White Anti-Racism in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Abstract

South Africans today live not only with the memory of the racial injustices of the past, but also with present injustices that are a consequence of that past. How should white South Africans live with these past and present injustices? On recognition of the racial injustices of the past and of the continuation of forms of white privilege today, involvement in ongoing anti-racist struggles seems to be an appropriate way for white South Africans to respond to past and present injustices. However, some discussions of the way in which white privilege operates and is perpetuated in post-segregationist societies suggest the need for caution with regard to white involvement in anti-racist struggles, arguing that some of the ways in which white people involve themselves in apparently anti-racist work actually result in the perpetuation rather than the erosion of white privilege. This article explores concerns about the intractability of white privilege while also ultimately defending the appropriateness of white involvement in anti-racist struggles.

Acknowledgements

This article has benefited greatly from conversations with Samantha Vice, Pedro Tabensky and Nomalanga Mkhize. A version of this paper was presented at the Living with the Past Conference held at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, from 10-12 June 2011. I am grateful for helpful comments from fellow participants at this conference. I would also like to thank three anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions.

Notes

Throughout this discussion, I will refer to white people in the third person, but I would like to acknowledge at this point, my own membership in this group. Despite being a white South African myself, I have decided to avoid the first person plural (‘we’, ‘our’ and the like) in this discussion as I do not want this discussion to appear to be a discussion among white people about what white people should do and the use of the first person could create that impression.

For other quite different discussions of post-segregationist forms of white domination see Mills (1997), McConahay (1986) and Sears (1988).

Other authors use ‘white supremacy’ to refer to both conscious, deliberate and unconscious, more subtle forms of white domination – see, for example Mills (1997) and Mngxitama (2009, p.20-21). I think both usages are appropriate, but the distinction Sullivan makes between white supremacy and white privilege is useful for my purposes here.

See also Taylor's comments on the contingency of whiteliness (2004, p.229).

Examples of writers who talk about the invisibility of white privilege as invisible include Bailey (1999), McIntosh (1988), Rothenberg (2000) and Wilderman (1996). Note that some critics of the idea of the invisibility of white privilege argue that white privilege is not generally invisible; rather it is invisible to white people – black people see it quite clearly (see for example Ahmed, 2004). However, I would argue that white privilege is sometimes also not visible to at least some black people, just like all male privilege is not visible to all women.

Sullivan uses the term ‘non-white’ rather than the term ‘black’. She explains her preference for this term in an endnote (see p. 199, endnote 2), but as I will use the terms ‘black’ and ‘white’ throughout, I have adapted the quotation here. In the South African context where ‘black’ is often used to refer to all those who are not designated ‘white’, this usage is more appropriate than it is in Sullivan's context.

Whiteness in South Africa has been receiving quite some scholarly attention recently. This article does not provide a review of such literature, but rather engages at length with two authors, Hook (2010) and Vice (2010), whose cautiousness about white involvement in black struggles is similar to that of Sullivan. For other examples of literature on whiteness in South Africa, see De Kock (2006), Green et al. (2007), Nuttall (2001), Ratele (2007), Steyn (2001, 2007) and Stevens (2007).

Ahmed (2004, paragraph 56), for example, notes that white people's response to her criticism of many white attempts to contribute to anti-racism is to ask ‘but what are white people to do’, a question that recentres white agency.

It should be noted that because Biko's writings were written in a very different context, my qualifications and clarifications here relate partly to thinking about how we should understand these texts in our current context. I am grateful to friends with a black consciousness background for pushing me to think carefully about how Biko should be used today.

Sullivan certainly doesn't explicitly say that white people should not join such organizations and perhaps she would completely agree with my stance here, but the emphasis that she places on the need for great caution when it comes to white involvement in black struggles could easily be interpreted in the way I suggest here.

I should point out here, however, that Kahane does suggest that men together with other men may be able to understand and uproot their male privilege. While he thinks it unlikely that men can sufficiently come to know feminism through solitary reflection, he does suggest it possible that they can come to sufficient knowledge without burdening women with having to provide constant ‘reassurance, praise, discipline and thanks’ (1998, p230). As will become evident below, I am a little sceptical of the possibility of those who are privileged coming to understand their privilege without sustained and meaningful contact with those who are not privileged.

Blanche Radford Curry (2004, p. 252) gives examples of other white feminists whose ongoing involvement with black philosophers and feminists helped them ‘hear the message’.

I should note here that while I think Sullivan's book may lead its readers to such a conclusion, I suspect this is not her intention. In a later discussion of her position, Sullivan says that white people should ‘err on the side of doing and saying something’ (Sullivan, 2007, p. 234). In this discussion, she seems to regard ontological expansiveness as not quite as much of a constraint upon helpful white action as she does in the book.

Such engagement is likely to be fraught as it may involve engagement between a powerful white person and a disempowered black person and as racial inequities may be further complicated by class and gender inequities. There is no easy way to identify which kinds of engagement are appropriate, but the point I would like to stress here is that some form of careful, sustained engagement is necessary.

Frye (1992) discusses this problem and Kahane highlights a similar problem with regard to men expecting women to help them better understand feminism (see Kahane, 1998, p. 229-30).

See also Kruks (2005).

And they may well do so – white people's gains may not only outweigh their contributions to anti-racist struggles, but may indeed undermine them by obscuring white privilege and thus making it harder to uproot.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sally Matthews

Senior Lecturer, Department of Political and International Studies, Rhodes University.