Mass celebration of the 40th anniversary for the 16 June uprising at Orlando Stadium.
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It is easy not to write about racism. It’s easy not to write about anything controversial. It’s far safer to just not wade into treacherous waters, says Mandy Wiener.
I have spent many hours over the past two weeks listening to and digesting the Black Lives Matter discourse against the backdrop of the murders of George Floyd and Collins Khosa and so many others.
I’ve also been closely following the discussion and sharing around experiences of racism at private and so-called Model C schools here in South Africa.
As a privileged white journalist I am always reluctant to write about race because I don’t feel that I have the authority to do so. It is often best to know when to shut up and simply listen than to try and add my voice to something for which I have limited right to do so.
But as I have checked my own privilege and lived experience these past few days, I have also come to realise how apathy and keeping quiet can be just as, if not more, dangerous than speaking out. At times like these it’s not enough to post a picture of a black square or to change a Facebook profile picture.
Listening to and reading the comments from young women at various schools about systemic racism at these institutions has rocked something inside me. It is how fundamentally inherent the discrimination is. But also how subtle the prejudice is in small but enormously hurtful ways.
It has forced me to reflect on my own high school experience and confront what I can now see was an apathetic approach to issues of race and diversity.
I was in a Model C high school in the late 1990s. Democracy was fledgling and we were riding the wave of freedom and the ‘rainbow nation’ and trying to find an identity as a country.
As an aspirant journalist with an obsession for news even back then, I devoured anything I could read about politics and history, listened attentively to the TRC hearings and always watched the news.
I have a vivid recollection of reading an article about famine in Sudan and genocide in Rwanda and the failures of the United Nations and feeling compelled to do something and resolving to be an activist in some way, but that never really happened.
While I thought I had an appreciation for the nuances of race relations at the time, in truth I didn’t truly know the lived experiences of my black schoolmates. We didn’t discuss transformation or discrimination. We glossed over it, ambivalent, trying desperately not to mention race at all.
But it was always there. And now when I look at it retrospectively, it was so obvious.
People dance as they take part in a march to commemorate Youth Day in Soweto 16 June 2013 in Johannesburg.
Almost every novel or play we read in English was written by a white man or woman. The texts were from the US or the UK. In History, we studied Pan Africanism and the apartheid era but it was taught to us by an old white Afrikaans man. When we learnt ‘Northern Sotho’ it was taught to us by a white Afrikaans man and we had to draw ‘traditional huts’. It was blatantly colonialist, subscribing to the ‘west is best’ philosophy.
It was there in less obvious ways too.
At school socials, the music all night would be ‘white’ choices like Bryan Adams and Bon Jovi or Spice Girls, and in an attempt at inclusivity there would be one ‘black’ song, and Mandoza’s ‘Nkalakatha’ would send the hall splitting like the Red Sea.
The hair policy, introduced by the white headmaster, that black girls weren’t allowed braids or extensions makes no sense now. And everyone had to wear nametags on their blazers, which was quite obviously to assist white teachers with remembering black kids’ ‘difficult’ names.
We just accepted all this and never voiced a protest. When I look back at it now all I can think is, how was any of this ok?
When I compare this apathy to the approach of the teenagers of Generation-Z it’s astounding. As you can read in Dion Chang’s excellent column on Gen-Z today, one of the key characteristics of the youth of today is a strong and fearless social justice barometer, pushing for positive change, using tech to drive consciousness. Gen-Z is active and aware and willing to raise their voices in the interests of gender equality, racial discrimination and climate change.
Retrospection is a powerful thing and when I look back now, I regret not having the courage of this generation. With the passage of time, I can appreciate the realisation of the depth and breadth of the injustice. I have had to confront what I now see as my failure to act and advocate for change, and I am sorry for that. It’s also important to acknowledge that just apologising is not enough – it’s an incomplete reconciliation.
So on this Youth Day, I urge those young people who are raising their voices now for what they believe in to do so louder and louder and lead the way for the rest of us to follow. For too long, we have found it easier to remain silent and paper over the cracks, pretending like nothing is wrong.
– Wiener is a specialist reporter for News24.
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