Yonela Diko
TWO years ago, I attended a discussion on unemployment, hosted by a Western Cape radio station. One of its panellists was the then DA MP Tim Harris, who had come to the discussion to parade a 90 000-odd number of new jobs the DA had created in the Western Cape in that year.
I had chosen not to embarrass him as my comrade Ebrahim Patel did on the false and misleading interpretation of employment figures that the DA is now popular for, but I chose to question something simpler. What is the demographic spread of those jobs, I asked. Of those 90 000 jobs, how many coloured South Africans got those jobs, how many black South Africans, how many white South Africans?
Cunningly, if not cavalier, he did not have the figures readily available. This was puzzling to the host, given that we know the demographic spread of unemployment, it makes sense for us to be concerned about the demographic spread of employment opportunities.
More importantly, which is where the crux of my question was, and most probably the reason Harris avoided the question, the question would have exposed who is actually getting opportunities in the Western Cape. Who is getting contracts, who is getting subcontracts, who is getting employed.
What I wanted to emphasise to Harris was that the DA has remained blind to racism, foolishly ignoring how it affects every facet of life, including the spreading of opportunities. Racism is more than just overt discrimination. It centres on attitudes that ultimately affect who gets opportunities, who gets hired, who gets fired, who rises, and who falls. Such attitudes have consequences for livelihoods.
Does the ANC think racism is everything? You’re damn right, we do. Is the ANC ready to make racism the only issue that matters in these elections? You can take that to the bank. Every single socio-economic problem this country has derived its nature from racism.
Helen Zille has desperately tried to shift the focus by reducing racism and pointing to the state of the economy and other ills as the main focus. This is a dangerous move. She is obviously embarrassed by DA individuals whose behaviour has continued to strongly link racism with the DA.
Here is the truth: racism is more than what is in the heart of an individual person at the moment of a particular act. Racism is the cumulative history of all those thoughts and acts. It creates a pattern in which people of colour are routinely and systematically treated differently from white people. Zille cannot possibly miss just how deep and consequential these racial acts are.
Unfair racial stereotypes have taken root in the hearts of people. We cannot wish this away by ignoring it. Even economic growth will take a racial tone without a concentrated assault on racism.
When WEB du Bois, a staunch Pan-Africanist, declared the problem of the 20th century as the problem of the colour line, he understood fully how racism sits at the core of everything that is wrong and evil about our community. In 2016, we are at a crossroads. Either South Africa will destroy racism or racism will destroy the Republic.
Here is the truth, and let no man, black and white, turn his back on it: this country has not yet found peace from its sins; the free have not yet found in freedom their promised land. Whatever good may have come in these years of change, the shadow of a deep disappointment rests upon black South Africans – a disappointment all the more bitter because the same white South Africans are careless and remain unmoved in their perceptions of both themselves and other South Africans.
There is no facet of life today untouched by racism. The very fact of reducing racism to a mere whining and complaining, or some freedom of speech, becomes in itself its own form of cruelty. Today, we will never bow our heads in ignorance and simply say: “Forgive them, Lord, they know not what they do.”
Or claim that “Well, let’s overcome them with our capacity to love”, never. That boat came and went. Racists know what they are doing, they have been doing it, they’re experts at it, they know exactly what they’re doing.
l Diko is ANC Western Cape Media Liaison Officer