Thinking about racism, again

It is increasingly becoming difficult to believe that the 1994-1996 democratic breakthrough and political settlement ushered in a post-race constitutional order as a vector of social and economic justice. What it has instead ushered in is the ability of racist individuals, institutions, and community enclaves to weaponise the very Constitution to make racism, through several of its adjuncts, a right for those who want it. 

While institutional racism, represented by the apartheid ideology, amongst others, suffered moral liquidation and was declared a crime against humanity, and sharing global abhorrence with genocide and xenophobia, its templates, scaffoldings, and psychosocial programming persist in differently packaged forms. This raises questions about how these remnants continue to influence society today, which is crucial for understanding the depth of systemic racism.

 

The historical and structural roots of racial inequality still run deep, although less visible. They lie beneath the surface and have become algorithmic, with their own artificial intelligence mechanisms, spreading beyond the eye or imagination. 

 

Diversity, meant to be a strength in a society searching for sovereign nationhood, has also been weaponised against unity and valorised to entrench deeper divisions. This is despite the constitutional obligation for public power vested in freely elected public representatives to heal the (racial and other) divisions of the past.

 

The theme has been to position the poor, most of whom are a racial caste, as a group not to be necessarily trusted with power or resources. The South African economic establishment, despite its declared progressive conceits and the best of intentions, often, not always, but usually, doesn’t see itself as part of a system, much less a racist system.

 

The embrace of RSA citizenship without acknowledging its obligations to non-racialism is one of the less-discussed sicknesses of society.  The design of the RSA Constitution is to enhance society's immunity to racism. The deeper its objectives get to being a way of life, the more unsettled the make apartheid great again brigades would be. 

 

The ongoing experience of racism in spaces promising a better life erodes trust and hope, making societal change feel urgent and personal for the audience. 

 

Given their history, South Africans may never completely agree about what is and is not racism, racial, racist, or a race issue. But a process that lets policymakers agree on how to disagree would improve national discourse on non-racialism. 

 

By prioritising non-racialism, political parties and civil society can foster a collective responsibility that unites citizens in hope and purpose, strengthening societal bonds. 

 

It is therefore not enough to not be racist; it’s essential to be opposed to racism and demonstrate such opposition in your words, resources, deeds, and actions. We must first change the narrative. Current strategies, by and large, focus on racism as the problem rather than the intractable racist systems, templates, algorithms, and technologies sustaining it.

 

As a victim of racism, you know that you live in a world that for centuries has dehumanised, ostracised, murdered and otherwise violated your human rights, sometimes in the full glare of the criminal justice system. The law could not recognise you as a subject of protection but as an object for the efficacy of dehumanisation. It was lawful for you to be treated as an undefined class; you were simply non-what others are.