Now I Know More

by Lewis, Dan

  “Mixed-race” isn’t an easily defined class. How many white grandparents or great-grandparents does one need to be considered “white”? Or “mixed-race”? Apart from the fact that we shouldn’t be classifying people in such a manner anyway, trying to answer that question is an impossible task that can only lead to absurd results. So it should surprise no one that South Africa’s system involved something both outlandish and offensive, called the pencil test.

  The pencil test, as Wikipedia explains, was a “method of assessing whether a person has Afro-textured hair.” A pencil was inserted into the person’s hair and that person’s racial category was determined by how easily it came out. If the pencil fell out, the testee was considered white. If the pencil stuck, then the person was ruled non-white. Black people could subject themselves to the test in hopes of being reclassified as coloured. In such a case, after the pencil was inserted into the person’s hair, he or she was told to shake his or her head. If the pencil fell out, the person was from that point on considered coloured; otherwise, he or she remained black.

  The test led to absurd results, even accounting for the bigoted nature of its purpose. Of particular note was the case of Sandra Laing, a darker-skinned girl born to two white parents (and from at least three generations of white ancestors). In the mid-1960s, Laing, then ten years old, was subjected to the pencil test to determine the “true” nature of her race. When the pencil remained lodged in her hair, she was ruled to be coloured and, therefore, expelled from her (all-white) school. Despite her father’s insistence that Sandra was his daughter and the results of a paternity test supporting his assertion, the Laings were thereafter considered outcasts from the white community.

  The pencil test lasted well into the 1990s, only officially falling onto the ash heap of South African history when the apartheid regime crumbled in 1994.

  BONUS FACT

  How did South Africa handle people of Asian descent? Depends on one’s nationality. In the 1960s, Japanese people were considered “honorary whites,” likely in an effort to encourage trade between the two nations, as whites in South Africa were not allowed to otherwise associate with non-whites. However, most other Asian groups were not offered the same classification until years later. Chinese people, for example, were not considered “honorary whites” until 1984.

  SHARPEN FOR DRUGS

  THE PENCIL WITH THE UNFORTUNATE MESSAGE

  The American “War on Drugs” began informally in the early 1970s. On October 27, 1970, Congress passed the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, and the next year, two members of the legislative body issued a report asserting that 10–15 percent of servicemen in Vietnam were heroin addicts. In response, President Richard Nixon declared in a press conference that drug abuse was “public enemy number one in the United States”—and presidents and politicians since, by and large, have followed suit.

  While punishment and treatment are the hallmarks of the War on Drugs, anti-drug messaging has also been a major component, especially as it pertains to children and teens. Countless public service announcements, posters, and other media have been put toward this effort. In the late 1990s, one group tried a new method of messaging—custom imprinting slogans on the sides of the ubiquitous Number 2 pencils used throughout schools.

  The idea seemed like an easy one: print the words “Too Cool to Do Drugs” on the pencils, turning each ten-cent writing utensil into an anti-drug nudge.

  But then the kids started to use them. The pencils, that is, not drugs.

  To use a Number 2 pencil, you have to sharpen it. And the more you sharpen it, the more the pencil shrinks, sometimes down to just a point attached to that little metal sleeve that holds the little pink eraser. Normally, that’s not an issue. In this case, though, it was a particularly egregious problem. The words were positioned in such a way that, as children used their pencils, the message changed. “Too Cool to Do Drugs” soon became “Cool to Do Drugs” and, not long after, simply “Do Drugs.”

  The organization that sponsored the special pencils, the Bureau for At-Risk Kids, recalled them after a ten-year-old at a New York-area school noticed the problem. The bureau ended up re-issuing the pencils with the message repositioned so that it shortened, when the pencil was sharpened, to read “Too Cool.” But if you really want one that’s not “Too Cool” and advocates for drug use instead, you can find them online pretty easily.

  BONUS FACT

  The little metal sleeve that attaches the eraser to the rest of a Number 2 pencil? It has a name—it’s called a ferrule.

  TOBACCO TO SCHOOL

  THE UNLIKELY SPONSORS OF SOME CHINESE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

  On May 12, 2008, an 8.0 magnitude earthquake struck Sichuan, China. The earthquake and its aftershocks took the lives of nearly 70,000 people with another 20,000 deemed missing. An additional 375,000 people were injured. The region’s infrastructure was also badly damaged—estimates vary, but between 5 and 10 million people lost their homes, constituting perhaps as much as 50 percent of the area’s population. In hopes of rebuilding the region, the Chinese government set aside the equivalent of nearly $150 billion, a huge amount of money, but probably much less than what was needed to return Sichuan back to its former state. Many private businesses rose to the occasion, finding funding and solutions for those affected by the tragedy.

  That is why some children in the area go to the Tobacco Hope Elementary School.

  After the earthquake, tobacco companies were on the forefront of the effort to revitalize education in the region. The China Tobacco Company—working with an organization called Project Hope—opened seventy schools over the course of a year throughout the region. In exchange, the tobacco industry bought sponsorship rights. Schools come with textbooks, desks, pencil sharpeners, and a side of pro-nicotine propaganda; one school, by way of example, had the message “Work hard for society! Tobacco can help you become an achiever!” on its walls.

  The move was, of course, controversial. According to a survey by Peking University, nearly one-third of boys under the age of fifteen had tried a cigarette at least once. (Less than 10 percent of similarly-aged American children have lit up.) Among smokers, the average age of their first cigarette was ten. In hopes of stemming the tide, tobacco advertisements are banned from newspapers, TV, and radio in China—so one would think that the walls of schools would be treated similarly if not more stringently.

  The tobacco industry wasn’t shirking from criticism. A spokesperson for the China Tobacco Company told Beijing Today that the company was just doing its part to help the region recover from disaster: “Tobacco firms should not be barred from contributing to social welfare simply because the cigarettes they produce are harmful to their user’s health.” For low-income areas, finding the 200,000 yuan (about $30,000 to $35,000) to open a Project Hope school was an otherwise impossible task, as no other sponsors popped up.

  For the time being, the tobacco lobby isn’t stopping these sponsorships. Through 2011, they’ve helped open more than 100 schools as well as a network of libraries. Parents whose children use these resources seem okay with the arrangement. Wu Yiqun, a researcher and opponent of the tobacco-branded schools, told the Telegraph that “parents are actually very supportive of the tobacco companies. They think they are giving something back to society.” But Wu, who also noted that schools give out cigarette-shaped candy, cautioned that the tobacco companies “are just using charity as a front.”

  BONUS FACT

  In the United States, the American Legacy Foundation runs a lot of anti-smoking ads. The Foundation’s main source of income? The tobacco companies themselves. In 1998, four major tobacco companies entered into a settlement with the attorneys general of forty-six states; the settlement, among other things, called for creation of an anti-smoking media entity funded by annual payments from the cigarette companies.

  PANDA DIPLOMACY

  CHINA’S VERY CUTE AND LUCRATIVE ANIMAL RENTAL BUSINESS

  On August 23, 2013,
a giant panda named Mei Xiang gave birth to a cub at the National Zoo in Washington, DC, grabbing the world’s attention. Giant pandas are an endangered species, with only a few hundred living in captivity and an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 living in the wild. Most of the giant pandas in captivity (and all of the ones in the wild) are in China, but if you’d like to see one elsewhere, many zoos across the world have a few. In the United States the National Zoo now has three, Zoo Atlanta has four, and the San Diego Zoo has two. There are also giant pandas in zoos in Canada, Mexico, Austria, Spain, Australia, Singapore, and a half dozen or so other countries.

  However, the pandas don’t really live there—at least not permanently. They’re all on vacation of sorts. Mei Xiang and the others are owned by China and are participating in a lucrative panda-lending program.

  Originally, China gave pandas to countries—no strings attached. Starting in the 1950s, the Chinese government used the popularity (and adorableness) of giant pandas to curry favor with other nations by gifting the creatures to governments around the world. In 1972, for example, China gave two giant pandas to the United States as thanks for President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to their nation (which itself began to normalize the relationship between the two countries). First Lady Pat Nixon ensured that those two pandas, Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, were housed at the National Zoo. The program was very successful. Other countries—many of which had little in the way of relations with China—asked for pandas as well. In 1984, though, China stopped giving pandas away. Instead, the Chinese government began loaning them out.

  Under the terms of the revised Chinese plan, zoos were offered pandas only for a ten-year period. (There’s some evidence that renewals are possible.) Because all the pandas now in captivity outside of China were born after the 1984 change, “all giant pandas outside China are actually on loan from the country,” as NPR points out. The cost of renting a panda is $1,000,000 per year, payable to China’s Wildlife Conservation Association. Perhaps most strikingly, the lease agreement requires that any cubs born to loaned-out pandas be returned to China. So Mei Xiang’s addition will likely go back to China at some point early on in its life. The good news, though, is that the baby will be reunited with its brother. Tai Shan, a panda born to Mei Xiang in 2005, was returned to China in 2009.

  BONUS FACT

  How do pandas go from China to points abroad, and back? They fly FedEx, pursuant to a special deal between the air-freight hauler and the Chinese government. The plane used has a big picture of a panda eating leaves painted on the side, and the pandas themselves fly in a crate with transparent side walls.

  THE MADMAN IN THE WHITE HOUSE

  RICHARD NIXON’S CRAZY THEORY ON PREVENTING A NUCLEAR WAR

  For most of the Cold War, three words dictated the game theory outcomes behind military strategies: mutually assured destruction. At any moment, the United States and its NATO allies could volley nuclear missiles at the Soviet Union, destroying the Russians in the process. The Soviets, however, could do the same to the Western powers. If either side acted, the other would have ample time to react. Who shot first would hardly matter, as in the end, we’d all suffer the same fate.

  Which is exactly what Richard Nixon counted on.

  On October 10, 1969, the United States military was ordered to prepare for war. As the Boston Globe would recount three and a half decades later, “nuclear armed fighter planes were dispersed to civilian airports, missile countdown procedures were initiated, missile-bearing submarines were dispersed, long-range bombers were launched, targeting was begun.” The American military was ready to start World War III.

  But if America was about to defeat the Communists, it didn’t make headlines; the country was more interested in the New York Mets’ ultimate triumph over the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series. The average citizen had little knowledge of the ramp-up to war. The same could be said for the servicemen involved, for that matter. Very little context, if any, was provided—America was not provoked in any meaningful way leading up to the readiness alert, and no rationale for this upsurge in activity made its way down the chain of command.

  And then, things got even crazier. On October 27, the U.S. Strategic Air Command dispatched bombers armed with thermonuclear warheads, ordering them to fly over Alaska and toward the Soviet Union. For three days, the bombers circled around the Arctic, just out of Soviet airspace, awaiting further instruction. Stateside, few people—and nearly no civilians—had any idea this was going on. But it certainly caught the attention of the powers-that-be in Moscow.

  Nixon’s gambit was an attempt to make the Soviet Union think he was crazy. His strategy, later termed the “madman theory,” was based on the idea that even the slightest provocation by the Soviets would result in Nixon blowing a figurative gasket, tossing nukes at the USSR as a sign of American strength, and not really giving a you-know-what about the consequences. The Soviets could be convinced of his own irrationality, Nixon surmised, and the odds of Soviet aggression would be greatly reduced.

  It is unlikely that the “madman theory” ended up paying dividends. For much of 1969, the Soviet Union and China were engaged in a border dispute, a culmination of the ongoing deterioration of Soviet and Chinese relations. While the incipient conflict wound down in September of that year, negotiations over the delineation of the two nations’ borders again heated up at around the same time Nixon feigned madness. More likely than not, Soviet leadership saw America’s bombers not as the evidence of insanity that Nixon hoped, but rather that of a strategic decision to support China in case the two Communist nations went to war.

  BONUS FACT

  Lyndon Baines Johnson occupied the White House just before Richard Nixon did, and LBJ may have had the better resume when it came to faking people out. According to the National Park Service, LBJ would drive guests around in his blue car and, while rolling down a hill toward a lake, scream that the brakes were out and that he and his passengers were about to be in big trouble. But the joke was on his guests—the blue car was an Amphicar, a German-made amphibious automobile designed to float on the water’s surface.

  COLD WATER WAR

  THE COMMUNIST SKIRMISH THAT TOOK PLACE IN A SWIMMING POOL

  In 1958, Mao Zedong, then the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and the leader of China; and Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and thus the USSR’s de facto head of state, gathered for a photo op. It was all smiles, as any such posed photo would be. Behind the scenes, though, things weren’t so rosy. While both men were leaders in the Communist world, they had experienced a major ideological rift. After Stalin’s death in 1953, Khrushchev was one of the leading voices in favor of more friendly relations with the non-Communist West; he eschewed the Stalinesque cult of personality common to both the USSR and China. Mao, on the other hand, took a much more aggressive approach to relations with the United States and Europe.

  Starting in the mid-1950s, the relationship between China and the USSR began to fracture, and the period from 1960 through 1989 is now known as the Sino-Soviet Split, marking the two nations’ irreconcilable differences. Being the world’s two most important Communists, its leaders at the time put on a good show leading up to that point. The meeting just described was one such moment, but what followed was better—until some details began to emerge.

  Mao invited Khrushchev to a pool party.

  The discussions between Mao and Khrushchev were focused on joint defensive efforts but went nowhere, quickly, as neither side wished to give in to the other. The tension during the talks gave Mao an idea—ratchet down the hostilities by reducing the formalities. He invited Khrushchev to join him at one of Mao’s many palatial homes, and on August 3, 1958, the two met again.

  According to Smithsonian magazine, on that day, Mao greeted Khrushchev in a bathrobe and slippers. One of Mao’s aides presented Khrushchev with a gift—a green bathing suit. Khrushchev and Mao, per the Chinese leader’s insistence, were going to cool down their neg
otiations by cooling down themselves. They were going for a swim in the pool.

  That sounds great, except for one big problem—if you’re Khrushchev, that is. The Soviet premier knew many things about the world, but how to swim was not one of them. This fact was almost certainly known to Mao beforehand, who likely used the knowledge to embarrass his Soviet counterpart. Mao swam laps while translators ran back and forth, poolside, relaying his words to Khrushchev, who was standing in the shallow end waiting, and almost certainly steaming as well.

  Mao wasn’t done embarrassing his counterpart, either. He insisted that Khrushchev join him in the deeper water. Smithsonian describes the result:

  A flotation device was suddenly produced—Lorenz Lüthi describes it as a “life belt,” while Henry Kissinger prefers “water wings.” Either way, the result was scarcely dignified. Mao, says Lüthi, covered his head with “a handkerchief with knots at all the corners” and swept up and down the pool while Khrushchev struggled to stay afloat. After considerable exertion, the Soviet leader was able to get moving, “paddling like a dog” in a desperate attempt to keep up. “It was an unforgettable picture,” said his aid Oleg Troyanovsky, “the appearance of two well-fed leaders in swimming trunks, discussing questions of great policy under splashes of water.”