Achievements should not be reduced to racial issues

ONE OF the things that always irritated me, even when our democracy was still young, was the labelling of achievers as “the first…”

It was not unusual to refer to someone as the first black pilot, the first black woman engineer, the first black train driver or the first white beggar (ok, that last one was just to mess with your mind a bit).

Almost 20 years ago, when I was still with the Cape Times, I used to discourage such descriptions because, instead of celebrating achievements, they tend to cast aspersions on the person who had achieved.

But, I also believed, and still do, that labelling people in this manner probably says more about the person who is doing the describing than the person who is being described.

It indicates that you are not able to accept what the other person has achieved and feel the need to reduce the achievements to race and, by invoking race, you invoke all the negative stereotypes associated with race.

You can also create the perception that the person does not deserve his or her achievements and would not have had the achievement if it was not for race.

I argued with my reporters that, if they thought it necessary to describe someone as “the first black”, this should add value to the story and it should not be the first thing mentioned about someone.

I have always been nervous about racial descriptions of any kind in the media. I used to agonise every time we referred to a wanted criminal by his, or her, race, because if your main description is that the wanted person is “a black man”, you could effectively be pointing a finger at every black man in South Africa.

It is not a good descriptor and as journalists, I argued, we should find better ways to describe people. I’m not saying race should not be used as a descriptor, but it should never be the main or overriding descriptor.

Imagine my surprise this week when I read a story about the appointment of Springbok Siya Kolisi as the new captain of the Stormers, the Western Cape-based rugby team.

In the headline and the opening paragraphs, Kolisi was described as “the first black African captain” of the Stormers.

I could imagine all the people who think that blacks should not play rugby – and there are still many of these around – thinking this was the beginning of the end of the world.

Then there will also be the people who will hope Kolisi does not fail because, if he does, they might never appoint a “black African” captain again.

When I became editor of the Cape Times I was in my mid-30s and newspaper articles all mentioned that I was “young”. By using that word to describe me, they tried to conjure up the negatives some people would associate with youth, such as being reckless, impetuous and immature.

A year or two before that, a white person who was younger than me had been appointed to edit another paper and none of the articles referred to him as “young”. Instead, they called him a “whiz kid”.

The same reporters who happily write about the “first blacks” don’t mention race if the person who has achieved happens to be white. It is almost an unwritten rule that white people are expected to achieve, while for black people it must be an exception.

For how long must we tolerate stories about “the first”? And how deep will these divisive descriptions still go? “The first black”, “the first coloured”, “the first Indian”, “the first Xhosa”, “the first Muslim”, “the first gay”, “the first disabled person”?

I have yet to read stories about “the first Christian”, “the first straight person” or “the first able-bodied person” to achieve something. Maybe these are considered the norm and everyone else, well, abnormal.

I have no false illusions about how deeply entrenched race, racism and other prejudices still are in our society. We struggle not to see people in racial terms because it sometimes helps us to determine how we should react to certain people or what we should expect from them.

All I am asking is for us to think twice, maybe even thrice, before we decide to apply racial labels to anyone.

It might not be your intention to cause harm, but the harm that you cause could run quite deeply.

Even if Kolisi does not mind being referred to as “the first black African Stormers captain”, I am sure he would prefer to be known as the Stormers captain and a very good rugby player, which are what he is.