Ten years into our brave new democracy and the sullen curse of racism still stains the rainbow. Have you, as a white person, erased your prejudices and adjusted your reactions to the new realities? Answer honestly the eight questions below and test yourself.
1) You are sitting in a coffee bar and you overhear this fragment of conversation: ‘She woke up in the middle of the night to see this huge fellow with a balaclava on, right next to the bed. He was actually starting to pull off his trousers.” Which of the following assumptions tumble through your mind?
- (a) That it’s winter and the man was the woman’s husband, coming to bed after taking the dog for a walk in the snow.
2) You turn on the radio in time to hear a news item about yet another case of corruption in a small town. A few million rands of civil funds have been embezzled by the town clerk. What immediately crosses your mind?
- (a) A feeling of deep distress for the poor townsfolk who will be further disadvantaged by the crime.
3) You employ a new domestic worker, an African woman who came to you with an excellent reference as to her honesty. She hasn’t been there a week when suddenly you run out of sugar. Which of these two is your first reaction?
- (a) You give yourself a mental slap on the wrist for having forgotten to get sugar the last time you went to the shops.
4) Your daughter, who’s been at university for a month, comes home with her hair done in dreadlocks and announces that she’s fallen desperately in love with a fellow political science student by the name of Moses. What is your first thought?
- (a) I hope that’s his surname.
5) You are lying on an operating table about to undergo open-heart surgery. A figure looms over you. It is an elderly African man wearing a leopard skin, many colourful beads and a necklace of crocodile teeth. ‘Sawubona,” he says. ‘I am a traditional healer and I’m doing the heart operations this month for the regular cardiac surgeon, Dr Whitehead, who’s in Canada having job interviews.” How do you respond?
- (a) Pass out without the help of the anaesthetist.
6) On the radio you hear that a 56-year-old African National Congress municipal councillor called Zidlayo Isithandwa has confessed to having sex with an 11-year-old girl. In a bout of media-inspired hysteria the councillor has been dismissed from his job. What is your first thought?
- (a) Typical.
7) You are a virile white bloke of 30. In the small hours you pull into a rural 24-hour petrol station in your snazzy two-seater car. While it’s being filled, you’re approached by two hitchhikers who ask for a ride to the next big town. One is a very attractive white female of about 18 wearing a mini-skirt, the other a very large black lady with a squalling baby strapped to her back. To which do you give the ride, and why?
- (a) Neither, because your insurance strictly forbids you giving lifts to strangers.
8) You are a white South African male. You pick up a weekly newspaper to read an article by a prominent black academic in which he describes white South African males as being akin to baboons. How do you react to this?
- (a) With molten rage.
Scoring: If you are not a racist you will have answered, in order; c, a, a, b, b, b, c, c. Anything less than this and you should contact Humans Right for Lawyers for urgent counselling — special autumn discounts now in operation.