The Anti-Racism Network in Higher Education (ARNHE) is an important initiative in the tertiary education system, but it carries serious risks for the conducting of a constructive conversation not only about what we are against (the “anti” part) but also what we are for.
Anti-racism talk threatens to become a perpetual complaint, the resort of constantly angry black (and constantly guilty white) South Africans that is hauled out as a weapon to use recklessly in a country where the accusatory tone of public and, indeed, campus discourses works to further separate ordinary whites and ordinary blacks from coming together to talk in a frank and constructive manner about racism and racial conciliation in a still divided country.
What worried me about the introduction of ARNHE on the University of the Free State campus recently were the claims made for the existence of racism on university campuses. We were told that racism is now more subtle, that it cannot be seen, that it exists in unobservable spaces and, according to one of the quotations, it can even be smelt. How on earth do I, as a leader in a former white university, work with this kind of evidence to counter racism and foster reconciliation? The repeated reference to “subliminal racism” is not very helpful for the change project — to be candid, it is not only sloppy sociological analysis, it is also counterproductive politics.
I know from experience that racial attitudes are not only carried in words but also communicated in other ways, such as in the organisation of university ceremonies, the use of excluding languages and the very ways in which people speak — for example, that the elevated, arrogant English of some of the former white English universities is intended to communicate more than words.
I understand that, but then the challenge is to spell out in clear terms what the racial attitudes and racial messages (not necessarily racism) are that alienate black students within these former white institutions. But the claim that there is some unseeable racism is to disinvest this very serious construct of any tangible meaning for policy action or political intervention and to cry wolf just once too often when real acts of racial intolerance might be overlooked.
There is a serious though perhaps unintended consequence in what an anti-racism stance does to the people it should help.
First, it places black students and staff in a position of constant victimhood. I have some empathy with black people in the United Kingdom during the 1970s, which is where anti-racism was first introduced in education struggles by minority black people.
But this is South Africa, with a vast majority of black people under a government of black leaders running a country with laws and policies that refute marginal status. That the ARNHE group brought Black Consciousness into the conversation is significant, because the impact of BC on my generation was to get you to stand up, speak out and claim your identity boldly in the face of the official and institutionalised racism of the times.
This is, in fact, one of the most troubling observations about the Reitz video — not so much the obvious racism of the four students, but the fact that the black workers allowed themselves to be subjected to this kind of racial humiliation. Nagging on the part of black people with heaps of education is not the kind of thing we should encourage. If you see or smell racism, take it on. It’s called agency.
Second, the anti-racism charge places white staff and students in a position of constant fear and instils feelings of paralysis and even straightforward intimidation. I have seen how this operates in public spaces on campus when black people start accusing white people of being racist by association, by heritage and by simply showing up in the room to deal with racial problems. Some white folk, especially men, respond by hitting back or walking out. Others simply sit crying into their hands as the repeated thuds of racial accusation — often without the flimsiest of evidence — rain down on their heads.
Do we really think that under such conditions we can build a non-racial community through an anti-racism campaign? I think not.
To deal with the very real issues of racism and racial divisions, it is important to bring all South African students and staff into a safe, honest space without accusatory impulses (or “the demand for revenge”, as Mahmood Mamdani calls it) taking over, so that we can handle these difficult and troubling concerns in ways that also signal hope, healing and restoration. An anti-racism agenda, in the way it is framed, does the opposite.
Professor Jonathan Jansen is vice-chancellor of the University of the Free State, which last week hosted ‘Back to the Future: Black Consciousness and Those Conscious of Their Whiteness”, a colloquium of the Anti-Racism Network in Higher Education