We can’t run away from race

It was with great interest that I read Vincent Maher’s justification on the demographics of Thought Leader contributors.

Unlike Maher, I am not white but like him I also voted for the first time in 1994. By that time I was already 34 years old and should have had a tradition of voting, but unfortunately, I could not vote before then because of my race.

But I digress, because one of the aims of his blog was to try to understand why black people do not want to write and express their opinions in the same way as whites.

There are some people who will say it is easy to blame apartheid for everything and, unfortunately, one has to blame apartheid a lot of the time. Whites just seem to claim ownership of channels of public opinion easier than blacks.

When I was editor of the Cape Times, I was amazed at the number of calls I would receive from old white ladies from Sea Point who would complain about anything they disliked in the paper. They would remind me that they had been subscribing to the paper for 30 or 35 years and would not hesitate to cancel their subscription if we continued to publish what we had published.

I used to say that the day I received similar calls from Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha, it would be an indication of progress in our society.

But I also had complaints from many black people who wanted me to fire all the white columnists at the Cape Times. I remember trying to coerce several prominent black individuals, particularly academics, to write for the paper and I am still waiting for them to write, many years after I have left the paper.

One of the reasons for the reluctance among black people to express their opinions publicly was attributed to the fact that many black people wanted positions in government and did not want to be seen to be critical of government.

I don’t know how true this is, but I had experience of this a few years ago when I was helping a prominent black organisation produce a newsletter. Several of the contributors did not want articles to be published under their own names.

But I hope that Maher and the good people at Thought Leader have learnt a sobering lesson about South Africa: we can’t run away from race.

Fourteen years after our country became a democracy, we are still obsessed with race, even those of us who are pretending not to be obsessed by it or who believe that we are not obsessed by it.

Imagine the shock and horror experienced by the Adams family of Grassy Park when they were hounded out of a public shower in Langebaan over the festive season. Their crime was that they were “coloured” and the only people who frequent the resort where they went to shower are white.

Mrs Adams is quoted in one of the Cape Town newspapers as saying that she could not believe that there were still racists around 14 years into democratic South Africa.

In the same way, Maher probably could not believe that he would have to write a blog justifying the demographics of Thought Leader, 14 years into our democracy.

Welcome to South Africa, Mrs Adams and Mr Maher, where there are some people still desperately trying to hold on to the past.

I hope that we will soon have a society where race will not matter, but I doubt whether that will happen in any of our lifetimes.