White people should not teach black people to deal with their trauma as they would make wrong assumptions. “White people should help other white people to understand that the ‘loss’ is not really a loss as such but changed expectations.”
The topic harms white and black people, said Madonsela. “For everyone’s sake, in the same way that when it comes to gender we say we need to do ‘man work’, we have to do white work and white people have to do white work.”
“I don’t think racists feel ashamed enough in our society today,” she said.
Madonsela is director of the Centre for Social Justice and occupies the Law Trust Research Chair in Social Justice at Stellenbosch University.
Siluma raised the “deeper” trauma black people could be experiencing as a result of loss of land and opportunities: “We have to deal with black trauma but not weaponise that black trauma,” she responded.
Sunday Times Politics Weekly
LISTEN | ‘White racists need trauma healing’: Thuli Madonsela
You can’t advance black people through the welfare system, says the former public protector
Former public protector Thuli Madonsela believes white racists should be helped to heal so that they don’t wound others.
She joined Sunday Times deputy editor Mike Siluma in conversation after she set the cat among the pigeons with a post on her X account suggesting race supremacists need to be helped to heal from their post-transformation trauma.
On the Sunday Times Politics Weekly podcast Madonsela said supremacists need to accept they are not superior to others.
“It’s not always just about race though, it’s [also] about gender. Anybody who was raised that just because they look a particular way, they deserve more than others in a society based on human rights, social justice and acceptance of equality of all human beings — to them it feels like a loss of rights as opposed to loss of an unmerited privilege.”
Listen to the conversation:
White people should not teach black people to deal with their trauma as they would make wrong assumptions. “White people should help other white people to understand that the ‘loss’ is not really a loss as such but changed expectations.”
The topic harms white and black people, said Madonsela. “For everyone’s sake, in the same way that when it comes to gender we say we need to do ‘man work’, we have to do white work and white people have to do white work.”
“I don’t think racists feel ashamed enough in our society today,” she said.
Madonsela is director of the Centre for Social Justice and occupies the Law Trust Research Chair in Social Justice at Stellenbosch University.
Siluma raised the “deeper” trauma black people could be experiencing as a result of loss of land and opportunities: “We have to deal with black trauma but not weaponise that black trauma,” she responded.
The intriguing conversation ended with Madonsela’s views on the proposed national dialogue which she suggests should start with what the constitution proposes.
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The podcast is hosted by Sunday Times deputy editor Mike Siluma and produced by Bulelani Nonyukela.
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