A black woman, a "colored" man and a Jewish woman united to share their different perspectives on apartheid.
Former Time magazine National Editor Richard Stengel monitored the panel Wednesday on growing up under apartheid -- a policy of racial discrimination in South Africa that lasted from 1948 until 1994 -- at International House.
International House President Oliver Franklin hosted the panel as part of the House's yearlong program honoring South Africa.
The three panelists all hailed from the African nation: Makie Makhene and Daniella Slon from Johannesburg and Gershwin Sandberg from Cape Town.
They attested to loving their homeland of South Africa, but Makhene said that apartheid turned the country into a "nightmare."
Though apartheid was finally fully dismantled 11 years ago, Makhene said that the mentality of segregation continues to corrode the country.
Slon, who lived in an affluent Jewish community, echoed this sentiment, adding that she is still surprised when she sees blacks in South African movie theaters and supermarkets.
"Apartheid really transformed society," she said. "It [started] over 40 years ago, and it will probably take at least as long to fix the country."
Stengel attributed these lasting effects to apartheid's "evil genius."
He said apartheid divided South Africans into black, colored and white, keeping the races unaware of each other for as long as possible.
In South Africa, people of mixed race were referred to as "colored."
"I saw a white person for the first time when I was 14," Makhene said.
Sandberg, who considers himself colored, reflected on this divide, discussing his awkward position of being "too dark to be white and too white to be dark."
This uncomfortable role also permeated post-apartheid life.
Sandberg said, "In a sick and demented way, apartheid was very creative."
When it ended, "there was this weird tension because [colored people] didn't have it as bad as blacks, so why make an upheaval?"
A Rhodes scholar, Stengel was selected as moderator because he has published a book on life under apartheid and collaborated with Nelson Mandela on the activist and former South African president 's autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom.
Amy Turcinov, whose husband is a Wharton student, commended the panelists for doing a "good job at covering different perspectives."
