Ferial Haffajee's book What If There Were No Whites in South Africa? pretends to ask a bold question. But by asking a question that can only be answered with conjecture , she misses the opportunity to confront the reality of racial injustice in South Africa. What is the meaning of whiteness in South Africa today?The answer might be found in the protective wall of white flesh that stood around protesting with black students during the #FeesMustFall uprising.This flies in the face of the writer's rejection of white supremacy as an important feature of this country's social order. Haffajee argues that white people do not hold as much power as contemporary critics claim.Haffajee argues that, after the ANC was elected to government in the 1994 democratic elections, all the state apparatus was transferred to black hands.To this end she also debunks the notion that "the black majority still owns only 3% of the Joburg stock exchange".Her logic is in line with the JSE's own argument that, at the end of 2013, black South Africans owned at least 13% of the Top 100 companies listed on the stock exchange through mandated investments like individuals contributing to pension funds, unit trusts and life policies.A further 10% is owned directly, largely through BEE schemes akin to the ones used to make a mint for many ANC bigwigs.Haffajee points to these new moneyed people and her own inclusion into the upper echelons of the middle class as an example of our democracy's promise being fulfilled.She lists her appointment as the first non-white woman to become the editor of the Mail & Guardian as a personal milestone.But she does not emphasise a 2009 Unisa report that notes that African income levels had regressed to pre-1975 levels at the time of its release.She also ign ores the fact that the most defining news item since her tenure at City Press has been about the contingency of race and exploitative wages: the Marikana massacre.Haffajee navigates a touchy subject with the tenderness of a soft-spoken and sweet-natured aunt, using her own life story to illustrate her points.This focus on the personal takes up a lot of time that could have been better spent reading up on the history of her chosen subject.Steve Biko, the leader of the Black Consciousness Movement, had already decades ago realised much of what Haffajee now argues.In a 1972 interview, Biko stated: "This is one country where it would be possible to create a black middle class that would be very effective at an important stage. Primarily because a hell of a lot of blacks here have got a bit of education. I'm talking, comparatively speaking, to the so-called rest of Africa, and a hell of a lot of them could compete favourably with whites in the fields of industry, commerce, and professions. And South Africa could succeed to put across to the world a pretty convincing, integrated picture, with still 70%of the population being underdogs."Haffajee's book underlines this pretty, convincing, integrated picture.'What if There Were No Whites in South Africa?' by Ferial Haffajee, published by Picador,R275..