The racism that shaped our past is defining our future

FACEBOOK, that instant dispenser of byte-sized wisdom, throwaway humour and the musings of halfwits, had it right this week: “A white person speaking about racism is about as relevant as a man speaking about abortion.”

I’m male and I’m white and I’m about to write about racism, so stop here if you must, turn to the back page of this section or straight to sport.

Of course it was Facebook (and to an even greater extent Twitter) that defined the story of the week, after the aptly named Penny Sparrow took to it to express herself about the state of public beaches over public holidays, in particular on New Year’s Day.

She never intended it to have the reaction it did, as her egregiously inept apology tried to explain.

We had another idiot white, cloaked in the warmth of his prejudice, Justin van Vuuren, who probably matched her in his equally racist and mindless defence of her, but bizarrely (such are the whims of social media) escaped the kind of censure that she or economist Chris Hart faced for his New Year thought on Twitter.

This is not about freedom of speech debates, which Gareth Cliff tried for all of about 18 hours before performing a rather deft volte face and apologising. Or the “being quoted out of context” excuse beloved of politicians, which is probably going to be Hart’s defence.

No, this is about exploring what this week says about all of us.

Social media have never been for the faint-hearted, even if much of what we do is designed for the echo chambers of like-minded bigots and fellow travellers, because when the broader cybersphere kicks in, there are no prisoners whatsoever.

Eagle-eyed sleuths soon uncovered other examples of appalling white racism, deep within the dark recesses of Facebook.

Dutifully cross-posted to Twitter to even bigger audiences, like molluscs below the waterline, these posts acquired even more levels of racism, this time from black people as well as whites. With each evolution the dream of 1994 receded even further into myth.

The alpha and omega of the entire story is perhaps two extreme perceptions: that whites aren’t grateful for being allowed to be equal citizens of this brave new world instead of being put up against a wall and shot, against the other extreme perception that blacks haven’t done enough with what they have received – and are actually starting to demand more.

I hope and pray that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

We are a nation of racists. When we feel scared, when we feel threatened, most of us retreat into ethnic laagers – its hardwired into our DNA, the fruits of almost 350 years of successive racial oligarchies.

As the water level rises, like drowning rats we tur n ugly. It becomes us and them: rich versus poor; white versus black; white, coloured, Indian versus black; black, coloured, Indian versus white; South African versus makwerekwere.

The sad part is that there are an incredible number of people who do good, who live and breathe the ubuntu that people like Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu believed in – indeed, the very spirit that Mandela was prepared to die for.

A lot of them, as Zizi Kodwa kindly remarked, are actually white too. While there are many white people who do take the miracle of reconciliation for granted, there are a lot quietly doing the most wonderful work for others, particularly black South Africans, for no recognition whatsoever.

But there’s another real undigestible truth out there: the huge number of black South Africans incredibly impatient and disillusioned with the pace of change – and justifiably so.

The further down the economic food chain you go, the more virulent the anger becomes, the conservatives become rampant right-wing fascists, the liberal-minded become revolutionaries.

If you’re middle class, it’s about looking up to the sky on your knees and mouthing “Why me?” when you’re faced with mounting debts and little hope of a solution.

If you’re unemployed and unemployable, it’s about grabbing a tyre, dragging it into a public road, and setting it alight and screaming “F*** you” as 20 years of promises of a better life ring hollow in your ears.

Then the South African miracle kicks in – as it always does – and a pint-sized batsman with the heart of a lion goes and becomes the first black cricketer to score a century in a marathon Test match that had been marked by the heroic return to form after a year of purgatory for our erstwhile Test captain who is Muslim. And so we celebrate anew in yet another breathtaking act of national pride, like we did in 1994 or 2010.

It’s got very little to do with race and it’s got everything to do with race, which is precisely why we have to grasp the nettle and outlaw racism, because it is a trigger for all of us.

We have to make racism a crime, as Germany did with anti-Semitism, because it’s so deeply rooted in our past that it is continuing to define our future – and all too conveniently sidetracking us from debating the real issues conspiring against us.