Skewed grasp of racism in SA

Irespect Ebrahim Harvey as my fellow South African and an author, but he has a narrowminded understanding of racism (“Racist rants expose [Andile] Mngxitama”, February 5). Harvey’s view is similar to that of the perception of racism from outside Africa, in places such as the United States and Europe.

To provide a full and detailed analysis of racism, one has to begin with slavery, colonialism, land dispossession, apartheid, socioeconomic inequality and racial prejudice.

Africans have suffered the brunt of most of these evils in a very visible and concrete manner — on their own continent, where they are the majority. This is not to say that other peoples may not have experienced such things in some form or the other.

It is disingenuous for Harvey and other commentators to equate perpetrators and victims when it comes to racism.

They never do this when they analyse the persecution of the Jews by the Nazis, for instance.

To equate racist comments by Penny Sparrow, Gareth Cliff, Chris Hart and others to comments by Jimmy Manyi and Velaphi Khumalo is lazy thinking and a way of trivialising the oppression of Africans.

Without being too theoretical about racism, one has just to compare Alexandra with Sandton, KwaMashu with Umhlanga, Soweto schools with Houghton schools, and unemployment among Africans as compared with whites.

Just look at the untransformed sporting codes and boards of white businesses in South Africa. That is racism in action and in practice.

These concrete and visible aspects of racism reinforce the mental disposition of the Sparrows, Cliffs and Harts of this country, resulting in their racist comments.

I suggest that Harvey does some indepth research and a proper analysis of the topic — he is capable of doing much better than in this article.