhi. The irony is that this desire to expose my child to the good led me to the bad I had never known or wished to know. As he grew older it appears that Gandhi’s views softened, but it still leaves a sting. He does eventually move to a point where he begins to challenge the caste system and takes on classification of the untouchables, but this again is mostly framed in a nationalistic Indian perspective.

As odd as it would seem, there is quite a bit in the public domain in regards to Gandhi’s attitudes toward Blacks. In fact a book, Gandhi: Behind the Mask of Divinity was written about the subject. Additionally, a simple search using the terms racist, Gandhi will snatch a quick “oh my” from most anyone’s lips.

How do we reconcile the noble ideas of such a mythic figure with some sinister beliefs lurking in heart? It would seem that such an historic issue [read: way in the past and irrelevant for today] wouldn’t even matter.

Sadly though, I don’t believe this is the case. My son and I saw the movie last week so we’ve been talking on and off about it all week long. How do I continue to instill in him the ideas of self respect when I find the very heroes dancing from my lips, have denigrated my existence through the slander of racism? How can I teach him to respect those that wouldn’t give him the courtesy of respecting him.