Panyaza Lesufi on race

Bigots hiding behind social media are a minority who cannot be allowed to hold SA back, says Panyaza Lesufi

MY friends, family and leaders have suggested to me that the level of racism is rather alarming these days. In the anonymity of social media one can encounter harsh and divisive words, like when I was subjected to unprovoked racist abuse and called a k **** r and a paedophile by “Summer Starstead”, an anonymous Twitter user operating under the handle @Uncucklord.

Oh, lest we forget: I am not the only one. How about Penny Sparrow’s rants about blacks being monkeys, and the recent declaration by a Sodwana Bay guest-house owner, Andre Slade, that his establishment would never accommodate blacks or government officials, insisting that according to the Bible, black people were sub-human and whites royalty?

But, having lived quite a bit, I would say that there were a few points in the nation’s history when race relations were far worse.

My parents — and every black man and woman of their generation — had to face unimaginable racism. But they never cracked and they never snapped. They never saw anger as the solution to the problem. For “Summer Star stead” to do so — using racism as a justification — insults the memory of every one of them.

But that surely is no comfort. It is like telling a person suffering from a life-threatening disease that their disease is not as bad as others.

In an ideal world we should not have to, but deal with racism we must.

It is distressing that a small sector of our nation’s population, people like “Summer”, have been left behind, a pocket of human beings lost in time and unable to rid themselves of angry and twisted ideas.

I grew up in Tembisa and went to university in Kwa-Zulu-Natal as apartheid rule reached its climax, a place and time where racism was open, unambiguous and often violent.

I would be the last person to deny that we’ve made tremendous progress against discrimination. But it is obvious that we have miles to go.

The history of race writings in our country is full of theories about the inferiority of blacks. Meanwhile, without the efforts of leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo, our Rainbow Nation would not exist. And it was not blacks who tried to build South Africa by creating a racist state.

We know we will continue to achieve great things in spite of the ilk of my social media tormentor.

We’ll keep on destroying the bricks used to build apartheid one by one for our communities and country’s sake.

We are living in different times. What was taboo previously is now spoken out loud. The challenge for us is to adapt to the changes.

Race relations issues, good or bad, are constants in a multiracial country. These days, they are everywhere as the number of mono-ethnic nations is getting fewer.

Are racists like addicts who do not see themselves as the problem? How do we define racism, especially in the South African context, when every- thing is defined by race — from our politics and policies to our economy?

What is a racist? I’m going to try to discuss racists while keeping firmly in mind the Rev Martin Luther King jnr’s call to “sit down together at the table of brotherhood” with my enemies.

Here goes: racists are nothing more than a haemorrhoid on humanity. They are a sadly misguided bunch, as much victim as victimisers, who deserve more pity than scorn.

The level of discourse and the language used in social media and other mediums seem to suggest the implicit is now explicit.

The anonymity offered and prized by the internet has become a good cover for private feelings, no matter how vile, to be made public.

We should remain mindful of the impact racism has on our society. Racism has no place in today’s South Africa. It harms individuals and families, and it harms our cohesion as a multicultural society.

Unfortunately, racism is not confined to history. Nor is it confined to somewhere else. Many people have experienced race-hate talk such as verbal abuse or racial slurs.

The public response to recent incidents of vilification shows that the majority of South Africans reject hate and division. It is important that each and every one of us considers what we can do to stop it.

There are many people who are in denial about how deeply racism affects everyone — not just blacks, who are targeted with discrimination or denied a fair share of society’s resources, or systematically attacked and demeaned like I have been, but whites as well.

We can’t expect to live in an unjust world and not be affected. All of us have been conditioned and damaged by racism and its results.

I believe that most white people would love a world with more equality, with more bridges across this great racial divide, but the problem seems overwhelming.

Our segregated schools and neighbourhoods and cities make it easier to turn our heads.

But we should never be a nation of cowards and become reluctant to confront racial issues.

Racists can insult me as they wish but my commitment to a nonracial, equal and quality education for all our children remains unshakeable.

Their children will study, dance and play with our children in one class and drink water from the same tap. If this hurts racists, hard luck!

And let us always bear in mind: racism isn’t back. It never went away.

Lesufi is Gauteng MEC for education

We should never be a nation of cowards and become reluctant to confront racial issues