MAKHUDU SEFARA | Let’s talk about the licence we give the likes of Barlow

Part of the reason racists feel emboldened to insult black people without even blinking is because black people, through omission, have allowed this disrespect to take root.

Whether it’s the main reason or simply a significant part is moot. But black people, especially in South Africa, do not get sufficiently reviled and angry as they should. Even when a few anti-racism activists say something, often on social media, such action is transient and limited in impact.

African-American scholar and activist Angela Davis told us that “in a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist. We must be anti-racist”. And this is what we need to do to demonstrate our abhorrence — and to ensure no easy replication of the actions of lunatics and the fringe right intent on derailing our country.

In Black Skin, White Masks, Frantz Fanon explains what it means to be dominated, dehumanised and robbed of a sense of self. He deals with how dependence takes root through inferiority that makes black people think they perpetually deserve less and associate blackness with wrongness.

The actions of people like Nicole Barlow, who this week spewed racial bile about struggle hero Chris Hani and energy minister Gwede Mantashe, indicate how lowly she thinks of black people. After saying: “We forgot to do a Chris Hani on him too,” she became defensive instead of being genuinely contrite. “My comment was not hate speech,” she protested. She also told us she had no intention to harm Mantashe because “he enjoys VIP protection that costs the taxpayers billions each year”. In other words, all of you should not be directing your rage at me but at the black guy who abuses billions used to protect him.

Several incantations later, Barlow told us: “If the NPA would like to speak to me about my comment, I would welcome the meeting. It would simultaneously provide me with an opportunity to ask why the seven dockets sitting on their desk since 2019 — in which I detail crimes of corruption, more than R100m worth of bribery, extortion, murder and defeating the ends of justice against several past and present officials at the Gauteng department of agriculture and rural development — have been ignored.” She reasoned. Well, tried to. 

As is evident, her view is that her insult of black people, who probably in her mind aren’t worthy of respect, deserve dehumanisation and domination, is a small matter compared with the big issues of corruption, bribery, extortion and so on.

Only when it became clear her Amazon listed books (financial interests) were threatened, did she show contrition. Even then, it was a half-cooked attempt at being remorseful. When it was clear this was not getting the sort of reception she hoped for, she tried the second time. The third attempt was a letter to Mrs Limpho Hani.

When black leaders don’t see the importance of restoring the dignity of those impacted by years of domination, they, through omission, give licence to racists to disrespect and to start believing that perhaps black people do indeed deserve less.

Had she made a mistake, she would not have had the courage to try to spin it before she was forced to feign a “genuine” apology on her third attempt. That she thought she could get away with a vainglorious attempt says a lot about what she thinks black people deserve.

How then did we get here?

The history of colonialism and apartheid afterward is long and known. April 27, 1994, was supposed to be the start of black people's process to reverse the domination and dehumanisation and restore people's dignity and sense of self. The actions of various governments, at different levels of service they provide, were supposed to help undo apartheid's collective scar on a people’s psyche.

Providing houses and water or electricity is not simply the act of provision that matters. It is the restoration of a people’s dignity that is at play. When black leaders don’t see the importance of restoring the dignity of those affected by years of domination, they, through omission, give licence to racists to disrespect and start believing that perhaps black people do indeed deserve less. When black leaders decided to drag their feet in putting together legislation to deal with hate crimes — which came into being on the cusp of our 30-year anniversary of our democracy — they gave racists the wrong impression that black people’s lives don’t matter much. We should have shown that we respect ourselves enough to not allow disrespect to creep in.

The point is a character like Penny Sparrow would never have had the temerity to describe black people as monkeys on the beach in eThekwini if she knew that her words and actions would surely attract dire consequences. She was ordered to pay R150,000 to the Adelaide and Oliver Tambo Foundation and later had to pay R5,000 over two years because she had no funds.

I am also saying Dove and H&M stores, populated and supported by many black people, would have thought twice if they knew black people’s response to racism would be different from the usual.

The truth is that there is, correctly so, no playing games about anti-Semitism. It has financial consequences. Let any product owner say something anti-Semitic, they sure will suffer the consequences. This is how it must be. But not so for black people. The point here is not to decry that the bigoted remain among us.

It is that we, as black people, give licence to others to be racist in how we fail to respect ourselves. We allow some of us in Hammanskraal to perish from cholera, a disease that should not be killing anyone in 2023. That we sit quietly, accepting the misrule in Tshwane, is shameful. The Tambos, Bikos, Sobukwes who came before us did not want to accept misrule and took action to start processes to end apartheid. They even encouraged young people to make the country ungovernable. That a metro municipality with a budget of over R70bn, in the richest province in the country, could fail to provide clean water and we think that is okay, is shameful.

That the people of Giyani have been waiting for clean water for years is an indictment not just of the government and its leaders, but all of us who pretend to be champions of the poor and vulnerable. Our government spends R2-trillion annually. And that not ensuring the Godforsaken people of Giyani and Hammanskraal get water is disrespect not too dissimilar to how racist governments treated them.

Governments across the globe are not known for being responsive, caring or even competent. But even by this very low standard, there are things that people across the globe have come to expect of their elected officials. We should not allow them to disrespect us the way racists do. When we do that we also, perhaps inadvertently, open the door for racists like Barlow to feel comfortable enough to insult and then defend and belatedly pretend to be genuine in their apologies.

In a racist society like ours, indeed it's not enough to simply be non-racial. We must be anti-racist. The racists must suffer consequences for their actions.