Do we gauge degrees of racism, and who calls it?

Is Ernst Roets a racist?

Some may look at him and simply say that he’s white, so absolutely! Others may kneejerk, assuming any Afrikaner is automatically racist.

Some, however, may have waited until the moment he declared the ANC/EFF was drunk on ideology, power, hatred and contempt (for white people and the poor), and that the whole expropriation thing – the myth that whites stole the land – was just a ploy to create a communist utopia.

As deputy CEO of AfriForum (the civil rights organisation focused on “the protection of Afrikaners”, but not exclusively), Roets has an LlB degree from University of Pretoria and was previously the national chairman of Solidarity Youth.

Roets was one of 40 presenters to submit verbal inputs to parliament’s joint constitutional review committee conducting hearings on whether section 25 of the constitution requires amending to effect expropriation of land without compensation.

Parliament’s webpage quotes chairman Lewis Nzimande as saying, “Emotions ran a bit high when members of parliament felt insulted by the manner in which the presentation was delivered by AfriForum. It is a pity they wasted the opportunity to contribute on a way forward for all South Africans as their presentation did not speak to the subject matter of whether the constitution should be amended to allow for expropriation without compensation."

The MPs present were less diplomatic: “Biggest hogwash/ nonsense ever”, “your tendency to undermine, come here with your whiteness”, “so arrogant, think we in-human (sic), not living beings”, “sending the country back to those wars”, “hardened our attitude”, “drunk on the hatred of black people, sheer insanity/arrogance”, “racist Afrikaner children try to anger us”, “acted today as a white BLF”, “disgrace”, “disappointed”, “taking us back” and “why not … be constructive”.

Several of the MPs referenced their own or parents or grandparents’ personal experiences and hardships centred on land dispossession. Not a single MP spoke in favour of the AfriForum presentation.

Social media went into orbit and it polarised.

Roets was either a rabid racist or he showed great courage for telling it like it is.

The DA came under flack for not siding with AfriForum and many were the threats of taking (white) votes elsewhere.

But it also saw many black respondents rally in support of the DA, and its approach to both AfriForum and expropriation of land without compensation.

COPE, with its 2019 election-eye on those absconding votes, has subsequently seized the opportunity to partner with AfriForum to generate international pressure to stop expropriation of land without compensation.

The EFF wants to meet AfriForum – ringside seats will sell like hot cakes. So is Roets a racist?

In the AfriForum presentation he addressed what he called the “biggest fallacy of our time”, the notion that white people stole the land.

His argument was that whites acquired their land through three main ways: settling on empty land, through negotiation (treaties and agreements) and through conquest, which he claimed was the least significant.

He then added an “of course also” bit and named two pieces of legislation, the Natives Land Act of 1913 and the Group Areas Act of 1950.

These “injustices” should be dealt with specifically and “not used to construct grand false narratives or to advance new racist policies”.

Roets’s comments occur within the context of 342 years of European rule in some format that systematically, through 17,000 pieces of legislation or local regulations, denied black people access to land.

It occurs within the context of more than three million people being forcibly removed from their homes, South End, Fairview and the township at the top of Mount Road (now Mill Park) being some of the local examples.

It occurs within the context of black people being restricted to owning 7% of land in 1913 and, as a consequence, in 2018 still hopelessly underrepresented as to who owns the land.

Importantly, it occurs within the context of the National Party “empty land” propaganda of the 1970s being debunked by the likes of historian Shula Marks and anthropologist Tim Maggs among many, many others. Context matters.

The problem in deciding whether Roets is racist is that SA generally understands racism as a binary choice: yes you are, no I am not.

Also there’s a tendency to focus on the tangible, the use of the k-word, monkeys-on-abeach as examples, rather than on subtle or below-the-surface racism. Perhaps a better way to discuss racism is to see it as a continuum – a range – and to try to place Roets somewhere on that scale?

Perhaps all white people are automatically further along the scale than black people; perhaps individuals must therefore do the necessary work to undo their cultural prejudices?

Also, the MPs’ anger at being insulted and Roets’s indignation at being labelled racist – the emotional response – tells us something: what you intend is often not how it is perceived.

But more importantly, racism isn’t just about the facts of what was said; it’s also about the impact those words have on people. Words matter.

How we choose to use them matters.

So who gets to decide? The person who did the deed, or the person on the receiving end?

Sexual harassment works off the principle that it’s the person being harassed that calls it. We teach our daughters that if they’re uncomfortable they should speak out.

We teach our sons that if a girl says “no”, they should back off. Immediately.

Should racism not work in exactly the same way?

When a young white man proceeds to call MPs, the majority of whom are black and mostly his senior, “drunk on ideology” and repeats an NP propaganda line from the ‘70s to make his case, he is seen as far along the racism scale. He has ignored context. He has ignored the impact of his words. If his intent is to build a bridge, he has some work to do. We all do.