The debate about whiteness that was sparked by an article I wrote for this newspaper (“Confronting whiteness“, July 1) has been characterised by both linguistic and physical violence. I rehearsed the argument put forward by Samantha Vice, a philosopher at Rhodes University, for her claim that whites should “feel shame at their white identity”. This suggestion is grounded in the further claim that whiteness is deeply implicated in the racial injustices of the past as well as present structural inequalities.
Subsequently, Vice was invited to commit suicide, among other thoughtless responses, and one academic was assaulted for daring to sympathise with her view. I have been accused of behaving like a brown misogynist baas speaking on Vice’s behalf, notwithstanding the ironically sexist implication that only male academics’ views can exist independently of their author. Other critics, occupying the flip side of the same worthless coin, suggested that I am scared of imagining a world without whites, which is why I “obsess” about white identity.
In this extension of the debate I would like to be clearer about the differences between Vice and myself.
Besides the claim that whites should feel shame, with which I agree, Vice also argues that whites should live in “humility” and “silence”, with which I disagree deeply. The crux of what she means by living in humility and silence is clarified on these pages, where she speaks to her fellow whites: “We should refrain from trying to manage and shape a political landscape still scarred by our destructive presence. In particular, we stand on no moral high ground, it seemed to me, from which to issue public criticisms of the government or black politicians, to complain about corruption and revel in scandal. However concerned we might be about the state of the country, it cannot be our role to act as the moral watchdogs of those now in power.”
Vice is, in my view, deeply mistaken here. First, if she seriously wishes blacks to be shielded from the historic sociopolitical hegemony of whites then this surely must also apply to non-public and non-political spaces? After all, the social capital of a white skin reaches into the boardroom, the classroom, the lecture theatre, the braai area — and it operates in the intimate domestic spaces where the maid and gardener experience non-violent manifestations of racial superiority on the part of white bosses.
Unless whites became hermits, they could not avoid the interracial contact that will occasion their whiteness. It is therefore not possible for whites to live in silence and humility, as Vice suggests, because our social spaces overlap significantly and inevitably, and whiteness cannot be escaped at home or at work any more than it could be escaped in public political forums.
Second, quite apart from being impractical, Vice’s prescription is also undesirable. Whites are not merely “white people”. Whites are also citizens. Like all citizens of the country, they — we — have multiple identities that give rise to multiple sets of rights and moral entitlements. For example, the mere fact that whites are citizens of the country implies that they are entitled to participate in public political processes.
I sometimes wonder whether Vice is not also committed, following her reasoning, to requesting that whites likewise desist from exercising their right to vote. After all, voting, although a quiet political act, is certainly a public political act that could be used to project whiteness into and on to public political institutions. What does she make of the entitlement of a citizen, solely black or white, to influence policies that will be implemented in the country of his or her birth and residence? Whites have a right to complain about corruption by virtue of their citizenship and their interest in being governed by honest public servants and political leaders.
And, beyond citizenship, whites are also moral agents. We are all members of the moral community. As fellow moral agents, whites must act as “moral watchdogs” who speak out against wrongdoing, especially when such wrongdoing can harm vulnerable groups that include millions of marginalised fellow South Africans. It would be an abdication of your moral duties to remain silent about suffering simply because you are white. This is a damaging and perhaps even self-indulgent response to your whiteness.
Feeling emotions such as shame and engaging in acts of economic justice such as endorsing redistributive policies and interventions aimed at redressing past wrongs seem like a more reasonable response to one’s morally damaged self.
By engaging each other publicly and politically whites and blacks learn to regard each other as moral equals. As Steve Biko might have said, whites can only learn to accept that they are human by challenging their sense of superiority in the presence of those they have often regarded as lesser beings.
Conversely, black South Africans who still suffer inferiority complexes and “imposter syndrome” when moving in spaces traditionally the preserve of whites, such as corporate South Africa, need to challenge this inferiority in the presence of whites.
But whites must live in reflective awareness of what white hegemony means and take care that they do not inadvertently reinforce unearned social capital that attaches to their whiteness. This is no different from a progressive male ego, aware of unearned power in the form of habituated sexism, learning to live self-reflectively in spaces where women are rightly allowed to be active participants, too. Reflective self-awareness is preferable to a vow of silence.
It has been painful setting out these arguments in the public space and developing my own position in relation to Vice’s. The violence, the thoughtlessness, the personal attacks and the ungenerous imputation of unflattering motives to myself and others for simply wanting to engage in critical conversation about identity has left me gobsmacked.
The tone of the public fallout over Vice’s argument was tragicomically captured in the clumsiness of a very sincere white man who called me to plead: “We’re not all like that, Eusebius! I have even learned to speak Xhosa! I just spoke to blacks at the mall and we shook hands!”
I felt a Tutu-like desire to hug him. That, of course, would require him to get off the phone and step into my space, in defiance of Vice’s silence. We have work to do.
Eusebius McKaiser teaches philosophy at Wits University
The first in a series:
This series was initiated and is coordinated, in conjunction with the M&G, by Professor Pedro Alexis Tabensky, who lectures in philosophy at Rhodes University. His most recent book, an edited collection of essays, is The Positive Function of Evil
Academic Samantha Vice has caused a storm of controversy with her thoughts on white shame in South Africa. Read the reactions. View our special report.
