Stepping back from previous opinion

WHEN I was a few years younger and had just recently been introduced to the university-level practice of forming my own arguments and articulating them with written clarity, I wrote something which I now regret.

The piece in question was a letter to the Cape Times editor in October 2013, with a fairly overzealous, simplistic and ill-informed argument against race-based admission policies at UCT, given the title “Backward Step” by the newspaper’s editorial team.

My opinions have changed radically away from this stance and tone, such that I forgot I had written the letter.

I was reminded of it when my Honours thesis supervisor sent me a draft academic article in which it was mentioned as part of an analysis of common discourses of whiteness, which was to inform my own thesis examining white students’ discourses of transformation and non-racialism at UCT.

At that point I was beginning to critically analyse my former opinions without remembering that I had held them. The moment was an important one, in that it forced me to include myself in my critique and understanding of whiteness in South Africa – something which was perhaps more comfortable to distance myself from, as a white person.

Since then, I’ve learnt the importance of examining one’s historically-situated positionality and privilege, of applying critical thought and reflexivity to one’s ideas and actions, and of apologising and taking the necessary action to remedy one’s errors.

I’m more committed to understanding how racism, rather than being only a simple individual or interpersonal phenomenon, is deeply structurally and historically situated in intersection with other systems of oppression, acting to privilege whiteness, and as such, requires deep and multifaceted interventions in order to be adequately addressed.

Upon realising the scale of what I have yet to learn and understand, I’d like to step back from my previous reactionary stance, humbly apologise, and retract the letter.

Ruth Urson Rosebank