I hate the word ‘diversity’. It’s usually a lame attempt to
whitewash any actual dialogue, because if you have a problem with an unjust
status quo, and reject the ‘let’s all get along’ Cool Aid, then you have
defined yourself as being against diversity, unicorns and rainbows.
In the last few weeks I have performed at Potchefstroom
University, Nelson Mandela Bay University and the University of Stellenbosch, and
do many corporate gigs, radio and TV interviews, and my own one man shows, all
relating to this painfully weird topic. The problem is I am not certain what
the way forward is.
I did comedy at Stellenbosch on the same day the university
decided to let off the blackface people. Yes, my career is explosively ironic.
I pointed out that us white South Africans seem to often opine that 20 years is
enough to fix apartheid, but for some reason we don’t all think its enough for
students to realize that we shouldn’t be putting shoe polish on our faces. Do
we need a blackface patrol: “Groenewald, step away from the nugget”? And yes,
Comrade Chester told me (I told myself, in case you haven’t gotten the hang of
this ventriloquism thing) that the reason he and I were there is because this
is the one place on earth where they let you off for blackface. I also said
that diversity is another way of saying “the black people are coming”, because
we all suspect where Stellenbosch University’s cultural normative setting is
calibrated to.
Then again, the problem with this entire thing is simplistic
narratives, which include simplistic narratives of black victims and white
oppressors. I later found out that many of the people who initially chose the
seemingly all white comedy at Stellenbosch ‘Diversity’ Week this year were
Black (politically).
The problem with diversity discourse is that it usually
excludes any real discussion of power and history. What it does is force
through a socially acceptable solution that really just silences those without
power. Diversity is a product of the post-94 Rainbow Nation rhetoric, of the
discourse that Born Frees are becoming post-racial, and that us old (I am 37)
bigots all just need to get over it.
The problem is that young people living in shacks with no
opportunity of work are Born Free in the same way free range chickens are free,
and the discourse that they are free is in many ways tantamount to apartheid
denial. Don’t get me wrong, there is loads of evidence that also places much
lack of progress strongly at the feet of the ruling party and their economic
schizophrenia, but that’s only part of the picture, and racism towards the ANC
is an old habit that’s easiest solved if acknowledged. My point though is that
for myself, a white apartheid beneficiary to even begin talking about diversity
requires us to look, with ruthless honesty, at why I am not the one living in a
shack.
That being said, there are loads of places where kids and
adults don’t have apartheid’s emotional baggage, but the truth is these
environments are often very middle class, and often require huge degrees of
obliviousness to real world dynamics. We can love each other in an historical
conscious way, but just because you live in Ubuntuland doesn’t mean at all that
you have really solved the problem.
Part of the problem is that normalized western culture, in
which white people have had by far the most powerful say, disguises itself as
‘normal’, when in fact it is extremely culturally specific. That’s why angry
activist types rant about whiteness hiding itself, because they are right.
To use a misogynist, but expressive phrase, the inability by
many white South Africans to acknowledge their/our own privilege and
footdragging about making it an essential part of the diversity discussion is
cockblocking getting anywhere in this debate. If you have been watching, this
is exactly what Helen Zille most needs to deal with in her denialist version of
non-racialism.
In real terms this means that when I stand there in front of
students of all races at one of these ‘diversity’ events I have to be hard on
my own white privilege, and that of the audience, so that the discussion can
continue. This gets awkward, because, while I would really, really like to have
more chilled, relaxed fun humour about ‘diversity’, what I would effectively be
doing is letting our whiteness off its sneaky hook. I, being a part of that
system, cant afford to do that. A black comedian could, perhaps. However, I
being a white guy saying this, with his puppet as a dramatic device (see last
post for THAT discussion), do have a certain impact, because it can, maybe,
create social pressure for other white people to be more reflexive… oh the halo
that I bear.
So here’s my problem. At the one event a white lady with her
“coloured” friend felt I had been too strong in dealing with the students’
white privilege. She said “I had my friend to help me understand that I
benefitted [and am benefitting] from apartheid” (again see last post if you
think this is at all in question. It isn’t.). In other words, we must be
gentler on white people because then they are more likely to get it, as though
black people haven’t been insanely tolerant enough already. And I am not
condoning mindless abuse (trust me, I have had my fair share), or any sort of
generalized idea that you can say anything about white people apart from the
simple fact of privilege.
The trouble is, that’s exactly where this whole rainbow
nation screw up started, people not being frank with white people that yes,
political power has been opened up, but the conversation is far, far from over.
The problem, as always, is that the more I say what white people are
uncomfortable to hear the less they will want to listen, and the more I cushion
it the less honest the conversation becomes.
Don’t get me wrong, there are loads of white people who
completely get it right, in my head-up-my-own-ass-anthropological-opinion, but
then again there are many who do not. In fact there are many black people who
are also oblivious to how apartheid affected their lives, and who have mastered
our prejudices well, ahem, Jimmy Manyi. And, no I do not feel guilty about apartheid, because it really wasn't my choice. How I respond to it, however, is. So, how do we drive a way forward that
builds consciousness, but also builds reconciliation?
I had a senior DA politician tell me he agrees with my main
drive, but that part of the problem is that white people are scared. Let’s call
it the Oscar Pistorius Syndrome. The evidence is overwhelming that they don’t
need to be scared, and to be honest how much time should we be spending
reassuring a section of our population who has been getting special treatment
for 350 years?
So, I still don’t know how to create reconciliation. I
suspect it has something to do with ‘nation building’, but this is now way
above my paygrade. Maybe I should become a veejay, because they seem to know
fucking everything.
* As a footnote, I know Andile Mngxitama would
say, its simple, reconciliation can only happen when we return what was stolen.
I respect and in many ways buy that argument, if not the strategy, but with 6%
the EFF can’t expropriate farms, they can just do timeshare.
* For those of you wanting to go on about ‘reverse
racism’, watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw_mRaIHb-M
