Acknowledge and attempt to manage ingrained prejudices
ABOUT five years ago I was invited to a three-day day workshop at Diemersfontuin Farm with a visiting professor from the UK who facilitated a diversity workshop.
The workshop was attended by about 20 South Africans from diverse walks of life. The workshop started with the good prof stating: “All of you are racists.”
My first thought was, not a damn! I was, after all, a member of the student movement that challenged and confronted apartheid racism and raised by parents who valued respect for all people. There was no way in hell that I could be labelled a racist; perhaps the other South Africans in the room, but me, nooit!
He then went to explain that, given our collective history, our divided past and through a deliberate system of social engineering that made us look at the world in terms of “us and them”, there is a part of the brain that automatically races to the space when confronted with differences. But don’t despair, he assured us, there was redemption.
He encouraged us to recognise our internalised racism, prejudice and stereotypes. Then, to manage it. But to deny it would be to live in a fool’s paradise. He asked us to trust the process and to keep thinking about it. After day three, I was ready to admit perhaps he was right.
I tested this with my teenage kids, and to my horror, discovered the levels of racism in the playground. Given our complex, wounded past, we are confronted daily with these historical realities of a society that was built on the bedrock of white superiority/privilege and black inferiority/poverty.
For some, this is the stark reality in the workplace, where sometimes black (all those not classified as white) employees are made to feel unwelcome, second-guessed, labelled affirmative action appointments or, even worse, given the “perk and the Merc”, but denied the authority.
It is further expressed in the hurt of a father who told me of his son, who played first-team rugby, only for the system to overlook him a week before interschools in favour of a less talented boy, but with family influence and money.
The lived reality of many South Africans is institutional racism and social exclusion. I know of many educated, talented, smart black employees who experience the daily pain and prejudice from managers who use their privilege to deny, belittle and suppress innovation, whose creative ideas are frowned upon. By the same token, I know of many white counterparts who use their privilege to build community, who listen and acknowledge generational racism and poverty, who open doors and opportunities.
To confront deeply ingrained institutional racism and that of family and friends is a daily commitment that takes the courage of Ashwin Willemse, because silence is consent.
Children become the stories they hear their parents tell. Harlan CA Cloete Stellenbosch