Enough about race, let's talk about class

If truth be told, black people are not interested in the confessions of white people who suffer with guilt from the sins of colonialism and apartheid. In the 21st century where both colonialism and apartheid have – depending on how you look at things – been defeated, we don’t want to know of people who indulge in self-flagellation. In fact, we should be disappointed that there are some whites who think they please blacks by making the issue of race an obsession in a non-racial society.

If white people want to remain relevant to genuine transformation and change in this country, we want to hear or see them talk about the issue of class oppression and exploitation. It is only when they address the issue of class and power more than the matter of race that they can make significant changes to the economic structures in our society. For far too long, whites have expected blacks to embrace them and treat them as heroes for simply being so-called anti-apartheid or guilt-ridden. But we now demand that whites (and blacks) raise the issue of class contradiction in our society, especially those inherent within the capitalist condition. Perhaps blacks know that when white comrades and intellectuals raise the issue of class, we will sooner see how blacks have betrayed themselves.

Over the last 18 years, it has become much clearer that the notion of whiteness – just like black unity based on skin colour – is a political myth. Many of us have learnt that oppression and exploitation of fellow human beings is not determined by skin colour. What this means is that whites do not oppress or exploit blacks because they are white. And, blacks, too, can oppress and exploit other blacks despite the sameness of their skin colour. So, what we expect from our white compatriots are revelations and confessions that will, ultimately, give insight into how to ameliorate the material conditions of the poor and marginalised unemployed who are condemned to be the under class.

For more than three centuries of South African history and struggle, white people – including missionaries, journalists, and politicians – who were heroes were not glorified because they were opposed to whiteness. It is something that they cannot escape from just as blacks will always try to use their skin colour to blind their own to how they oppress and exploit them. Instead, white activists and intellectuals have always chosen to ignore their skin colour to take a principled stand against economic injustice and how the economic system oppresses and exploits people irrespective of their colour, creed or station in life.

Presumably, opening the race debate at this point in our history is not going to achieve much.
We have to abandon the superficial notion of whites trying to liberate themselves by confining political discourse to the issue of race or the legacy of colonialism and apartheid. This simply means that they are unable to transcend the limits imposed on them by racism, colonialism and apartheid. At this point in our national crisis – with rampant corruption and embezzlement of tenders at senior government level – whites must tell the truth about how class, power and internalised racism corrupts people’s morals. We need whites to speak truth to power; that will make them gain the disapproval of authority figures, especially in big business, if necessary.

Throughout the years of the struggle, black people have always known white comrades, activists and intellectuals who were trustworthy and who did not bother to make the issue of race the subject. Instead, they were whites who told the truth: that not all white people owned the land or monopolised the wealth of this country. In fact, they broke the conspiracy of silence which hid the fact that white trash exists and, just like blacks, they were condemned to poverty, unemployment and buried in the under class.

If whites truly want to be taken seriously, they must offer an alternative to the economic system that upholds and entrenches injustice and inequality in our society. We must try our hardest not to make race the central issue when it comes to public discourse in this country, now. Of course, many political people with too much to gain from this distraction will not like it because it will take away the apartheid or racism excuse. But this country will only begin to move forward when whites – and blacks, for that matter – break ranks with the few who own and control the land and monopolise the means of production.

If we are to live fully in a non-racial society, what needs to happen is for us to acknowledge and recognise that genuine transformation and change will only happen when we address the issue of land distribution, the economic system, and its consequent class division. We need to remain committed to keeping the ideal of a non-racial society alive through a renewed attempt to not make race the main issue. Often, blacks who have joined the haves class protect themselves from the knowledge of broken promises by pretending that whites only are responsible for injustice and inequality in this beautiful land. It is this pretence that has prevented blacks from noticing that a president like Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, for instance, has put down his own people to live in hell. Or that the black elite in South Africa are indifferent to the plight of the under class.

It is time that blacks and whites forge a stronger non-racial coalition to breathe new life into the ideal of a non-racial, just and equal society. We must not allow ourselves to wonder why it is wrong for whites to enjoy luxury and splendour when blacks, too, have joined the party to do exactly the same. We have to acknowledge and protect the ideals and principles enshrined in our Constitution, which espouses a non-racial society.

It is a nice gesture by some whites to not only try to be kind to blacks by blaming themselves for the sins of their fathers and apartheid, but to shut up – as espoused by Rhodes University philosophy lecturer Samantha Vice.

Apartheid is dead and gone now. Our urgent responsibility is to move from the race issue to put the class question under the spotlight. It is only when we do that that we will recognise that man’s injustice to man has got nothing to do with skin colour. It could even be due to human nature.

Unconsciously, when we continue to obsess over the issue of race, we are refusing to bury the past and in fact allowing it to control us. It is not that there is no racism, but it is time to move away from our obsession with race as it does not explain the challenges before us.

(This post is dedicated to Rhodes University philosophy lecturer Samantha Vice.)