Entitlement flip side?
We have millionaire black people who can afford to buy and own newspapers and write whatever “non-racist” politically correct stories they like, but why don’t they? Maybe they know that the risks are too high because good newspapers are challenging, debate-provocative, investigative, informative, expose the rot and don’t daily regurgitate populist hogwash; because their readership is not gullible.
It was okay when Mail & Guardian editor Phillip van Niekerk was a “sell-out whitey” who supported the black “terrorist” cause in the bad old apartheid days by exposing white corruption. He has suddenly become a bad “racist” boy because now he exposes black corruption! And if he exposes more black corruption now than he did white corruption then, is that not a reflection of demographics, geography and our transparent democracy?
It is like the same excuse we black apologists like to advance for the crime rate in the country: “It is caused by unemployment.” So my unemployed son must not sweat to create or sell something; clean or park cars like I saw young men do in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Botswana; but “rightly” steal because the white man does not want to give him a job. Is this not the flip side of high expectations and entitlement raised by our leaders? – Kenalemang Moiloa, Mohlakeng
Congratulations!
Congratulations to Phillip van Niekerk and Howard Barrell on your telling submissions to the Human Rights Commission (HRC) hearings.
What amazes me is how while all this has been going on, there has not been a single peep from the HRC regarding what is arguably the most damaging human rights abuse to come to light in this country for some time – namely the failure of officials in the Department of Welfare to spend 98% of the budget allocated for poverty relief. This comes at a time when there is extreme need in the poorest communities in this country, and numerous NGOs that previously were helping them are starved for money and so unable to help as they previously used to.
It is difficult to reach any conclusion except that because this disaster only affects the poor and not the well-paid and advantaged vociferous black elite, it is little of concern to the HRC. – George Ellis, Kenilworth
The arrogant M&G
The M&G’s response has been a blend of self-righteousness and arrogance: “We are righteous: we fought apartheid in the old South Africa, and in the new South Africa we fight corruption and the abuse of state power.”
But there has been little openness to the possibility of ingrained racism in the M&G itself. Warnings aplenty against the HRC as “thought police”, but no admission of the possibility of racism in the M&G’s own “corporate psyche”. Can this mindset be explained as a phase of denial in white people’s coming to terms with their own complicity in racism?
In this stand-off between the HRC and the M&G, Steven Friedman (Worm’s Eye View, February 25 to March 2) made one of the few sensible contributions to the debate by opening up the real issues: that racism, apart from manifesting in economic and societal inequalities, is like a demon in the minds of both blacks and whites. And that the sooner we start a national, open and self-critical discussion of the harmful effects of racism on us all (especially the black majority), the better.
I hope the present hearing will help both the HRC and the M&G – and all the other parties involved – to start a “truth and reconciliation hearing” into racism in the media. Such a process of truth-speaking about our own racism, or our own affectedness by it, would hopefully spread to the educational, business, political, religious and all other sectors of society.
The outcome of such a hearing would largely be determined by how we speak of the extent and complexity of racism, and by how we deal with each other – as human beings who are both victims/survivors and perpetrators of racism, and who have to journey into the future together. -Annalet van Schalkwyk, Pretoria
Criticism isn’t racism
One of the reasons for the black consciousness breakaway from the National Union of South African Students was complaints of patronising attitudes of the white left. This was rightly seen as another, more insidious form of racism (which is why, even today, the word “liberal”, which is equated with this kind of attitude, has a negative connotation in some quarters). This patronising form of racism says “we must be nice to blacks because they are inferior”, as opposed to the heel-on-the-head style of racism of the right, which went something like, “we must be nasty to blacks because they are inferior”.
I even recall hearing some people claiming that they preferred the “right” version to the “liberal” version, because at least it was honestly obnoxious.
In today’s topsy-turvy world, where Russian Stalinists are called conservatives and Russian capitalists are called radicals, we should expect weird reversals in our own society. Those reversals exist. People who were previously in the “right” version of racism have adopted that of the “liberals”. The New National Party and some of our bigger daily papers have a sycophantic attitude towards the African National Congress, an attitude which in effect says, “We expect a black government to be incompetent, we must make allowances.”
Sadly, the ANC seems to appreciate being patronised. The lessons of the black consciousness era appear to have been forgotten, and the ANC, along with bodies like the HRC, equates criticism with racism, while happily accepting the patronising pseudo-liberalism of former supporters of apartheid.
The M&G, by refusing to patronise the ANC and by taking on the real issues of the day, even if they are awkward for the government, is doing a great job. While it is always useful in a divided society to seek evidence of racism or other forms of prejudice, it is even more useful to attack the real and obvious problems, before tackling the less obvious ones.
The HRC ought to stop wasting its time on looking for evidence of people being subliminally racist when overt racism is doing so much harm to our country. – Philip Machanick, department of computer science, University of the Witwatersrand
Not a rights violation
By nature, and because of my job, I have to follow the news very closely. Needless to say I read a lot of newspapers, even those I would not normally buy.
There is racism in certain aspects of the media, but not blanket racism. Things have changed dramatically in the past seven years. The reporting is less partisan and more objective than it was before transformation, but it is not up where it is supposed to be.
I can hardly remember a time when the SABC has not used footage of black people when talking about HIV/Aids. While it is true that most victims of the pandemic are black, it is not the only race affected.
I do not entirely agree with the claim that black public figures are being targeted to be discredited by the media. People in public office are ultimately accountable to the public that elected them. The media have an obligation to tell us whatever it is that is going against the law. If people are unhappy with a report, write to the newspaper, engage in an argument with them. If you have been libelled … sue! If you are right, you will win megabucks!
The HRC has badly mishandled the issue. While I believe there is still racism in the media, I do not believe it is so bad to amount to a violation of human rights. – Songezo Zibi, Port Elizabeth
Enter the dark side
It is strange that Claudia Braude should interpret the M&G cartoon as opposing black (as evil) with white (angelic).
Anybody slightly familiar with iconography and the history of art will tell you that darkness is symbolic of evil and Satan, whereas light is a symbol of goodness, enlightenment and God. The opposition is light and dark – not black and white. Even in everyday language we talk of somebody’s “dark side”.
The cartoonist is obviously drawing on this well-established binary opposition with all its inherited connotations. Why does Braude make such a basic mistake? Is she so ignorant or is she merely blinded by her prejudgments? – Ut Pictura, artist, Johannesburg
The HRC’s bad attitude
The Black Lawyers Association and the Association of Black Accountants of South Africa, the complainants to the HRC, have been condemned (Krisjan Lemmer, March 3 to 9) for being racially exclusive.
In my view a grouping of black people against racism, or for that matter of white people against racism, is not at all racist. There are good reasons for organising on the basis of experience of racism, which are of course different for white and black. This does not validate the idea of race as a biological or ethnic category.
But perhaps because South Africans are so frequently divided racially, when people set up a separate organisation as a strategy to deal with racism, they get people’s guilt dumped on them.
The HRC investigation should be working towards greater understanding of such issues. But it has been a severe mistake to use subpoenas, giving some the opportunity to redefine the issue as that of free speech.
People generally dislike authoritarianism, and those who fought the struggle most effectively understood that well. The subpoenas have provided a weapon to those who deserve none. The HRC should rather have seen that the evidence of black editors and other media workers is a far more potent weapon than its abilities to use its legal powers. – Crispin Hemson, University of Natal, Durban
Diamonds in the dross
I congratulate you on the M&G’s contributions to the HRC hearings; these stood out like diamonds amid the dross of muddled thinking, self-justification and damage limitation (I exempt John Scott). I refer here not only to your own submission and that of Howard Barrell, but also to your lawyer’s advance letter which the HRC bulldozed aside with their subpoenas. The problem for the HRC was that the intellectual arguments in the letter would not go away.
My only regret is that your submission and Barrell’s were not the first to be delivered. Both were not only intellectually taut and incisive, their language was majestic and stirring. Even Barney Pityana (and this is to his credit) described them as “exciting”. Had they been the first they might have stiffened the resolve of those who followed; at the least they would surely have sharpened the focus of the debate. – D Smedley, Sea Point
Racist Rorschach
If Claudia Braude managed to make a racist statement of two birds sitting on a dustbin – a feat of the imagination that is beyond most of us in this country (black and white) – God knows what she would make of a Rorschach test. Black blobs on a white surface! Ayieee! Who dares venture down that perceptual path? In her research for the HRC, she seems to have proved one thing: racism can be in the eye of the beholder. – Lesley Cowling
Bananas for monkeys
Since arriving at the zoo, I have kept abreast of the events in your country. By far the funniest is the M&G being accused of racism and obediently trooping off to the HRC. This is a fantastic spectacle and worth its weight in bananas!
The truly amazing thing is that you were unable to see it coming. Not only were you blind but you colluded. And this is quite serious. You see Claudia Braude and the totalitarian feminists have been given a free lunch and extra helpings of dessert for far too long. And you probably fed them at the M&G offices.
The media (and you very much included) have failed to criticise their discourse. This has led to the current farce where you are turning up to defend yourselves after being threatened by subpoenas. And you care about this hard-won democracy?
But the writing has been on the wall for a long time. You need only consider an extremely authoritarian and unconstitutional piece of legislation (the Domestic Violence Act), which arrived on the statute books without a word of dissent on your behalf. And yes, there is a feminist totalitarian conspiracy raging in this country. And yes, you were too stupid or pathetic to notice it! Who is the monkey now? – Max, Max’s Gorilla Movement, Johannesburg Zoo
Full copies of the M&G’s submissions to the HRC can be found at www.mg.co.za