Proud To Be White… Is That Right?
Filed Under (Uncategorized) by Nic on 08-05-2007
Tagged Under : Culture, Pride, race, racism
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I have just received an email outlining the difference between the white race and any other race having racial pride. The email illustrates (very well I might add) that it is OK for Black people to have rallies, groups, parades, protests, pride, dedicated funds, colleges, schools and many other things, but when a school is explicitly for white people it is a racist school. Oprah’s new school is a good example I think.
This email is more American-centric than South African-centric so much of it is not applicable. However I do think that there is a lot of truth to this sort of mentality. The race card is played very often by various demographics in SA. I am classified (I am not sure who does this sort of classification any more) as a white male although I have never looked like any classically white male in my life. This has really never had an impact on my life. Yet I have dealt with the race card in various situations.
I studied Politics back at Rhodes University. I will never forget the day that I almost received the beating of my life when I tried to proclaim that I was an African. I believe that I am African. I am born and bred in Africa and that makes me African. Mark Shuttleworth has launched his Ubuntu Linux System and I believe that he is a man who truly understands the concept of Ubuntu. So is he not African?
In the end, I am all for having pride for oneself, for ones culture and for anything else that anyone wished to be proud of as long as that pride is not inflicting some sort of harm on anyone else. I am not talking about a perceived harm here, where one persons belief system conflicts with another persons belief system, that is avoidable and resolvable to a certain livable extent. I am talking about harm in the true sense of the word.
Let the Satinists be Satinists and let the KKK be the KKK, but let them be who they are own their own in the privacy of their own home and heaven help any group if they start to bash people around and attempt to enforce their perceived superiority on others. Is this sort of approach correct? I can’t say. I think that what the email i received is trying to portray is that if white people have to be quietly proud and restricted then so should everyone else. If other ethnic or racial groups are allowed to proclaim a school to be all black, asian, hispanic or anthing else, then so too should white schools be able to be proclaimed as such.
This is where I think the line needs to be drawn, freedom of speech rocks, it truly does, as long as it too does not detrimentally impact on any person, group, culture or nation.
I think that South Africa is on the right track, tolerance is of the utmost importance. I think that we have much to be thankful for here in SA. Integration is a slow process and one that needs to be fought for tooth and nail. People need to proactively work towards integration. It is not something that will simply happen. Just as practicing a sport makes you better at it, so too would practicing tolerance, integration and appreciation for others.
You seen to confuse two different issues. On the one hand there is the question of our identity and whether white people are “African” and why black people sometimes get upset if white people call themselves Africans. On the other hand there is the question of why whites cannot have a White Students Organisation or a White Lawyers Organisation.
On the first issue I am with you - identity is personal and you have a right to define yourself. Black people who get upset are upset because they want to keep the African label for themselves and keep it “pure” and that is bigotry dressed up as political correctness.
But the second issue is really about racism and our history and about power and on that I profoundly disagree with you. One day it would be nice to be colour blind but at the moment many people still suffer because they are black or they are woman or gay. The power relations in our society are such that white men are still on top - metaphorically speaking - and their values and way of doing still dominate. To get ahead if you are not white, require you to stand together with your fellow oppressed and to, say, form a Black Students Group. Whites cannot do that legally or morally because that would merely be done to perpetuate their power and domination. It’s like starting a Jewish Students Organisation in Germany in 1955 - everyone would understand why that is necessary. But if German students started a German Students Organisation exclusively for Germans, everyone who knew the history of Germany would become very worried and scared. Same thing in South Africa really.
Hey Pierre, I completely see where you are coming from. We can’t have a whole load of ex-apartheid peops popping over to tannie’s house on a sunday and then call that a white supremacy rally. It would scare the bejeezes out of everyone! I did state at the beginning of the post that much of the email i received was american-centred.
I do fully see your point though, but still maintain that the more we practice the better we will get as being tolerant and integrated!
Various groups in Canada have played the ethnicity card in the past (and still do). We even have words like Anglophone or Francophone to live with.
I acknowledged my Fench Canadian background but didn’t care much for it because of the politics involved. I liked my Norwegian history and some of the other nationalities in my family background. I finally stopped worrying about ethnicity and became simply a Canadian.
I don’t mind racial or ethnic pride as long as it doesn’t cause problems for the rest of the nation.
I know this does not contribute to the entire point of your post but i consider myself an african for sure, parents and i born and raised here, how does that make me anything else? Thats actually something that as always troubled me because if i cannot call myself African then i feel i have been robbed of self identity…
If you’re white, you can be “proudly South African” as long as you want, you’ll never get preferential treatment like other races.
I try to ignore it - there’s nothing much we can do in any case :/