Comments on: Proud To Be White… Is That Right?

By: danette

danette — Thu, 10 May 2007 09:45:01 +0000

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 :/

By: Ross

Ross — Wed, 09 May 2007 12:21:45 +0000

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…

By: Leon

Leon — Wed, 09 May 2007 04:56:25 +0000

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.

By: Nic

Nic — Tue, 08 May 2007 15:32:16 +0000

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!

By: Pierre

Pierre — Tue, 08 May 2007 15:14:20 +0000

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.