Week 4

At my job at the Women’s Legal Centre, we worked on a legal submission of suggestions to be made to the proposed national action plan that’s meant to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and other forms of related intolerance. When relaying the national statistics to demonstrate the racial inequality in South African society, the plan divided the population into five distinct categories: African, Coloured, Indian, White, and Foreign National. I thought this was particularly interesting for a few reasons. For one, it highlights how fluid race is and how important context is as a result. For example, in the United States, Coloured has been used as a derogatory term towards African Americans, particularly during the time of segregation. In modern American society, referring to a black person as Coloured is considered incredibly disrespectful and inappropriate. Here, Coloured is used to describe South Africans that have both European and African ancestry and is regularly used in conversation. Another observation that I found interesting was that the document seemed to assume that its readers would know that Africans referred to black South Africans. This assumption perplexed me a little because I started to wonder how exactly do white South Africans classify themselves or self-identify as. Technically, they would be African for the simple fact that they were born in an African country, and many of their families have been here for generations. However, they are not originally from this continent and have deliberately chosen to categorize themselves as “Afrikaners.”

As such, I find the juxtaposition between the usages of the terms “Afrikaner” and “African American” to be quite interesting. In my opinion, African American implies that black Americans aren’t full or true Americans because of their ancestral linkage to Africa. By this definition, Native Americans are the only true Americans, and yet, they aren’t given the privilege of simply being called American either. If this is the argument that is used to defend the term’s usage, then why is it that white Americans aren’t referred to as “European-Americans” since their ancestry can clearly be traced back to Europe? We know why – white has been designated as the baseline or the norm, and everyone else’s categorized in relation to this. Even a white person who has recently immigrated to the United States would be quicker to simply be called an American than someone who appears to be black, Asian, or another race or ethnic group with decades of ancestry in the United States. This is why I find the usage of the term “Afrikaner” to be interesting. It’s a term that the white Dutch settlers essentially gave to themselves to designate themselves as different or separate from the native black South Africans. That term held a lot of power, particularly in the apartheid era and continues to carry a lot of weight in post-apartheid South Africa. Thinking about this, I’ve realized how much power words and certain phrases can have, especially for the people who have had the privilege of designating those words and phrases onto others and who have also had the privilege of determining whom they want to be recognized or known as. People of color have historically had that privilege taken away from them. This reminds me of the current debate surrounding the usage of the term “expat” versus “immigrant” or “migrant.” I haven’t quite figured out this juxtaposition yet, but this is where my thoughts currently are.

Furthermore, the proposed national action plan explained how interracial interactions are mostly occurring in the high-income areas. This is concerning because the majority of the poor people in this country are black, with very few blacks being in those high-income brackets. What is more concerning is the fact that despite this increase in interracial interactions, despite how limited they are, this has not led to a higher desire to interact with other races or even higher societal approval for interracial interactions. I understand that people tend to gravitate towards others that they perceive to be similar to themselves, but I find it difficult to conceive that people feel no desire to have the most basic of interactions with other races. This is even more startling considering just how diverse South Africa is. This has changed how I see this country and Cape Town in particular. When I walk to and from work and see how the landscape transforms before my eyes, from essentially all white to more of a mixed population, I now wonder if that is a conscious choice that Afrikaners and other races have made. Of course I acknowledge that wealth plays a very large role in this racial separation, but wealth here also seems to equal white in most cases.

I have a hard time understanding and deciding if this is an example of simply having pride in one’s ancestry and history or if it’s an example of nationalism. As I’ve mentioned in my other blogs, South Africa, especially Cape Town, still actively participates in de facto segregation. I now wonder if this possible nationalism on the side of some Afrikaners has factored into the lack of genuine interaction between South Africa’s many races. Take for example Afrikaans – the third most widely spoken language in the country and the mother tongue of South Africans descended from the Dutch settlers. The most premiere South African universities, such as Stellenbosch University, one of the most highly regarded universities on the African continent, are predominantly Afrikaans speaking and teaching, particularly at the undergraduate level. Recently, the university revealed that it was implementing new language policies that would continue to provide provisions for students that prefer to learn in Afrikaans while improving access for students who are only proficient in English. This led to some nationalist Afrikaner groups exploding in uproar, claiming that this decision would go down as a dark day for Afrikaans speakers. They even went so far as to call it an abuse of Afrikaners’ human rights. Now to be clear, the decision wasn’t to outlaw Afrikaans as a language medium at the institution, but to essentially make improvements to give English equal status.

I can understand that South Africa faces a difficult situation because of the wide range of languages spoken here with the nation having eleven official languages. It’s not financially feasible to have academic instruction in all eleven languages or even half of those languages. However, I remember being taken aback when I learned that Stellenbosch and other universities like it primarily taught in Afrikaans. I understand that the university itself is in an area dominated by Afrikaners, and it has a history of pandering to Afrikaners, but the fact remains that it is a public, national university. Therefore, it shouldn’t and can’t just cater to a particular portion of the population. Of course, I realize that Afrikaners aren’t the only South Africans who speak Afrikaans, but to me, this insistence on restricting instruction to this language almost seemed like another way to enforce a type of racial segregation. I think this can partly be demonstrated by how more than half of the student population is Afrikaner, while less than twenty percent is black. Think about this in the context that the majority of the nation’s population is black with only nine percent being white. In fact, I read that Stellenbosch’s seen as a central pillar of Afrikaner life. At first, I began to think about this within the context of the importance of “safe spaces” for minorities, a conversation that has been quite popular on college campuses, including Duke’s; however, I came to the conclusion that even though Afrikaners are a minority in this country, they hold the majority of the nation’s wealth and as a result, power. They might be outnumbered, but they aren’t disenfranchised in any way.

This has only reinforced the danger for me in progressives’ claim that “They don’t see color” or that “They’re colorblind.” Personal experience and the shared experiences of others has taught me that this really means “I’m making the conscious decision to ignore the fact that you face discrimination and violence simply based on the color of your skin because I have the privilege of remaining in the dark.” The fact remains that the world sees color, whether it wants to admit it or not, and so we need to as well. The fact also remains that due to our race, gender, etc., especially when discussing intersectionality, we all experience the world differently, and these experiences should be acknowledged and respected. This is okay. The danger comes in when we start degrading or discriminating against each other due to race and other potential factors. Racism exists everywhere. In a country that is known as the rainbow nation, there seems to have been little progress made in truly integrating the country. I don’t want to pretend as if I’m an expert on South Africa’s history, and I certainly can’t predict its future, but I’m not exactly sure where it goes from here if people aren’t willing to take the first steps to get to know the other side. Having pride in one’s background’s integral because it’s part of what makes us ourselves, but if that pride causes you to separate yourselves from others that you perceive to be different or even worse, leads you to see yourself as better than others, then that proposes a problem. History has taught us that, and history has a funny way of repeating itself.