EDITORIAL | Time for the government of national unity to confront the farce of nonracialism

The scenes of a mock auction at Pinelands High School in the Western Cape on a viral video re-enacting the painful and shameful days of slavery is both nauseating and infuriating.

Watching the scenes in which black pupils stand behind a gate while their fellow coloured pupils offer bids between R50,000 and R100,000 for them — with one even offering bitcoin as tender — then stand next to their “owner” speaks to privilege and a lack of political conscience.

But it is also a terrifying indicator of the prevalence and norm of systemic racism that lurks in the minds and classrooms of our future generations.

The offensive incident was brought to the school’s attention by the mother of one boy who pushed back against someone’s subhuman idea and reported it, ventilating the vile episode into the open and scratching the veneer of our nonracial democracy.

The reaction has been stock standard — plausible deniability and outrage from the school/department about the “hurtful and disturbing” video and the suspension of the implicated pupils — amid calls by the EFF whose default reaction is to hold protests and close the school — and an investigation.

“Our school has long grappled with the injustices of the past, and this incident serves as a poignant reminder of the critical importance of our ongoing conversations about race, privilege, bullying, social media pranks, and the impact of our words and actions in both the physical and digital world,” the school told parents in a letter.

What is obvious is this “prank” was inspired by adult behaviour or racist adverts. Who can forget TREsemme’s website advert which depicted black women’s hair as dull and damaged, alongside pictures of white women’s hair marked “normal” and “flat and fine” or H&M’s online advert featuring a black boy wearing a hoodie with the words “Coolest monkey in the jungle”.

The bigotry sadly didn’t evaporate when the euphoria and legislative arms of democracy embraced our country. Instead, the toxicity of privilege, intolerance and prejudice hides behind a façade of civility in public but is consistently pervasive when there is little chance of exposure

Last week it was Pinelands High School. The week before a dozen Pretoria high school girls were suspended for their alleged racial connotations, micro-aggressions and complaints about black pupils in a WhatsApp group consisting of white pupils.

The week before, it was a Table View High School substitute teacher who used the k-word during a grade 12 history lesson and is still at the school pending the outcome of an investigation.

The month before, a 14-year-old pupil at Hoërskool Die Wilgers in Pretoria was hospitalised for being suicidal after being called the k-word by two white pupils.

There are just the reported ones.

The level of racism, bullying and abuse permeating our classrooms is insidious.

But as Prof Michael le Cordeur, vice dean of teaching and learning in the faculty of education at Stellenbosch University, points out, our children are merely perpetuating what they see their parents, teachers and political leaders do.

Think DA member Renaldo Gouws who faced losing his seat in parliament when his racist rants 16 years ago came back to bite him.

The bigotry sadly didn’t evaporate when the euphoria and legislative arms of democracy embraced our country. Instead, the toxicity of privilege, intolerance and prejudice hides behind a façade of civility in public but is consistently pervasive when there is little chance of exposure.

The incidents which spill out into the public domain occur when good people are guided by a commitment to root out this relic of our painful past. 

Le Cordeur advocates we need strong leadership and a determination to root out unjust systems that perpetuate racism, and so it is time our government of national unity rips the Band-Aid off the farce of nonracialism.

We need to stop reacting to every episode of racism and instead proactively and consistently taking steps to tackle the root cause.

We need government to school our parents through diversity training, with nationally standardised modules on citizenship and democracy to be inculcated at workplaces both public and private. And then we need to rope in our community, religious and social leaders to incubate a culture of forward thinking citizens through their platforms.

Simultaneously we need to ensure basic education entrenches compassion, tolerance and empathy in our classrooms with dialogues on racism and cultural diversity — in a way that is relatable and accessible — so that “never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another”.