Two nations of discourse: mapping racial ideologies in post‐apartheid South Africa

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of 154 written submissions to the South African Human Rights Commission invited as part of the consultative process leading up to the South African National Conference on Racism 2000. The submissions demonstrate a fundamental lack of consensus regarding what racism is and how to combat it. Although the submissions reveal a variety of perspectives on racism within each self‐identified racial group, a significant racial dimension—even bifurcation—is clearly manifest. Black and white South Africans approach the questions that were the topic of the National Conference on Racism in meaningfully different ways, suggesting the existence of ‘two nations of discourse’. In mapping racial ideologies in post‐apartheid South Africa, the article outlines the benefits of a structural approach in its engagement of a range of sociological debates from an international perspective: (1) the distinction between racial attitudes and ideologies; (2) the production and nature of new forms of racial identity, discourse, and racism; (3) the social construction of whiteness; and (4) the politics of non‐racialism in the context of political projects such as nation‐building and reconciliation.

Notes

Amy E. Ansell is Associate Professor of Sociology at Bard College in New York. An earlier version of this article was delivered at ‘The Burden of Race? “Whiteness” and “Blackness” in Modern South Africa’ conference co‐sponsored by the History Workshop and Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Witwatersrand (5–8 July 2001).

R. Price (1997), ‘Race and Reconciliation in the New South Africa’, Politics and Society, 25 (2), pp. 149–78.

The deleterious consequences of the violation of non‐racialism constitute the main theme of Paul Gilroy's new work: P. Gilroy (2000), Against Race: Imagining Political Culture Beyond the Color Line (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). For elaborated discussion of apartheid racial categories and their reification and usage in contemporary South African politics see: D. Posel (2001), ‘What's in a Name? Racial Categorisations under Apartheid and their Afterlife', paper delivered at the Conference ‘The Burden of Race? “Whiteness” and “Blackness” in Modern South Africa’, History Workshop and Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Witwatersrand, 5–8 July; D. Posel (2001), ‘Race as Common Sense: Racial Classification in Twentieth‐Century South Africa’, Africa Studies Review, 44 (2), pp. 87–113.

For a terrific study of racial identity in post‐apartheid South Africa see: N. Dolby (2001), Constructing Race: Youth, Identity, and Popular Culture in South Africa (Albany: SUNY Press). For empirical data on the residues of apartheid racial thinking see: J. Gibson and H. Macdonald (2001), ‘Truth—Yes, Reconciliation—Maybe: South Africans Judge the Truth and Reconciliation Process’, Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, in D. Posel, ‘Race as Common Sense: Racial Classification in Twentieth‐Century South Africa’, Africa Studies Review, 44 (2), p. 1.

The term ‘post‐racist’ refers to conservative thinkers in the US and elsewhere who claim that the juridical abolition of institutional racism (such as Jim Crow or apartheid) has meant the end of racism and that any appeal to race is therefore regressive in the contemporary period. For a classic statement of this position see D. Dinesh (1995), Souza, the End of Racism: Principles for a Multiracial Society (New York: Free Press).

T. Mbeki (1998), ‘South Africa: Two Nations’, Statement of Deputy President Thabo Mbeki at the opening of the debate on reconciliation and nation‐building, National Assembly, 29 May; quoted in A. Adrian Hadland and J. Rantao (1999), The Life and Times of Thabo Mbeki (Cape Town: Zebra Press), p. 188.

For an elaboration of this line of argument see M. Chabedi (2001), ‘Whither the Rainbow Nation? The ANC, the Black Middle Class and Changing Perceptions of “Blackness” in the Post‐Apartheid South Africa’, paper presented at the Conference ‘The Burden of Race? “Whiteness” and “Blackness” in Modern South Africa’, History Workshop and Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of the Witwatersrand, 5–8 July.

J. M. Statman (1999), ‘The Shape of the Shadow: Mapping the Dimensions of White Amnesia and Denial in Post‐Apartheid South Africa’, ReVision, 22 (1), pp. 35–41. Interpretation of the census data itself was racialised, with the black media focusing on the racial differences between black and white and the liberal, predominantly liberal media focusing on intra‐black class differences.

For an analysis of the Makgoba Affair see J. M. Statman and A. E. Ansell (2000), ‘The Rise and Fall of the Makgoba Affair: A Case Study of Symbolic Politics’, Politikon, 27 (2), pp. 277–95.

Thabo Mbeki, Statement of Deputy President Thabo Mbeki on the Occasion of the Debate on the Budget Vote, National Assembly, 3 June, 1998; quoted in Hadland and Rantao, 1999, op. cit., p. 202.

The terms white and black are employed here as racial constructions, with black referring inclusively to those who self‐identify as African, coloured and Indian. Although most of the submissions by authors who self‐identify as black in the Head Office files are from Africans, submissions to various Provincial Offices are characterised by much higher percentages of coloured and Indian authors. Future research is needed to understand better intra‐black differences in the context of such an inclusive definition, especially as coloured and Indian perspectives and identities are beginning to show signs of selective alignment with South African whites. For more on this latter point see N. Dolby (2001), Constructing Race: Youth, Identity, and Popular Culture in South Africa (Albany: SUNY Press).

B. Disraeli quoted in A. Hacker (1992), Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal (New York: Scribner), p. ix. Hacker applies the ‘two nations’ metaphor to his widely read study of contemporary race relations in the United States.

For elaboration of the structural theory of racism see A. E. Ansell (1997), New Right/New Racism: Race and Reaction in the United States and Britain (New York and London: New York University Press/Macmillan); E. Bonilla‐Silva (2001), White Supremacy and Racism in the Post‐Civil Rights Era (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner).

A. E. Ansell (1997), New Right/New Racism: Race and Reaction in the United States and Britain (New York and London: New York University Press/Macmillan), pp. 70–3; E. Bonilla‐Silva (2001), White Supremacy and Racism in the Post‐Civil Rights Era (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner), p. 12.

The phrase ‘new racism’ refers to a shift away from traditional forms of racism based on presumed ‘natural’ hierarchies of white superiority and black inferiority (based in biology) to new forms oriented more around culture and nation. For more on ‘new racism’ see A. E. Ansell (1997), New Right, New Racism: Race and Reaction in the United States and Britain (New York and London: NYU Press/ Macmillan); M. Barker (1982), The New Racism: Conservatives and the Ideology of the Tribe (London: Junction Books); P. Taguieff (1990), ‘The New Cultural Racism in France’, Telos, 83 (Spring), pp. 109–22; E. Etienne Balibar and I. Wallerstein (1991), Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities (London: Verso); Bonilla‐Silva, E. (2003), Racism without Racists: Color‐Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield).

S. Nuttal (2001), ‘Subjectivities of Whiteness’, African Studies Review, 44 (2), pp. 115–40.

The literature on whiteness is voluminous and too broad to reference here. The most important recent works with concern to South Africa include: M. Steyn (2001), ‘Whiteness Just Isn't What It Used To Be': White Identity in a Changing South Africa (Albany: SUNY Press); J. Goodwin and B. Schiff (1995), Heart of Whiteness: Afrikaners Face Black Rule in the New South Africa (New York: Scribner); J. M. Statman (1999), ‘The Shape of the Shadow: Mapping the Dimensions of White Amnesia and Denial in Post‐Apartheid South Africa’, ReVision, 22 (1), pp. 35–41.

J. M. Statman (2000), ‘Performing the Truth: The Social Psychological Context of TRC Narratives’, South African Journal of Psychology, 30 (1), pp. 23–32; S. Nuttal and C. Coetzee (eds) (1998), Negotiating the Past: The Making of Memory in South Africa (Cape Town: Oxford University Press).

M. Steyn (2001), ‘Whiteness Just Isn't What It Used To Be': White Identity in a Changing South Africa (Albany: SUNY Press), pp. 112–13.

Debate exists on the productivity of white guilt. Melissa Steyn argues that white guilt is perhaps a necessary process of self‐examination leading to heightened anti‐racist consciousness, while Ruth Frankenberg argues that it leads to political paralysis. M. Steyn (2001), op. cit.

R. Frankenberg (1993), White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), pp. 157–90.

G. Farred (1997), ‘Bulletproof Settlers: The Politics of Offense in the New South Africa’, in M. Hill (ed.) Whiteness: A Critical Reader (New York: New York University Press), pp. 63–80.

Fanon writes: ‘The habit of considering racism as a mental quirk, as a psychological flaw, must be abandoned.’ Quoted in E. Bonilla‐Silva (1996), ‘Rethinking Racism: Toward a Structural Interpretation’, American Sociological Review, 62, p. 467.

The symbolic construction of white innocence in the context of US debates on reconciliation and apology is developed and elaborated in A. E. Ansell and J. M. Statman (1999), ‘“I Never Owned Slaves”: The Euro‐American Construction of the Racialized Other’, in P. Batur‐VanderLippe and J. Feagin (eds) The Global Color Line: Racial and Ethnic Inequality and Struggle From a Global Perspective (New York: JAI Press), pp. 151–73.

See Ansell (1997), op. cit. The term ‘anti‐anti‐racism’ was first coined by N. Murray (1986), ‘Anti‐Racists and Other Demons: The Press and Ideology in Thatcher's Britain', Race and Class, 27(3) (Winter), pp. 1–19

For more on the new cultural forms of racism see Balibar and Wallerstein (1991), Taguieff (1990) and Ansell (1997).

Studies of white racial attitudes using a subtle racism scale include: G. Theissen (1997), ‘Between Acknowledgement and Ignorance: How White South Africans have Dealt with the Apartheid Past’, Johannesburg: Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation; J. Gibson and H. Macdonald (2001), ‘Truth—Yes, Reconciliation—Maybe: South Africans Judge the Truth and Reconciliation Process’, Cape Town: Institute for Justice and Reconciliation; J. Duckitt (1991), ‘The Development and Validation of a Subtle Racism Scale in South Africa’, South African Journal of Psychology, 21 (4), pp. 233–9. Consistent with findings in the context of the United States is the finding that whites in principle support equality‐promoting policies only, not in implementation. For more on this in the US context see H. Schuman, C. Steeh and L. Bobo (1985), Racial Attitudes in America: Trends and Interpretations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Another interesting finding is that whites support racial integration yet opposes affirmative action, leading authors of both the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR) and Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) study to conclude that whites feel less threatened by integration than a policy that acts directly upon correcting racial inequality. These sentiments are then linked to subtle forms of racial attitudes.

The attempt to determine the extent to which white racial attitudes have genuinely changed is what drives the CSVR study referenced above. The author identifies a ‘post‐apartheid syndrome’ characterised by ‘a desire to forget about the past, low human rights awareness, racist views, a denial of the right to compensation for apartheid victims, an unwillingness to undo the legacy of socio‐economic justice, and a residual desire to glorify apartheid’ (CSVR, op. cit., p. 13). Rather than characterise such sentiment as a psychological syndrome, this article approaches contemporary white racial attitudes within the context of sociological studies of ideology.

G. Bolaffi et al. (eds) (2003), Dictionary of Race, Ethnicity and Culture (London: Sage), pp. 147–51.

For elaboration of the neo‐conservative position see A. E. Ansell (1997), New Right, New Racism: Race and Reaction in the United States and Britain (New York and London: NYU/Macmillan).

For elaboration of the notion of diasporic identification see M. Steyn (2001), ‘“White Talk”: White South Africans and the Management of Diasporic Whiteness’, paper presented at the Conference ‘The Burden of Race? “Whiteness” and “Blackness” in the New South Africa’, History Workshop and Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of the Witwatersrand, 5–8 July.

The phrase ‘nodal point’ is used effectively in Anna Marie Smith's analysis of New Right discourse in Britain. A. M. Smith (1994), New Right Discourse on Race and Sexuality: Britain 1968–1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Thompson formulates such a link between meaning and power in his more general theory of the operation of ideology. J. B. Thompson (1990), Ideology and Modern Culture (Cambridge: Polity Press).

This particular formulation of the task of critical whiteness studies is developed by Morrison. T. Morrison (1992), Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).

J. M. Statman (1999), ‘The Shape of the Shadow: Mapping the Dimensions of White Amnesia and Denial in Post‐Apartheid South Africa’, ReVision, 22 (1), pp. 35–41.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Amy E. Ansell ∗

Amy E. Ansell is Associate Professor of Sociology at Bard College in New York. An earlier version of this article was delivered at ‘The Burden of Race? “Whiteness” and “Blackness” in Modern South Africa’ conference co‐sponsored by the History Workshop and Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Witwatersrand (5–8 July 2001).