How it started

There was something of a storm when Eusebius McKaiser wrote in the Mail & Guardian about the views on whiteness expressed by philosopher Samantha Vice.

Vice had argued for a less assertive white voice in South Africa, and for a process of self-reflection. The M&G, in conjunction with Rhodes University associate professor in the department of philosophy, Pedro Alexis Tabensky, decided to follow up with a piece by Vice herself, explaining her reasoning and discussing the reactions to it; we also thought it a good idea to complement Vice's and McKaiser's pieces with a range of voices on the subject.

Those pieces, too, drew massive reaction -- most of it from white people, much of it negative. Is South Africa stuck in a rut here? What is the way forward? Race and whiteness were again topics of heated discussion at the M&G Literary Festival, where yet more opinions on the issue were expressed. Here we publish the full series, with contributions from several key thinkers in South Africa.

Should white South Africans feel shame at their connection to the apartheid past? Are white South Africans today still implicated in the apartheid past? If so, how should they respond to this? Rhodes University philosopher Dr Samantha Vice argues that white South Africans are morally damaged by the role of whites during apartheid. She argues that whites should cultivate a certain kind of silence and humility in response to this. Her argument caused vigorous -- violent, even -- debate, still ongoing, in both the academy and the traditional and new media platforms.

We will host Samantha Vice, and a number of responding academics and public intellectuals, to discuss both her original argument and the visceral public fallout around these issues. Race and identity are inescapable in our public discourse. They are at once political and deeply personal. We invite you to participate in the first of a seminar series; the next seminar, in February, will be on the idea of an apartheid tax.

"The refusal to acknowledge one's luck is a manifestation of the careless complacence and arrogance that make whites feel entitled to these advantages -- and convinced that their own efforts alone made their success possible." Samantha Vice

Multimedia

Not in Black and White

Not in Black and White examines the contested condition of the country, its literature and literary future. In our nascent nation, nothing is certain; nothing is in black and white.

More podcasts