Helen Zille: 'Wokeness is trying to banish whiteness in SA'

DA federal council chairperson Helen Zille has again spoken out on '“wokeness” in SA, claiming it is trying to banish "whiteness". 

During a recent interview on Brain in a Vat, Zille said she believed the ideology was not a source of positive change in society. 

She claimed the fundamental architecture of “wokeness” was the same as apartheid. 

“The tragedy is [Hendrik] Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid, was trying to banish blackness from SA and now wokeness is trying to banish whiteness from SA but the fundamental architecture of the ideology remains the same,” said Zille. 

Zille further claimed there was a profound amount of cognitive dissonance involved in wanting to banish whiteness in SA. 

“That is also aligned to the hierarchy of victimhood and virtues. So to want to banish whiteness which, by is definition evil, is a good thing. To want to in any way even consider the notion of banishing blackness is banishing virtue, which is the epitome of evil. It's this double standard and notion of valorising victimhood and giving victimhood virtue points on a hierarchy that explains it,” she said. 

This is not the first time Zille has spoken out about “wokeness”. 

Last year she came under fire for her comments on the Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle's miscarriage, claiming “wokeness equates victimhood with virtue”, and “these public displays of suffering are intended to advance both”.

Many, including the DA's Mbali Ntuli, Phumzile Van Damme and Siviwe Gwarube, hit back at her comments and called for a kinder society.

Earlier this year, Zille announced she was releasing a book titled Stay Woke — Go Broke, which among other things focuses on why America’s culture wars will “destroy” SA and what people can do about it.