Some parents support Asanda Ngoasheng, a diversity trainer embroiled in a controversy at Fish Hoek High School by opening “a racial can of worms” after allegedly referring to some pupils as white supremacists.
The parents, mostly white, said while they were not privy to what happened at the Cape Town school, diversity trainers such as Ngoasheng must be supported and predominantly white schools prepared to have difficult conversations about diversity, race and inclusivity.
A diversity training workshop, which started on October 31, left some parents fuming and children “traumatised”, allegedly due to the radical way in which it was presented by Ngoasheng. The programme was suspended after the uproar, with some parents saying it fuelled racial tension.
Magali von Blottnitz, who started the Schools Must Change group, an informal advocacy forum for parents of school-going children, said Ngoasheng’s work was “difficult” as it touched on race relations and privilege, something that brought discomfort to many, particularly predominantly white communities.
“Diversity consultants are often called when situations are tense and sometimes into very hostile environments.
“Asanda needs to be supported and given space to do her work, and not just one session. Diversity training is a long-term journey ... not [something that focuses] on what happened on one particular occasion on one day,” she said.
We are taking the matter very seriously and a full investigation into the diversity intervention at Fish Hoek High School is under way.
— Western Cape education MEC David Maynier
Western Cape education MEC David Maynier said on Tuesday the incident was under investigation and he was awaiting legal advice on the conduct of the facilitator. An urgent review was under way of policies, guidelines or regulations governing the department’s procurement of services of external diversity consultants.
“I have requested that Western Cape government legal services provides advice regarding legal options relating to the service provider’s conduct during the intervention, including whether there is scope for a civil claim for damages,” he said.
“We are taking the matter very seriously and a full investigation into the diversity intervention at Fish Hoek High School is underway. We must now focus on the learners writing exams, especially the matrics, and ensure exams proceed smoothly. Our priority is, and remains, the wellbeing of the learners of our province.”
Last week parents alleged Ngoasheng told pupils, whites were the only people capable of being racist as they still held power. She also read a poem describing Jesus Christ as “this blue-eyed and blond-haired Jesus”. The poem referred to heaven as “white and patriarchal”, and suggested the 12 disciples “could have been queer, the holy trinity some weird twisted love triangle and the Holy Ghost transgender”.
But Von Blottnitz warned that despite progress made by former model C schools to integrate race groups, if these institutions kept pushing back on having difficult conversations about things such as diversity, racial tensions would not go away and future generations would have to deal with the same battles their parents fought.
“It’s really about the future of this country and the future of our children. They need to be able to live in a country that at some point will have overcome the horrible past. And this is not going to happen until all South Africans do the hard work.
“As white people we must do the hard work of looking honestly into all the conditioning we have inherited from centuries of oppression and how, without even realising it ... we are perpetuating the structures of oppression and racism.”
Von Blottnitz said tensions that arose when diversity trainers visited schools were often brought up because South Africa had failed to properly deal with racial injustices of the past.
“Often tensions surface not because a diversity consultant has messed up, but because those tensions were there in the first place and not given a space to be expressed. [Then when they are discussed] ... things start to surface.”
While many schools had committed to diversity, sometimes this was a “tick-box exercise”.
A parent who wants diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) work supported is Solange Rosa, school governing body (SGB) chair of Cape Town’s Westerford High School, which recently used the services of Ngoasheng and other DEI consultants.
Rosa said while there was some resistance towards the workshops, generally parents were supportive.
“The critical race theory has been used as a blanket term to put a negative perspective on any diversity, equity and inclusion work. But what we’re talking about is transformation, which is underpinned by our constitution. We have human rights in that constitution that are meant to be realised, and freedom, dignity and equality are the main values. Our constitution basically says we’ve got to keep working at it.”
Rosa said as difficult as the diversity discussion was, schools needed to acknowledge that South Africa was not an equal society yet, “not in terms of income, race, gender, not in terms of sexuality”.
While she could not comment on the Fish Hoek High School workshop, Rosa said the response to Ngoasheng’s session with pupils at Westerford was largely positive.
“She worked with a big group of learners, as well as with staff, and she handled things in a very mature and sensitive way. Largely between her and a couple of other consultants, they have helped us to progress.”
Rosa said since the training things had improved for the better at the school.
“We’ve made so many great changes. We have made sure we’ve got a focused employment equity approach to hiring diverse staff. Earlier this year learners were able to purchase badges to decide which pronoun they wanted to allow for nonbinary learners to feel included. We've changed our awards structure. We've got a religion policy which is now very secular and doesn't discriminate against any group. We also have an anti-discrimination and antiracism policy that was adopted by the SGB in 2021.”
Dr Frank Kronenberg, whose daughter is a pupil at Westerford, also called for support for diversity trainers such as Ngoasheng as they created space to “engage in necessarily disruptive and generative conversations”.
“My experience of Asanda is that she calls things out for what they are,” he said.
“Though that’s not something that we might be used to, I regard it shameful when zero tolerance for discomfort manifests in such workshops, considering the impacts and the harm done by centuries of treating ‘people who don't look like us’ as lesser human beings.”
Kronenberg said discussing transformation and decolonisation in South Africa was never going to be smooth-sailing and “shooting the messenger” was not going to resolve issues of race and inequality that still exist between black and white South Africans.
He labelled the Fish Hoek incident as just a symptom of racialised class tensions, saying in SA, it looks like it appeared as if the country may be “regressing from where we were at some point”.
“It’s easy and disingenuous to say she’s the problem. I think that particularly as white people in South Africa, we need to step up and wholeheartedly commit to processes of humanising and healing. Denialism needs to be disrupted and replaced by honesty and integrity.
“I think Asanda needs to be supported. She must stick to what she is doing in the way she's doing it, and it is time for white people to call out other white people who continue to be obstacles to transformation.”
Many are not willing to open up and have honest discussions about race relations. They say, 'I give tea and bread to my domestic worker therefore I’m not racist.'
— Tamara Sutila, mother of teenager
Tamara Sutila, whose teenage daughter attends a southern suburbs school in Cape Town, said “white fragility and cultural illiteracy” were some of the major issues holding back true transformation and diversity in South African schools.
“It must be incredibly challenging for any diversity facilitator to go into this environment and start speaking to kids who come from families where none of this (diversity and inclusivity) is discussed,” she said.
“Many are not willing to open up and have honest discussions about race relations. They say, 'I give tea and bread to my domestic worker therefore I’m not racist.' But we need to go beyond these patronising acts of kindness if we are to take this country forward.”
This week Ngoasheng said while she “received racist vitriol and threats against me and my family, the love and affirmation that my work and methods are important for society has been overwhelming”.
“I have received overwhelming support from black and white parents who get the importance of my work in our fractured society. I have been affirmed in the role I have played in ensuring that issues of race and racism, and other diversity issues, cannot be swept under the carpet in schools, in corporates, at church, at NGOs and all communities in SA.”
While others questioned her credentials, Ngoasheng said she was an acclaimed expert on diversity issues and had led conferences on race, gender and class in education across the world. She had also toured universities in the UK as a speaker on the matter.
“I have peer-reviewed journal articles on race, class, gender and education in various local and international journals. I have also been trained in facilitation methodologies which form the core of my work, process and methodologies.
“Diversity training attracts people with different skills and qualifications because it requires input and understanding from various societal lenses. In my work I have encountered former teachers, HR heads, lawyers, psychologists and other vocations in this space.”
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