There is a new madness in our social interactions that is tearing us apart. An older teacher standing at the gate of her school pushes a comb through the hair of a boy bending forward, presumably to make him look more presentable as a pupil. “Next,” she shouts as another youngster moves forward to assume the position. All hell breaks loose. Our effervescent MEC for education in Gauteng springs to attention, calls the hair-combing incident “completely unacceptable”, orders a probe, and suggests such incidents could lead to suicide. Seriously. Schools have codes of conduct. The teacher, I have no doubt, cares about the appearance of her pupils. Now she will be humiliated because of this fake anguish of the hypersensitive among us.
More than 13,000km away, one of SA’s most successful vice-chancellors is in trouble at London’s School for Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) for using the n-word during a response to students in a virtual meeting. In the online session, a student tells the new director of SOAS that a lecturer had previously used the n-word without consequences. Adam Habib makes the point that such behavior is unacceptable, that this is the first time he hears about the matter, asks the students to come forward with the complaint, and promises action will be taken. In his response, Habib uses the n-word in full. Habib is told that he is not black (to the surprise of many of us) and therefore he cannot use the word. The board of SOAS, no doubt spooked by the reaction of some of the students, asks Habib to step aside while an investigation into the matter proceeds taking note of his immediate apology for using the n-word. I hope the inquiry also takes into account the doctored video of the interaction placed online for dramatic effect.
From Johannesburg to London to New York, there is this new policing of the public discourse where a small but influential group of social media activists polices the public discourse.
Unless you have a political vendetta against the former Wits principal, the pharisaic reaction makes no sense at all. Was Habib using the word maliciously? Of course not. Is he a victim of racist slurs as one who grew up under apartheid? Of course. Did he indicate that the word he used is unacceptable when used as a slur against black people? Immediately. Then why the dramatic response by the SOAS board? After all, Dick Gregory wrote an uncontroversial book, N!##€r: An autobiography and Mark Mathabane wrote a bestseller, K@***r Boy, followed by K@***r Boy in America.
What on Earth is going on? From Johannesburg to London to New York, there is this new policing of the public discourse where a small but influential group of social media activists polices the public discourse, decides who is entitled to speak or not, and even who is black enough to use certain words regardless of context.
In reference to a similar outrage in his own country, black American linguist John McWhorter makes the useful point that “the idea that it is inherent to black American culture to fly to pieces at hearing the n-word used in reference is implausible at best and slanderous at worst” and then this: “Insisting on this taboo makes it look like black people are numb to the difference between usage and reference …” (in a Substack newsletter, it bears mentioning). Ranvijay Singh, writing about the SOAS blow up in The Spectator, argues persuasively that hurtful words from the past can in fact be deployed to make antiracist statements in the present.
The outrage from some quarters against the teacher and the professor is quite simply a distraction from much deeper ills within our society that do not provoke anywhere near the same reaction. As I write this column, there are reports that five students were stabbed in violent clashes between EFF and Sasco students at the Durban University of Technology. No outrage there.
In a recent circular the Western Cape education department invited teachers to take competency tests to become matric markers. Here’s something worth being outraged about: “Only applicants who achieve 60% and above in the competency tests will be considered for appointment as marking officials.” There you go. If you score at least 60% you are deemed competent to mark mathematics or accounting or the physical sciences at the end of Grade 12. There will be no outcry because this is what we accept as the standard by which we measure our teachers and hoist incompetents on our children.
It is much easier to descend on a poor teacher trying to make schoolboys look presentable and proud in her school. Is it possible, by the way, that this fake outrage about one teacher is a way for the MEC to divert public attention from the scandal of the R430m spent in three months on hundreds of companies to sanitise schools – something that was not required or recommended by the authorities?
By manufacturing racial outrage, we do three dangerous things. We fail to deal with structural racism deeply embedded within our institutions. We give ammunition to the radical right to mobilise around meaningless terms like “cancel culture” to cover up real issues of racial injustice. And we exhaust our political energies by attacking those who try very hard, if sometimes clumsily, to make a difference in education, whether that be at a school in Sedibeng, Gauteng, or at a university in Bloomsbury, London.
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