Fear prevailing among whites after South African Independence
Answers
Answered by
2
Although it means ‘black threat’, swart gevaar is actually about whiteness: it casts the Black ‘other’ as an unknown but violent quantity, and centres white feelings of fear in this narrative. White fear is a feature of post-apartheid South Africa as much as it was a pillar of apartheid, one of the threads of history which ties the present to the past. It manifests blatantly, as in the Pistorius defence argument, as well as subtly, weaving its way into concepts such as ‘meritocracy’ and dessert which ignore the intersections between race, gender and the chances of academic or economic advantage.
In an education setting, we find whiteness centred not only in what is studied (the curriculum) but how it is studied – for instance, the language of instruction (despite South Africa’s 11 official languages, English and Afrikaans dominate education), the ethnic demographics of the staff who teach it, and the fees which outprice poor students and would-be students, who are predominantly Black.
In this way Black lives, languages and experiences are deemed unworthy – of being voiced, studied or included. Whiteness remains dominant, so any challenge is a threat: this is swart gevaar.
When white privilege is challenged, it triggers a fear which Robin DiAngelo coins white fragility, an ‘inability to handle the stress of conversations about race and racism…that prevents anybody from moving forward.’ DiAngelo describes a typical reaction, ‘tone policing’, whereby ‘white people…[dictate] criteria about how people of colour give us feedback’ – further centring white experiences at the expense of Black ones.
On this theme, a meme is circulating South African social media in which a young, smiling white woman repeats those clichés which indicate white fragility: ‘Apartheid / is in the past’; ‘Why are you making this / about race?’; ‘White privilege? / But I’m not rich’; ‘Racism is over / just work harder’. These sentiments may seem mild compared to assertions of Afrikaaner privilege or more violent reactions (including the man who allegedly pulled a gun on protesting students in Grahamstown), but they subtly uphold the systematic racism which devalues Black lives.
In an education setting, we find whiteness centred not only in what is studied (the curriculum) but how it is studied – for instance, the language of instruction (despite South Africa’s 11 official languages, English and Afrikaans dominate education), the ethnic demographics of the staff who teach it, and the fees which outprice poor students and would-be students, who are predominantly Black.
In this way Black lives, languages and experiences are deemed unworthy – of being voiced, studied or included. Whiteness remains dominant, so any challenge is a threat: this is swart gevaar.
When white privilege is challenged, it triggers a fear which Robin DiAngelo coins white fragility, an ‘inability to handle the stress of conversations about race and racism…that prevents anybody from moving forward.’ DiAngelo describes a typical reaction, ‘tone policing’, whereby ‘white people…[dictate] criteria about how people of colour give us feedback’ – further centring white experiences at the expense of Black ones.
On this theme, a meme is circulating South African social media in which a young, smiling white woman repeats those clichés which indicate white fragility: ‘Apartheid / is in the past’; ‘Why are you making this / about race?’; ‘White privilege? / But I’m not rich’; ‘Racism is over / just work harder’. These sentiments may seem mild compared to assertions of Afrikaaner privilege or more violent reactions (including the man who allegedly pulled a gun on protesting students in Grahamstown), but they subtly uphold the systematic racism which devalues Black lives.
Similar questions