Taboo Topics: Race – What I would love my white friends to hear – Meet Juliet Paulse

Growing up in Cape Town in a largely coloured area, the perceptions about white and black people were always negative. So naturally I took that on as the norm (as that was my context). I was only in high school when I was first exposed to white folks. All my teachers were white and they knew everything and seem to have everything. I basically unconsciously just ended up assimilating into that thinking that white must be right. My teachers at school were never really outwardly racist but there were those occasional undertones, side comments that one at that age could not quite understand. In this context I never really thought much about the issues of race.

When I went to Bible College a little bit after High School I was confronted with my own racism. One of my classmates who was black got a better mark than me, and this shocked me. Why? Because I grew up being told that black people are not very bright. I went home to tell my parents of this discovery and they just shrugged it off saying “you’re 19 you don’t know anything and not you’re not racist, those people are …” I realised that as a Christian this kind of thinking would not be helpful or gracious it was downright ungodly. So I decided to get to know and build better friendships with black people that I was surrounded by at Bible College. It was and still is an awesome journey. In these friendships I have had to confront a lot of wrong and misinformed thinking and my friends continue to be gracious as we work through these things together. I have found that I am richer for getting out of my comfort zone.

So my friends then exposed some other stuff and brought up my racism towards white people. I couldn’t deny that at all. My experience of many white people is that of ignorance, entitlement, totally unaware of their privilege and so not interested in engaging in issues of race, politics etc.

So my argument for not making an effort to have white friends was, “agh will they ever change? Probably not, and who has time for those people anyway?” So I would just tolerate them but no further and that will be that. Right? Wrong?

I moved to Bloemfontein last year in December and ended up at a predominantly white church. I was like “ahh Help! I see white people, everywhere!” God has a sense of humour for real! Moving here has made me look more seriously at the attitudes and prejudices I hold towards white people. I had attempted to have friendships with white people many times but it always never deepened or went past a certain point. So I never really felt compelled to preserve and be persistent. I wrote to some of my friends and told them I guess I’m going to have to learn to love them white peoples.

I have actively sought to make and build on friendships with white people. What changed for me is that I realised that, had my black friends not been patient, gracious and kind with me then I would have not gotten out of my habitual wrong thinking. My thinking was formed by ignorance and lack of exposure to black people. It was only in my relationships that I was able to move past a lot of things I grew up believing about black people.

So what I want my white friends to know is this:

I am your friend for real, I love you because Jesus made you and I sincerely want to understand the inner workings of your mind. This might mean that at times when you say stuff because you are really ignorant of the world around you; I will in love tell you that you are wrong.

You are not an island. You cannot go on pretending that things are okay or be okay with being in your comfort zone. You are so missing out! You need me and I need you. Further to that I want to need you, because you are part of this epic country.

Be honest. Don’t hold back tell me how you really feel I can guarantee that your anger concerning race and apartheid will often be the root of some misunderstandings you may still hold. I love you enough to wrestle it out with you.

Don’t just moan, own! Don’t just complain about how rubbish things are, own your part in making a difference and changing things. The cop out argument of I can’t really do anything about stuff because I’m white? That’s just unhelpful and only leads you to be complacent and back to what makes you comfortable.

If we want a better South Africa then we have to fight for it. It’s messy and it will mean that we’ll scrape some knees, and come out bruised. But it’s worth it. We have such an opportunity to create a new normal. We don’t need to keep perpetuating our past.

To be very honest it is really rough and tough loving people who just don’t seem to want to get it. I often feel like giving up. But then I realise Christ never gives up on me no matter how many times I mess up and don’t get it. So to my white friends I won’t tap out, by God’s grace I’m all in.

[For other stories from People of Colour who have things they’d love white people to hear, click here]

The Power of a Gr-Attitude

i somehow got into two Facebook argumersations yesterday at the same time. TWO! i can’t remember that happening before. i usually try pick my battles one at a time, but somehow, two different articles i shared, generated two different fairly strong push backs.

Which i love. i love it when people push back and are genuinely committed to the conversation and engaging and not simply being trolls or palookas. But sometimes [especially when it’s people i don’t know so well] it is hard to tell. So i continue to engage while i think there is some point to the conversation [and as i’ve probably written before, often i am writing more for those who are looking on at the conversation as they tend to be more likely to change their mind or be affected by what is shared] and for me it really is a deep search for truth. A truth i typically have a strong belief in [otherwise why bother engaging] but also one that is in the midst of being wrestled with and grown and adapted as it is challenged by what i read, experience and by what people say.

BUT IT CAN BE REALLY HARD. And lonely. And so when a second person joined in to the one conversation and said some things backing up what i was saying, it felt like the hugest breath of fresh air and after a few posts i actually jumped on her Facebook page and simply said – thank you.

But like i said, it can be really hard. Is this going to make any difference? Am i really right about the things i am arguing strongly for? Why doesn’t this person see that they are wrong [if they are]? Is this person being genuine or are they a troll or someone who doesn’t even really care about this stuff.

Both conversations yesterday related to Race and Privilege in South Africa, two topics i care so much about and which affect so many people i am in relationship with [well they affect everyone in South Africa but there are a lot of my friends that are deeply invested in this conversation and life going forwards] and i have put a whole lot of time into research and reading and listening and watching and trying to understand. Does that mean i’m the expert? Absolutely not. But it means i’m deeply invested in this stuff and quite often the person arguing has not put as much into this particular conversation’s journey. Also if i have five of these in one week [one per day plus the weekend off] then at the end of the week each of the people i have been chatting to have had one and probably feel completely fresh and yet i have invested in five and feel completely exhausted. Especially cos often it feels like i am alone or in the minority of people who are prepared to invest in this way.

A lot of people think i’m wasting my time engaging. Or engaging so often and so deeply. And so obviously that question constantly swirls around my head as well. What difference is this going to make?

Well, this morning i received an email from a friend who shared some thoughts about one of the conversations i have been involved in. They shared what it meant to them personally and they shared some insight into their personal friendships with white people and other spaces of wanting to and trying to engage with these kind of situations.

It was one of the most powerful emails i have received in my life. Both in terms of encouragement but also a lot of punch-in-the-face reality call about “life out there” for many people. More than anything it gave me the encouragement and the boldness to carry on.

i don’t always get it right. i am certainly not a Race, Reconciliation and Privilege expert in any way. But i believe this conversation is so vitally important in South Africa right now [Americaland has its own very similar conversation that white people seem hesitant to get involved in, possibly because of the potential cost involved there] and so i’m not going to stop any time soon.

But i do hope more people who feel the same kind of passion and heart for the topic will jump in more. And i do hope we will create more conversation spaces around meals, face to face, and within our friendship groups that there can be safe space to speak about uncomfortable and sometimes awkward topics such as these. We have a long walk to go before any kind of everyone-freedom is realised and the more of us that commit ourselves to the conversation and the ensuing action, the better…

Thank you thank you thank you, to my friend, for the most powerful, encouraging and inspiring email. i will fight another day.

The drum beats on…

i have read some REALLY helpful articles about privilege this week.

My fear is that the appearance of the word ‘privilege’ with the assumption of it being specifically ‘white privilege’ on my blog immediately drives the very people i am wanting to hear and engage with this stuff away.

But my hope, which is so much stronger than my fear, is that there are people like Bob [who a bunch of us had this long and helpful conversation with a while back] who genuinely are wanting to understand and be involved in the conversation and change where necessary, there are others who get or kinda get the need for change and just don’t know how to go about it and hopefully there are others sitting on the edge who will eventually at some point hear the proverbial penny dropping and let out a positive and helpful and transformative, “Ohhhhhhhhhhh!”

WHAT PRIVILEGE REALLY MEANS

The first one i read was titled ‘What Privilege Really Means’ by Maisha Z Johnson and doesn’t even use the word white, so maybe we’ll be okay here. She starts off like this:

I’m pretty fed up with privilege. But that doesn’t mean I hate privileged people.

When I write about the privilege that certain groups have, some people – usually those in the groups I’m writing about – get upset.

For example, I say how tired I am of how the system of white privilege excludes and harms non-white people, and some people accuse me of hating on white folks.

There’s only one problem: If you get upset when someone points out that you have privilege, that probably means you don’t fully understand what privilege is.

Because if you think having privilege means that you’re a bad person, or that you haven’t had struggles, or that you haven’t worked hard for what you have – then I can totally feel why you might be frustrated. If that were the case, then yes, it’d be completely unfair of me to claim that all white people or straight people or men or people of any other dominant group are living easy off their unearned privileges.

But having privilege doesn’t mean any of those things.

She lists 18 points which i found very helpful as many of them address specific things that people-who-have-issues-with-the-term-white-privilege are raising, some examples being:

# Having Privilege doesn’t mean you’re a bad person

# Having privilege doesn’t mean you haven’t experienced oppression in other ways

# Having Privilege doesn’t mean you didn’t work hard or you should feel bad about your good fortune

As well as some of the positives, such as:

# Having Privilege means you can support the most vulnerable among us to strengthen your own fight

# Having Privilege means you have a choice about what to do with it

But go read the rest of that article because i found it so super helpful and i imagine if some of the people who have a reaction to the words ‘White Privilege” or “Privilege” in general got to read it, they would have their eyes opened a little bit more. Maybe if you’re a choir person and know someone this would really help, print out a copy and go through it with them and ask if they agree or disagree.

WHITE RACIST OR IN RECOVERY

Then Jordan Pickering wrote this piece on news 24 that contained some REALLY helpful points as well. Please go and read the whole thing.

It begins with a similar mantra that many of us could repeat from heart:

I was born into a system that I had no role in setting up or choosing. If asked, my family would have said that racism is an evil. When Mandela was released from prison, I was barely 11 and only followed the sports section of the news. If an apology needs to be given for Apartheid why would I need to give it? When it comes to taking responsibility for Apartheid, should that include me?

But then goes on to ask a series of challenging but helpful questions and makes some statements that dig more to the heart of the matter:

And this is really the main issue. The problem is not that whites haven’t apologised for our racism (after all, who would someone like me apologise to and what exactly would I be sorry for?). The problem is that we have never owned it at all. It was all someone else’s fault.

Apartheid may be dead, but it bequeathed to all of us those coloured contact lenses that make racism part of our way of seeing. Realising to what degree you see the world with Apartheid’s taint is the first step to owning the past, and taking nation-building forward into the future.

TWO OTHER EXCELLENT READS WORTH YOUR TIME

Hardly anyone read this latest extract i posted from the Steve Biko book, ‘I Write What I Like’ and yet it feels like an incredibly important one to take in as well. [Who would have thought solving all South Africa’s issues would actually take a bit of time and effort and energy and research? Seriously, these conversations are worth reading more deeply on. Make the time!] i was strongly convicted about my attitude of superiority when it comes to black people in general – wow, that is NOT a fun line to think, say or type out loud. Yet i see it in myself. i need help. And i imagine i am not alone in this…

And lastly there was this piece i wrote the other day in response to some of the pushbacks to White Privilege conversation [which continue in the comment section if you have time to engage] which was a response to a response to an article i posted on Facebook the other day.

You’re tired of me blogging about Race and Privilege and Hope for South Africa and more? Well i’m sure people of colour are tired of being racisted upon and so until that stops, there is a lot of work to do. i’m not the best person to do it, i don’t doubt that for a second. But i know some pretty good people who are helping me along, being gracious and sending me stuff to read and having conversations and writing for this blog and more.

The answer answer i’m convinced is RELATIONSHIPS – genuine, authentic, life-transforming friendships with people from other races and cultures and socio-economic groups who will continue to be gracious and loving and patient and more. If you don’t have those in your life and are arguing against any of this stuff, then you really need to shut up and go and make yourself some friends. This cannot be an isolated conversation in the mind space. This is real and has to be worked out and beaten out and wrestled and pushed-back upon and get-a-little-bit-out-of-control and fought over and repented about and confessed and loved and shared over meals and walked, but together. Come on, South Africa. i believe.

[To continue reading and engaging on topics relating to South Africa and beyond, click here]

I Write What I Like – Steve Biko: the perceived inferiority of the black man

This is a hard but necessary passage to share from Steve Biko’s ‘I Write What I Like’ which you should totally get hold of and read in its entirety.

Hard, because it is true. Not true that the black man is inferior, but that the idea of the black man being inferior has been so deeply entrenched in so many of us, that it is an extremely hard and horrible thing to admit to when we see it in ourselves. When i see it in myself…

But somewhere along the line of growing up in an apartheid society, i can see that this idea rubbed off on me. It is a poison i hate to have to admit to, and am not entirely sure of the antidote, except to keep reminding myself daily that it was a construct that the system i grew up in, strongly wanted and enforced me to believe.

This is from chapter 14, titled, ‘Black Consciousness and the Quest for a True Humanity’.

‘It is perhaps fitting to star by examining why it is necessary for us to think collectively about a problem we never created. In doing so, I do now wish to concern myself unnecessarily with the white people if South Africa, but to get to the right answers, we must ask the right questions; we have to find out whether our position is a deliberate creation of God or an artificial fabrication of the truth by power-hungry people whose motive is authority, security, wealth and comfort. In other words, the “Black Consciousness” approach would be irrelevant in a colourless and non-exploitative egalitarian society. It is relevant here because we believe that an anomalous situation is a deliberate creation of man.

There is no doubt that the colour question in South African politics was deliberately introduced for economic reasons. The leaders of the white community had to create some kind of barrier between black and whites so that the whites could enjoy privileges at the expense of blacks and still feel free to give a moral justification for the obvious exploitation that pricked even the hardest of white consciences. However, tradition has it that whenever a group of people has tasted the lovely fruits of wealth, security and privilege it begins to find it more comfortable to believe in the obvious lie and to accept it as normal that it alone is entitled to privilege. In order to believe this seriously, it needs to convince itself of all the arguments that support the lie. It is not surprising, therefore, that in South Africa, after generations of exploitation, white people on the whole have come to believe in the inferiority of the black man, so much so that while the race problem started as an offshoot of the economic greed exhibited by white people, it has now become a serious problem on its own. White people now despise black people, not because they need to reinforce their attitude and so justify their position of privilege but simply because they actually believe that black is inferior and bad. This is the basis upon which whites are working in South Africa, and it is what makes South African society racist.

The racism we meet does not only exist on an individual basis; it is also institutionalised to make it look like the South African way of life. Although of late there has been a feeble attempt to gloss over the overt racist elements in the system, it is still true that the system derives its nourishment from the existence of anti-black attitudes in society. To make the lie live even longer, blacks have to be denied any chance of accidentally proving their equality with white men. For this reason there is job reservation, lack of training in skilled work, and a tight orbit around professional possibilities for blacks. Stupidly enough, the system turns back to say that blacks are inferior because they have no economists, no engineers, etc., although it is made impossible for blacks to acquire these skills.

To give authenticity to their lie and to show the righteousness of their claim, whites have further worked out detailed schemes to “solve” the racial situation in this country. Thus, a pseudo-parliament has been created for “Coloureds”, and several “Bantu states” are in the process of being set up. So independent and fortunate are they that they do not have to spend a cent on their defence because they have nothing to fear from white South Africa which will always come to their assistance in times of need. One does not, of course, fail to see the arrogance of whites and their contempt for blacks, even in their well-considered modern schemes for subjugation.

The overall success of the white power structure has been in managing to bind the whites together in defence of the status quo. By skilfully playing on that imaginary bogey – swart gevaar – they have managed to convince even diehard liberals that there is something to fear in the idea of the black man assuming his rightful place at the helm of the South African ship. Thus after years of silence we are able to hear the familiar voice of Alan Paton saying, as far away as London: “Perhaps apartheid is worth a try”. “At whose expense, Dr. Paton?”, asks an intelligent black journalist. Hence whites in general reinforce each other even though they allow some moderate disagreements on the details of the subjugation schemes. there is no doubt that they do not question the validity of white values. They see nothing anamalous in the fact that they alone are arguing about the future of 17 million blacks – in a land which is the natural backyard of the black people. Any proposals for change emanating from the black world are viewed with great indignation. Even the so-called Opposition, the United Party, has the nerve to tell the Coloured people that they are asking for too much. A journalist from a liberal newspaper like The Sunday Times of Johannesburg describes a black student – who is only telling the truth – as a militant, impatient young man.

It is not enough for whites to be on the offensive. So immersed are they in prejudice that they do not believe that blacks can formulate their thoughts without white guidance and trusteeship. Thus, even those whites who see much wrong with the system make it their business to control the response of the blacks to the provocation. No one is suggesting that it is not the business of liberal whites to oppose what is wrong. However, it appears to us as too much of a coincidence that liberals – few as they are – should not only be determining the modus operandi of those blacks who oppose the system, but also leading it, in spite of their involvement in the system. To us it seems that their role spells out the totality of the white power structure – the fact that though whites are our problem, it is still other whites who want to tell us how to deal with that problem. They do so by dragging all sorts of red herrings across our paths. they tell us that the situation is a class struggle rather than a racial one. Let them go to van Tonder in the Free State and tell him this. We believe we know what the problem is, and we will stick by our findings.

I want to go a little deeper in this discussion because it is time we killed thus false political coalition between blacks and whites as long as it is set up on a wrong analysis of our situation. I want to kill it for another reason – namely that it forms at present the greatest stumbling block to our unity. It dangles before freedom-hungry blacks promises of a great future for which no one in these groups seems to be working particularly hard.’

[For another passage looking at the Internal and External Forces, click here]

Getting Real with some White South Africans

This rollercoaster looks familiar.

i had just posted a link to an article titled Get Real White South Africa, written by Milisuthando Bongela on the Times Lives site.

It contained this challenging and eye-opening statement:

Only white people can end white supremacy from within their communities – from their churches, schools, dinner tables, clamber clubs, sports clubs, boardrooms, banting restaurants, neighbourhood-watch WhatsApp groups, advertising agency brainstorms, rebranded Broederbond organisations, newsrooms, coffee roasteries, and homes.

Which i  believe contains a whole lot of Truth as typically [you see it in the USA right now with their different but similar-themed story] it tends to be those who were formerly oppressed who find themselves doing the majority of the work to end the oppression and build the different-looking future.

And ended with what it called this requirement:

This is not a request or a plea, it is a requirement if we are all to live in the peace we are all desperate to achieve. It is time to divide more equally the responsibility of dealing with the racial dialectic we find ourselves in. But there has to be the will to change. If there’s no will to change, those who do care will die trying, as will the dream of our new-look nation.

And typical to me posting a piece on ‘White Privilege’ or other related Race or Reconciliation writing, there was push-back. Some of it has been addressed quite effectively in this nine part series of letters and response, titled ‘What About Bob?’ that i ran on my blog not too long ago. If you missed that, i would seriously put aside some time to work through the posts as they were really helpful.

Two comments stood out in the brief conversation that followed. The first is from a friend of mine, Brett [good name!], who works in a township and so i think should have a greater understanding of a lot of these things or at least greater access to the stories in front of him. i know Brett to be someone who is genuine and so i don’t doubt his questions at all, which is why i feel it is worth taking the time to address my concerns.

The second is a guy i don’t know and to be honest feels like the angry words of someone not that interested in change. Derick contradicts himself in his own paragraph and i don’t know that going to deeply into that one will be helpful, but it is good to highlight how some people think and react so that we can understand what change still needs to happen.

THE CHALLENGES I SEE IN YOUR THINKING

To me, that sounds a lot like all whites, even the white people who had no active role in apartheid, must simply give over their wealth to the previously disadvantaged portion of the population and that the previously disadvantaged must do nothing in between then except waiting for the hand out and redistribution. I don’t see how that is a viable solution. Where does hard work come in or rewards for personal betterment and effort? Again, I acknowledge that the effects of apartheid are still seen today and we still have a long way to go to reach proper equality, but I don’t believe the correct way to empower the poorer portion of black people in this country is to simply give, give, give while we sit with white guilt. [Brett Miller]

Three phrases in this paragraph concern me, and i want to deal with them all briefly:

# All whites, even the white people who had no active role in apartheid

This is a very problematic statement. Is the person who calls someone ‘the K word’ more guilty than the one who stands by and lets it happen? Is the one who enforces a ‘Whites Only/Blacks Only’ beach more guilty than the white person who enjoys the privilege to be found in getting to use the best beach? Does a church or a Christian Student organisation that chose to be segregated rather than fight segregation or simply refuse and take whatever consequences follow not need to stand accountable? The words ‘active role’ i don’t think help create much of a distinction. There is guilt by action and guilt by association and guilt by being complicit and not standing against what was wrong. Most whites in the country fall into those categories although there was a small percentage who actively fought against it and received some consequence for their actions.

But it goes deeper than that. Especially now that we are 21 years in to ‘the New South Africa’ and all of that and so you have people who have been born and are growing up as the generation who wasn’t around for apartheid. But that is where an acknowledgement of White Privilege comes into play. Not that you particularly did anything to create the difference, but that you were born into the difference and purely by being white, received certain advantages [whether you were born into wealth or not]. Many people seem to confuse the term ‘White Privilege’ with ‘White Wealth’ but they are not the same thing. You can be born into poverty as a white person and still have a certain amount of privilege over someone who is black and born into wealth. We are talking about a level playing field.

A young white girl who has her own bedroom and all the quiet she needs to be able to study and a complete school uniform and two parents who love her and provide for her, three meals a day and the basic necessities of life. Compare that to a young black woman living in a shack in a township. The noise, the distraction, the possibility of having to venture outside at night simply to go to the toilet, sharing a room slash house with a huge number of people, one or both parents not around, her mom having to wake up at 4am to go off to clean someone else’s house, needing to look after her three younger siblings and be the mom in many respects. One example that exists and is played out in many households around South Africa and a clear reflection of a playing field that is not level.

The effects and consequences of apartheid mean that while the white girl may not have had an active role in apartheid, things have still turned out relatively okay for her and yet there is no way you can hold her performance against the performance of the black girl and compare them as equals when it comes to university requirements etc.

# Where does hard work come in or rewards for personal betterment and effort?

As above. The constant refrain from the white person [see Derick below] is ‘I was not an active player in apartheid. I grew up with nothing and worked hard for what I have so why should I give it up?’ And once again, if the playing field was equal, that would likely be a more valid point.

But when you go back to my example, as hard as the white girl works to get into University, at some point she has to come across the story of the black girl and realise that things are not equal or fair and that unless something pretty big is done about it, the cycle will continue for many many years to come. This is where it gets tricky cos i’m not sure what the answer is and hope others will weigh in with some practical solutions but one way forward i guess is when the white girl has a job and is earning R15000 a month, realising that she can get by on R13000 a month and deciding to put that R2000 a month towards a cause that will in some way help level the playing field. i don’t even know what the numbers are in the country for starting salaries and all that but perhaps the solution lies somewhere in the haze of ‘Maybe i won’t have a vacation in Europe for a month while my friend is struggling to pay their rent and eat’ or something like that.

Finding an effective way forward requires a huge amount of people to get hugely creative with what they have and will require a certain amount of personal sacrifice of the greeds we feel entitled to, in order to better address the needs that so many people have. Maybe it lies in part in where that white girl chooses to live or how she chooses to use her law degree or in the community of friends she gathers around herself who maybe don’t all look and think like her.

# while we sit with white guilt

This one i don’t get. i see a strong distinction between Guilt and Conviction. And we should totally be convicted. When we eat the red pill and our eyes are opened [in part] to the unfairness of the situation we live in, then that should move us to want to make a difference. All guilt ever does is paralyse and leave us feeling bad and unable to make a difference. So stop feeling guilty. Be mobilised to do something.

In my quest to understand the present situation a little better i have been reading up on our history from different voices to the ones i was taught – Robert Sobukwe, Steve Biko, and even Antjie Krog. I have looked to strengthen my friendships with black people i know who live in the townships and graciously spend time educating me on the real needs and hurts and drive of the people there. I have used my forum/audience to create spaces for voices representing in part different colour/culture perspectives. There is a long long way to go and i feel completely out of my depth and with no clue a lot of the time, but i am trying to LISTEN better [without preparing my answer or ‘defence’] and hear stories and be aware of opportunities and so on.

Brett, i hope that has been helpful. i imagine from your work that you have a lot to teach us and share with us and i hope you will continue to be open to really hearing the stories that are out there and gaining a better understanding of what we can do to make an effective difference.

And then there was Derick:

I’m gonna come across more blunt and say that is exactly what the author expects in this article. Stop sugar coating things please. They expect me who had absolutely zero f*all to do with apartheid, to hand over my hard earned $ which I work for everyday and require in order to live, to someone else because they are previously disadvantaged. This article is going the right way about pissing off a lot of people. I also acknowledge the gross inequalities and that I am more fortunate than most. But in many cases this is already being implemented, and look at the state our country is in. Corruption at an all time record high, more and more taxes being implemented, incompetent municipalities and leaders at every turn. Load shedding every day. Is this all due to Apartheid? Lol what a joke. Get out of my face with that please. [Derick Vorster]

i don’t want to spend a lot of time on this, because your attitude suggests that you are not so much interested in hearing anything outside of what you already believe and continue to tell yourself. My only question would be how you go from ‘I also acknowledge the gross inequalities and that I am more fortunate than most’ to pretty much anything else you said in there. It is like you are acknowledging there is a disparity and something needs to be done for it to be more equal but you are clearly not going to be doing anything to do anything about it. Just the guy who got lucky with the Lottery Ticket. The only suggestion i really have for you is to leave the country. You clearly are not happy here and you should go somewhere else where you don’t have to be inconvenienced with having all this unfairness in your face. for your sake and ours. i can’t see anything else except an absolutely major shift of thinking and attitude making much difference with you. i honestly wish i had the money to offer to buy you that ticket.

[For other Conversations relating to South Africa, click here]

How to be One bit Less Racist: part ‘The They’

i have decided to resume the series on ‘How to be One bit Less Racist’ with this piece by my friend, Andy Vaughn. The interruption and focus on some of the bigger questions i though was completely important and necessary, but i also still see these seemingly tinier aspects as crucial to us starting to retrain our minds and thoughts and become less racist in the day to day interactions we have with people, while keeping in mind that the big issues still very much need to be dealt with. Here is Andy:

It took me a full four months before I realized what was actually being said. It was just four letters, yet it carried the social weight of a two ton Tessie.

“They”

Over and over I would hear a casual remark about the mysterious “They”. But who were these “They” that kept being dropped into casual conversation and snide remark?

I had just moved to beautiful South Africa and traveled around the countryside as a full time missionary. I stayed in homes and churches of every variety of home found in the Rainbow Nation. No matter where I stayed, I kept hearing about “They”, and as I stood over a lekker braai fire I finally pieced it all together.

“They” were the faceless, nameless murderers, thieves, skelm, and scallywags that were making South Africa hemorrhage fear and terror.

‘Did you hear “They” robbed another farm? Killed the boer, and then raped the wife.’

‘Eish, bout – not again’.

I wasn’t sure if “They” was a Soweto street gang or something else, because if I was tracking the tones and knowing looks correctly, everyone had a pretty good idea what was being said (or implied) by “They”.

“They” = “I want to blame the blacks, but don’t want to sound racist”

It wasn’t ever“Two boys stole my cousin’s bakkie”, it was always “THEY stole my cousin’s bakkie”.

One way we can become a tiny bit less racist, is to say the words we mean. This leads to accountability, which (hopefully) leads to some remorse. When we drop the linguistic gymnastics designed to get our all too racist point across without being held accountable, then we hear ourselves say things that should shock us into repentance.

Somewhere Martin Luther is still admonishing us to “Sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly.”

When we see our hearts for what they truly are (whether it be racist, greedy, slothful, or even depressed) we can start finding the solution. We can get healed by the Master Healer. All the code talk and shifty language is just a dodgy way not deal with the real condition of our hearts and minds.

My commitment is to start saying what I really mean – and being accountable for what’s coming out of my heart and mouth. It won’t always be fun, but it’s much better than the alternative code talk so many of us have engaged in for far too long.

How about you? Is this something you’ve observed in your friends? Or maybe caught yourself being guilty of?

Maybe it’s a ‘they’ but it might also be a ‘those people’ or various other secret codes we might use to not have to say the very words we are thinking. Share your thoughts with us in the comments. 

[To catch the rest of this series, click here]

How to be One bit Less Racist: part Questions

My friend, Megan Furniss had these questions to help us get thinking and self-examining on this…

If you are worried that you might be a little bit racist there are a few things you can do to check:

# Do you have a natural (and unreasonable) expectation that everyone should be able to communicate with you in English?

# Do you get irritated with Africa Time, because you haven’t taken public transport in a while (or in your life)?

# Do you say ‘they’ or ‘those people’ casually in conversation when talking about other races?

# Do you tell people to ‘get over apartheid’?

# Do you criticise black drivers even in your heart?

# Do you think people are poor because they are lazy?

If you answered yes to any of these you are a little bit racist.

[Megan blogs at Meganshead.co.za]

How about you? Any ideas or thoughts on one way someone can become one bit less racist? Let me know and we can add it to a future post…

[For the next post looking at calling someone ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ click here]