Better governance is needed to slay racism dragon
Apartheid has left a legacy of institutional racism in South Africa, while the US is facing its own kind, argues William Gumede
OFFICIAL racism may have been long abolished in South Africa and the US since anti-race activists such as the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army member Assata Shakur in the 1970s US, and anti-apartheid activists in South Africa were prominent, yet its terrible legacy persists long thereafter.
The challenge for both countries is how to overcome the legacy of both individual and institutional racism long after official racism had been scrapped from the statute books.
Colonialism, slavery and apartheid left a legacy of institutional racism, through which dark skins are often instinctively prejudiced in societies across the globe. Racism is also endemic in global relations between nations: nations seen as “white” are invariably higher on the pecking order than black ones.
“White privilege”, the special benefits, which US anti-racism activist Peggy McIntosh describes as an “invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks”, which accrues benefits to a person purely on their “whiteness” is a fact of life in the country and international institutions across the globe.
It could be as small as a shop assistant giving special attention to a white shopper and ignoring a black one. Or the stigmatisation of black women, who are not “passive, servile, non-threatening, and invisible”, by talking out loudly against injustices, as “Angry Black Women”. Shakur would have been labelled an “Angry Black Woman”.
“White privilege” means growing up with the implacable assumption that one’s view of the world, social understanding and ways of looking is “normal” – which is also replicated in companies, international culture – whether in films or thought – quality universities and global media. Those of colour have to adapt to “whiteness”, or play by “whiteness” rules.
In both the US and South Africa, racism has infused the DNA of almost every institution in society and racist practices have often become so part and parcel of habits and routine, and social and professional interaction, that is often not even recognised as such.
In South Africa government corruption is sometimes broadly viewed by white South Africans as a general failure of all blacks, rather than seen in its specific contexts, of a corrupt individual, whatever the colour, politics or class.
Racism has a terrifying impact on individuals. The US-based Institute for Peace and Justice described some aspects of racism as a “rejection or neglect as well as attack – a denial of needs, a reduction of persons to the status of objects to be broken, manipulated, or ignored. The violence of bombs can cripple bodies; the violence of miseducation can cripple minds. The violence of unemployment can murder self-esteem and hope. The violence of a chronic insecurity can disfigure personalities as well as persons”.
Johan Galtung, the principal founder of the discipline of peace and conflict studies, points out that victims of racism are often “depicted as being poor ‘by choice’, as a result of their own actions and faults”.
Part of the South African 1994 democratic project and the US postsegregation project was to undo the racism which is embedded in institutions and social life, and build human rights’ based societies.
Institutionalised racism and apartheid have left both black South Africans and African Americans, with massive “existential insecurity”. Their cultures were under attack, they were physically dislocated, they were deprived materially, they were deprived of equitable access to public goods such as education and healthcare. Chronic insecurity caused by humiliation scars the individual sense of self. Interpersonal relationships were broken, whether through migrant labour or because of a harmed sense of self.
Slavery, colonialism and apartheid have caused “dislocation” of “familiar and trusted social benchmarks” – whether cultural, individual or social. This leaves a void within many individuals. The challenge for the US and South Africa is how to help broken individuals fill that void.
Frantz Fanon, a psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary and writer, points out how institutional racism scars the black “psyche”: causing inferiority complexes, low self-esteem, aggression, anxiety, depression, and often “a defensive romanticisation of indigenous culture”, whether emphasising fundamentalist Zulu-ness or African-ness, or nostalgic African communal development ideologies.
In our globalised world individual self-esteem, identity and value are increasingly measured in how much an individual possesses in material possessions. Since a big part of the legacy of institutional racism is that blacks in both countries are invariably mostly poorer, reinforces “existential insecurity”, among the poor blacks.
To overcome such scarring to the black psyche, governments need to govern in a more socially conscious way, with a greater sense of public duty, empathy, and solidarity with society’s black vulnerable and disadvantaged.
Some blacks would overcompensate for white racist attitudes: over-asserting their “blackness”, always seeing the world only between black and white, and nothing in between, as if reality is not a mosaic of different colours.
Many white South Africans and Americans appear to be ignorant of the continuing legacy of “white privilege”. Some argue poor blacks are in their predicament of their own doing. Others say affirmative action is privileging blacks. Yet others call for merit appointments to, in effect continue “white privilege”.
If white, to glibly dismiss the continuing legacy of racism and apartheid policies – the education, jobs and property bar, and long sustained attack on black self-image is deeply offensive. To argue that achievement is only a white preserve – if blacks do well, it must be to do with “political connectivity” is outrageous. White instances of incompetence should not be ignored.
Some white South Africans and Americans have argued for “colourblindness”, arguing race does not matter. Yet, as the African-American psychologist Monnica Williams argues, “colour-blindness” has helped make race into a taboo topic that polite people cannot openly discuss. And if you can’t talk about it, you can’t understand it; much less fix the racial problems that plague our society.”
Without an open, honest and sober conversation on race in the two countries, we cannot understand the extent of the continuing legacy of apartheid and racial segregation, and over the policies to be pursued to rectify it.
One danger is that institutional racism at country and global levels may plunge black people into perpetual victimhood, never taking accountability for their own failures, forever blaming racism, apartheid and colonialism, and therefore not being able to actively take control of their own destinies.
Furthermore, the temptation is often to hide behind racial solidarity to support often undemocratic practices, by our black leaders or organisations, merely because they are black and anti-racist. Appeals to black (or white) “authenticity” often demands closing ranks behind very dubious personalities, sometimes undemocratic politics and the (black) government’s neglect of its (black) citizens.
In South Africa, many judges and magistrates still astonishingly blame the victims of rapes for being responsible for being raped. Surely, in such cases, a black magistrate and judge cannot be supported merely on the basis of blackness.
The American scholar of race, Cornel West, rightly argues we must “replace racial reasoning with moral reasoning, to understand the black freedom struggle not as an affair of skin colour and racial phenotype but rather as a matter of ethical principles and wise politics”.
What we should not do is, in our bid to debunk outrageous racial generalisations, defend individual incompetence, wrong-doing and even corruption, just because the person is black or white.
Shakur left the Black Panther Party because its leader Huey Newton used the fight against racism to create a leadership centred on himself, calling himself “Supreme Commander”, and “Supreme Servant”, and the organisation discouraged internal criticism.
Black liberation movementsturned-governments should not, after decrying discrimination by former colonial and apartheid governments, practise discrimination by appointing by ethnic or regional bias or family and friends, to positions in their governments, rather than appointing the best talents.
Poor governance, corruption and a lack of accountability by African governments only reinforces deeply held racial stereotypes of black – therefore better governance is crucial in slaying the racism dragon.