The reaction from many people to a poster released by the Democratic Alliance Youth (DASO), in which they tried to make a point about the importance of trying to achieve a non-racial society in South Africa, is rather amusing and also quite revealing.
On the one side you have the lunatics (sorry Gareth!) like Connie van der Walt who wrote that if the guy in this picture was her son she would “shoot him dead like a bad dog”. On the other hand, there are those who interpret the poster as subliminally racist, either because it depicts a white and black person in an intimate pose at all, or because (slightly more plausibly) it depicts a white man and a black woman in an intimate pose.
Others have, of course, been outraged by the “disgusting pornography” of it all, given the fact that the two people in the poster appear to be naked from the waist up. (The people who pretend to be shocked by a mild poster like this, are probably not familiar with real pornography and would probably not make good classifiers at the Film and Publications Board.)
What is going on here? I believe (and I would, would I not?), these reactions demonstrate a few revealing things about our communal attitude towards race, sex and gender.
First, it seems to me that these reactions demonstrate the obvious fact that certain opponents of race-based affirmative action, who argue that we should not rely on racial categories when we devise measures to address the effects of past and on-going racial discrimination, are wrong. These critics argue that racial classifications are always morally repugnant, that it is in any case not always easy to determine what the race of a person is, that people who embrace non-racialism might not even see race at all, and that redress can be achieved without invoking such categories as people suffer disadvantage not because of their race but only because of their lack of access to financial and other resources.
I think the poster is rather clever (although DASO probably did not think about this) because no one who sees it will be able to deny that they noticed that the man and the woman in the poster look, well, “different” from each other. How we respond to it will of course depend on our deeply held (and perhaps unexamined or unknown) views on race and sex. We might see a white man once again exploiting a black women (despite the fact that the two people look more or less the same age and are both beautiful), or we might see two heterosexuals who are going to get a lot of flak from their parents, or (I confess this was my first thought) we might wonder whether the white guy is actually going to take his girlfriend home and whether he will one day marry her.
Given this obvious fact, how do people continue to assert that race has stopped mattering in South Africa and that most well-adjusted middle class (white?) people never see race anymore? How can we maintain the fiction that when a black person and a white person apply for the same job, we do not take any notice of the race of the applicants – unless we are forced to do so because of the requirements of affirmative action?
The poster reminds us that (as I have written before):
race hovers not far from the surface in private or other everyday settings: as an unspoken presence, a (wrongly) perceived absence or as a painful, confusing, liberating or oppressive reality in social, economic or other – more intimate – interactions between individuals or between groups of individuals. In South Africa we cannot escape race. We cannot escape our own race. Even when we claim that we have escaped the perceived shackles of race, we are merely confirming its presence by our stated yearning for its absence. And because of this we cannot claim that race does not matter when we talk about redress.
Second, the poster reminds us that many people (of all races) have internalised an apartheid mind-set regarding race, sex and gender and are utterly incapable of seeing intimacy between two people of different races and sexes in anything but starkly racial and gender stereotypical terms. Thus they claim that the poster reflects a racist and/or sexist mind-set because it depicts a white man (a man being the person who supposedly “is always in charge” in a sexual interaction) with a black woman (who is supposedly “always submissive” and to some extent the victim of the man’s sexual aggression).
To such people the thought never seems to have occurred that the women in the poster could be in charge (in charge emotionally, financially and/or physically) and that we cannot tell from the poster whether this is so or not. They have jumped to conclusions (based on their own internalised prejudices and stereotypical assumptions about race and gender and sex) that the woman in the poster is a meek receptor of male aggression. Maybe some have done so because the poster originated with the DA and in that context they are prepared to expect that the DA shares these racial, sexual and gender prejudices. But I would guess most did so because of their own prejudices of which they might not be aware – and not because of their view of the DA.
Lastly, the poster reminds us that many South Africans have internalised a notion of sexuality which has its origins in Judeo-Christian culture. We might call ourselves “Africans” but we often think about sex like modern day Christian missionaries. The assumption underlying the Judeo-Christian tradition is – as Susan Sontag has argued – that a person can be judged as “good” or “bad” (in other words, that a person can be judged as moral or immoral) almost exclusively based on that person’s sexual desires and/or conduct.
Sex is therefore always viewed as a “special case”. While we may not be judged for letting a man starve, we will be judged for wanting to sleep with that man. While a person (of whatever race) may therefore think of him or herself as having no racial prejudices, these prejudices might be flushed out when confronted with a poster that hints at sex between two people of different races. Seeing a black woman in the arms of a white man, the person recoils, either because the picture evokes (in the mind of the racist) unspeakable immoral couplings between the two, or because it evokes (in the mind of the person infected by colonial ideas) images of sexual exploitation of a black woman by a white man.
Leaving aside the white racists, many people would not recoil if he or she saw a picture of black man and a white woman sitting next to each other around a boardroom table. But when they see this picture, they do recoil instinctively because sex, somehow, is different. How ironic that they might then produce arguments that might sound progressive, arguments about the exploitation of black woman, while they are justifying the prejudices which they carry with them, prejudices that can be considered as one of the “special gifts” bestowed on indigenous South Africans by the colonial culture.
Which brings me to the second poster of the DA Youth depicted in this post. What, I wonder, would the reaction be to this poster of two men of different races? Would the same people who recoil at seeing a white man in an intimate situation with a black woman feel comfortable with two men of different races in an intimate situation? If they do not recoil, does this say something about how we construct woman as necessarily passive, powerless and meek? If they do recoil, do they know that their minds have been colonised by the ideas first brought to South Africa by white missionaries? I wonder…
“Given this obvious fact, how do people continue to assert that race has stopped mattering in South Africa and that most well-adjusted middle class (white?) people never see race anymore?”
This is not what non-racialists are asserting. That is a straw man that is very easy to shoot down. Non-racialists who are against affirmative action based on race classification are saying that race still matters _too much_ in South Africa. And that using racial categories to advantage certain groups will only make things worse, i.e. continue to propagate racial/racist mindsets. We are not ignoring the race issue.
The whole point of this poster is 1) that race matters too much in our society and 2) that we should be working towards a future where this isn’t the case. The obvious conclusion is that we should stop thinking in racial terms, which would mean stop classifying people for BEE purposes. How ironic (not to mention illogical) then that you use the reaction to the poster to justify continued racial classification and discrimination.
Bit of a joke really.
I am not sure how one can address the effects of past and ongoing racism (which may be reflected in immediate material deprivation or not) by invoking proxies for race to do so. To address the effects of ongoing racism one needs to use race to address it as proxies like class do not capture the experience of racism which affects both rich and poor black people.
For one thing the DASO has got us all talking about them as opposed to the ANCYL.
Good on them. As a political strategy I think it is brilliant!
PS, the “homo” poster is quite hot. The DASO should use them instead.
Well, my point was about your claim that people who are against AA also assert that “race has stopped mattering in South Africa”. I mainly wanted to show that this is not the case at all and that you are misrepresenting their case. Obviously they would not be advocating non-racialism if they thought race already didn’t matter. It seems my point stands.
Your comment is about the rationale behind AA itself. It seems you divide previously disadvantaged people into two categories – poor and rich, those with “immediate material deprivation” and those without. For the poor people it seems that class would work as a pretty good “proxy”. If we help poor people in general (which is all we should be focusing on the first place), we also help the the poor black people.
Now, you say, the problem with this is that it does not address rich black people’s experience of racism. Well my question is how on earth affirmative action would help them? We have already established that they don’t require any further material advantages (they don’t suffer material deprivation). And surely being offered a position or seeing other black South Africans being offered positions based on their race will do nothing significant to alleviate the racism they experience from certain members in society.
And all this begs the question of why we are looking for “proxies” for _race_ in the first place. As far as I recall the whole point is that race is supposed to be a proxy for disadvantage (this is the argument Max Price uses to defend racial discrimination at UCT).
‘On the one side you have the lunatics(sorry Gareth)…’
I am sure this article will certainly have its intended effect, that of placating and palliating the aggrieved Gareth.
Why are blacks the ones who are always being screwed. Even in the second picture, the black male merely replaced the black woman and the rest seems the same. If one notices, the white male in the second picture looks taller(more dominating) that the black guy. Therefor implying that the white male is the one who is still The Man!
DA is just racist, or at the very least, very careless about race relations in this country.
Interracial relationships from the refreshing perspective of the “new generation”
http://hagenshouse.blogspot.com/
Well Pierre, how are you going to explain your racist poster to khosi?
Well, I am still waiting for another version of the poster with a black stallion and a blonde.
OB
Something is not right here but I can’t figure out what it is for now. I will rely on you to umask this topic.
The police don’t take nonsense from “suspects” in LA!:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2091277/Police-shoot-man-10-times-Carls-Jr-parking-lot.html
“First, it seems to me that these reactions demonstrate the obvious fact that certain opponents of race-based affirmative action, who argue that we should not rely on racial categories when we devise measures to address the effects of past and on-going racial discrimination, are wrong.”
Perhaps in your little CRT brainwashed brain. So according to your pomo rubbish “logic” race consciousness can only be cured with more racism. You make me want to laugh – if only it was not so fucken funny. How did you get your cush job at UCT Pierre, it could certainly not have been because of affirmative action.?
“that it is in any case not always easy to determine what the race of a person is,”
It certainly is not. The Nats invented the “pencil test” for that. Your loving, embracing, multiracial DA couple will probably have a “Coloured” kid. Do you like that word Pierre. COLOURED. Not African, not White – when he applies for a job in he will probably have to stand back for a real African. Is that the “nonracial” South Africa you want for your kids to grow up in? Oh I forgot – self-obsessed hedonists probably despise kids – will never have any either, how convenient is that.
Racism will not be defeated until their is socio economic equality. That’s a given. But no good comes from legislating race. And the dangers are slowly surfacing more and more as the policy continues.
I agree with Sanman. I used to hold your view, but no longer. (Some of your past writings were more circumspect on this issue, but you seem to have moved in the opposite direction to me.)
Instead I agree with Neville Alexander that we can have affirmative action by other means. In one’s considerations one would look at what the person’s classification was under apartheid if they were classified by the population reg act of the time. Those born after, one would look at many factors, including what their parents were classified as.
But race creates a toxic mix of nationalism, not to mention all the moral hazards, and fronting, and repeated enrichment of certain individuals and blindness to the new elite’s co-option etc
Legislate against racism and use the Eqality Courts more when people suffer prejudice.
So its a serious battle to be waged on two fronts.
Gwebecimele -
“… waiting for another version of the poster with a black stallion and a blonde”
That would fall under “bestiality”. Unless, of course, the “blonde” was a mare.
That said, I think I’ll wait for Zdenek Vajdak’s take on the topic under discussion before commenting further.
Hayibo summed it up very nicely. http://www.hayibo.com/da-students-pledge-fight-against-immorality-act/
I wonder if Bennetton will sue.
Khosi is right. The poster manifests clearly the inherent RACISM of the DA. Apart from the fact that the whitish man is taller, notice that the African lady (who is clearly bracing to be raped), is on the RIGHT – subtly implying that blacks are conservative. In sum, the brutal juxtaposition unmistakably inscribes the passive “swoon” demanded of colonised Africans by willy-nilly whitish colonialists. You would have to be an idiot not to see that.
Thanks.
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Politics/DA-poster-about-white-supremacy-Cosatu-20120125
Gwebecimele says:
January 25, 2012 at 16:35 pm
Well, I am still waiting for another version of the poster with a black stallion and a blonde.
Gwebs, blondes don’t like black stallions – but, that doesn’t mean, er, er, er, … just look at some of the the sports stars’ hauls … blondes are , er, er, er …
khosi
January 25, 2012 at 16:26 pm
Eish Khosi,
“If one notices, the white male in the second picture looks taller(more dominating) that the black guy.”
What have you got against short Black guys?
Maybe you have a point – there was one powerful short Black guy but he did not dominate for long. They fired his ass!
Chris (Not the right wing guy)
January 25, 2012 at 16:32 pm
Hey Right Wing Guy,
“Well Pierre, how are you going to explain your racist poster to khosi?”
Guess who’s the Black guy in the poster???
I think there is a real sickness in SA around racism, a sickness that can run one to despair. I was married to a woman of color before she died. We had three wonderful children, all now successful adults. It was during a period in the US where numerous states would have had us arrested for travelling in the same car together. In SA following the transition I felt safe to come here, met a woman (again of colour) and have been living together with our child for twelve years, in a dorp which at the beginning of our relationship was noticeably disturbed by our presence. There was only one other interracial couple at the time and they lived in the appendixed township, not the Dorp.
Today, my partner received a phone call at work while she was feeding 35 children in their libraries food program, food I supplied, and harassed her for her relationship with me, a white man, and this from a white english speaking woman. Following the call a long mms was received detailed all the horrible things this woman saw in her mind about my partner. What hope is there for SA if this racial nonsense continues, strongly perpetuated I feel by government for self serving reasons, whereas gov’t should be acting creatively and dynamically like DASO, encouraging the public to end this abhorrent pigmented separation, not endorse and strengthen it.
I applaud DASO, and I applaud Zille for staying mum on the students brilliant creativity. Good on her for trusting her young people. If this poster’s importance can’t be recognized and praised, then perhaps said complainants are openly admitting their racism.
SA racists need to get a life and be part of the modern world.
The DA poster of a so called “white” man and so called “black” lady in naked embrace, does not come without it’s typical stereotyping :
Why not a “Black” man and a “White” lady, because that was the jist and essence of apartheid in a nutshell.
Through the known and unknown history “white” men have always had flings be it forced or however with “black” women, yet the thought of so called white ladies dating black men, is still a bitter pill to swallow by some in DA and SA embrace, hence they must tread careful and will not show that for they will offend this constituency.
For many of us, it’s people finding one another beyond and free from the false entrapments of race. This is how many of us were produced. Grow the mixed race, for we need to rule this country and the world one day soon.
Has anyone noticed that that DASO’s so-called “black” lady has distinctly “whitish” features, pert little nose, straight hair an’ all? DASO: How about photographing your whitish hunk in nude embrace with an big-bosomed, fat-bummed mama with a doek on her head?
Thanks.
Blacks and whites are having sex together every day in sunny South Africa.
Ok, it’s at gunpoint but it’s still sex.
I see in the metrosexual picture that the black guy seems to be holding a gun (hidden by the logo).
OK, it’s the white guys “gun”, but a gun is a gun. What a stereotype !
What I see in the first poster is that “Love is blind”. The 2 people love each other for the person they see in each other. Some people in South Africa need to “grow up”, and stop seeing everything in black and white. We do not have to define ourselves in terms of a “race” because of an “affirmative action” policy that requires it. It is a pitty that Pierre De Vos tries to justify and still encourage a falls human ideology like race classification, in order to segregate (apartheid) people, and by this telling that some people are better than others. That is why we started the activist group People Against Race Classification to encourage South Africans to love and tolerate each other, regardless of skin colour.
For more info on racial classification, please go to http://www.parcsa.co.za/Mixed Marriage page. Buy our PARC T-shirts: I’m not a Coloured, Black, Indian or White person. I am a SOUTH AFRICAN.
sirjay jonson
January 25, 2012 at 20:44 pm
Hey Sirjay,
“I applaud DASO, and I applaud Zille for staying mum on the students brilliant creativity.”
Yeah – the students creativity is indeed brilliant.
Hot on the heels of the R50 000 “prize” for HIV testing comes naked people who “wouldn’t look twice” (whatever that phrase means).
“Our future” is defined by naked people in carnal poses – that’s very brilliant.
I can think of some interesting titles for that brilliant poster – “service delivery”, “local is lekker”, “equal opportunities society”, “why be a kitchen girl when you can be the mistress”, …
THE BATTLE OF UCT!!!!
http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=276986&sn=Detail&pid=71616
“We might call ourselves “Africans” but we often think about sex like modern day Christian missionaries. The assumption underlying the Judeo-Christian tradition is – as Susan Sontag has argued – that a person can be judged as “good” or “bad” (in other words, that a person can be judged as moral or immoral) almost exclusively based on that person’s sexual desires and/or conduct.”
First, stop calling yourself African. You are not. Second, this is complete nonsense. Christians are taught to make judgements based on discernment. This includes discerning the character of persons, of which, sexual conduct is, generally, a small, but not insignificant, constituent.
PdV, I’m sure you’re a fine fellow but we should be honest: your life is a cautionary tale. You ought not be encouraging students to follow the liberationist path you did. Not being able to see that, calls your character into question more than your personal sexual conduct.
Big ups to DASO for raising RELEVANT issues.
I have not seen any official response from their “main opposition”, or perhaps they are too busy fighting for their political survival.
Be that as it may, South Africans can properly debate this issue…who knows we might even find common ground!
Dmwangi, why is PdV not an African? I believe he was born here and has South African citizenship. But maybe you view is similarly that a black person can nevery be Europeaun, even if his or her family has lived in Europe for generations?
I find the strong reactions to this poster totally over the top. It is two young people embracing, so what? You see none of the “bad” body parts, for all we know they are fully dressed from the waste down. And even if they are not, so what? I agree it might have been more striking with a white woman and a black man but that is only based on the prejudices of the onlookers. And for Khosi’s issue with the black guy being maybe one or two centimeters shorter than the white guy, get a life!
Maggs is right. This repulsive image shamelessly promotes inter-racial transmission of HIV/AIDS. No doubt, Madame Zille will bribe these horny hotties big bucks to take a “test” after they have completed their act of miscegenative mischief.
Maggs, will you help me fund an urgent application to the Equality Court? And will you join my demand that Democratic Alliance Adult League (DAAL) impose the harshest discipline on its ribald Youth?
wot about some white on black lesbo action… pant pant….
I wonder if a case can be made in th CC to declare Apartheid style racial classification unconstitutional. I want to encourage all South Africans to stop classifying themselves by refusing to complete this irrelevant and degrading racist bio shite when filling out institutional forms.
ozoneblue says:
January 26, 2012 at 10:06 am
This time, at least, you make sense.
Maggs & Gwebe: What do you say lies behind the DA’s publishing of this vile pornography? Is it pure RACISM? Or is there some darker agenda? And what next? Will the next shot show the Caucasian hunk splashing his whitish emanate over the face of his African subordinate?
@mdf
lol
The DA is simply insensitive and ignorant of the dynamics of our society (which is not surprising because it panders to its constituency of mostly ignorant middle classes who are insulated from reality by their cultural dominance and money). They would never have dreamt of using a black man (not the dreadlocked advertising type but a clearly working class black dude like the hard working taxi driver or construction worker) with a pretty English or Afrikaans lass. That would cause an outrage amongst their mostly racist core constituency, you see. It’s a bit like US movies, where in having a multiracial couple where the man is black and the woman white is a kiss of death for the mostly racist and conservative consuming public.
An interesting phenomenon, which shows the need for black consciousness is the tendency to see our transformed Africans in multiracial relationships who (if it’s a woman) will date an old wrinkled white fellow (who is broke) simply because he is white (whilst the lady would never do the same if the fella was black) and in the case of black dudes, seeing him dating and fawning over an unattractive white woman simply because she is white; as though affirming their “arrival” (strangely multiracial couples tend to have a need to announce to even strangers that they are dating/married to a black or a white, as though their respective racism is cured thereby). On this very topic, the most interesting example of the raging racism and primitive nature of our Caucasian compatriots is this tendency of white ladies to only date black man who are extremely wealthy (unless the lady n question has succumbed to debilitating drug habits) and the infantile tendency of salt-of-the-earth “karels” to want to protect their women-folk from the (even welcomed) advances of black men, by violence if necessary (yet, amusingly, as soon as they presume you to be the right type of black, ask you with a wink that you “hook up some black chicks” because “they are hotter and more exciting than white chicks”; provided of course it is done a safe distance away from the old St Johns or whatever crowd!).
What is necessary is to find a government with sufficient balls to redistribute wealth rigorously, on objective terms to year zero, so that we start at the same point. Those who were directly or indirectly affected by apartheid (educationally, spiritually, culturally, materially, etc) must be granted a higher factor of wealth than those who benefited (actuaries could come up with an interesting formula). So the poor dude would receive, for e.g. in year zero, a government rebate amounting to the amount foregone by five hundred years of European rapaciousness (including delictual costs for all losses) and those who benefited from the vile system of white supremacist thinking and policy must be super-taxed in year zero such an amount as reflects their corrupt benefits from apartheid and colonialism. Only then can racial classifications (post year zero be removed).
We need radical programs not posters!
How insulting (the poster of the two fellas). The raging racism of the creator of the poster has ensured that the white fella be depicted in an assertive manner (facing head-on your gazing eyes, whereas the darker fella is depicted as the “feminine”, i.e. fawning over the wholesome “karel”). Why is the black fella not in charge, dominant, the rapacious player extraordinaire!!! Why is he thinner and wearing earrings? Certainly because the creator of the poster is a raging racist!!! Whomever it be presumes black folk to be nothing but the chattels and play things of the dominant Caucasian race! Only useful as sexual partners in circumstances where they are the submissive. Why not show a black executive banging a submissive white plumber? Why not show a black ruffian or plumber banging a wholesome tannie?
Here is the latest on corruption. BLOW THE WHISTLE.
http://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/
@ Vuyo
“What is necessary is to find a government with sufficient balls to redistribute wealth rigorously, on objective terms to year zero, so that we start at the same point”
Vuyo, I must agree with your that DASO is utterly out of touch. But when you say that we must return economically to”year zero”, do you mean 1652? If so, I fear that the appalling wealth divide we have today may not be addressed by turning back the clock. Were not the Dutch colonialists, as they stepped ashore in Table Bay, already much wealthier, by the standards/valuations of their day, than Africans? On the other hand, would your proposal not make every one of the relatively few surviving direct descendants of the Khoi and San into multi-millionaires, by giving them perhaps 50% of SA’s resources?
@vuyo
Good CRT argument there brother. Lets go back to year 0 when your forefathers drove my forefathers out of Africa and stole our land.
Very relevant questions from Vuyo.
“a white man (a man being the person who supposedly “is always in charge” in a sexual interaction) with a black woman (who is supposedly “always submissive” and to some extent the victim of the man’s sexual aggression).”
I am not sure if PdV is cleary representing proper roles in a sexual relationships. One gay once complained that his patner is refusing to swap roles something which is unlikely among straight couples(more of a Jockey and a horse set up). MAY BE this equality of roles is only applicable to gay relationships.
Shame.
Vuyo really thinks apartheid caused all of his problems:
“What is necessary is to find a government with sufficient balls to redistribute wealth rigorously, on objective terms to year zero, so that we start at the same point. Those who were directly or indirectly affected by apartheid (educationally, spiritually, culturally, materially, etc) must be granted a higher factor of wealth than those who benefited (actuaries could come up with an interesting formula).”
“So that we start at the same point…”??????
Why did “his” people only start in 1652, or 1910, or 1948, or whenever?????
I thought all people were “created” at the same. What did “his” people then do before white people arrived at the scene?
Why did they only start on 27 April 1994?
Vuyo, don’t you think that you are over-analysing the two posters (the latter, by the way, is apparently not by DASO but a spoof – or so I have read)? Of course, if your point of view is strong enough, you can analyse a racial/genderbased/what-ever-based slight into anything. So, if it was a white woman with a black man, one could maybe see it as an analogy of the “madam-type” women like Helen Zille and her male concubinate (as her cabinet was at some point referred to). As I said to Khosi, get a life!
@ RickySA
With respect, you are in denial over the RACISM that afflicts the DA and everything it touches. Or, are you, like Maggs, the DA “stooge” on this blog?
Thanks.
Michael, I can assure you that I am not a DA “stooge”. I am not aware of being in denial with respect to – or even aware of – “the RACISM that afflicts the DA and everything it touches”.
Vuyo, I looked at the “gay poster” again. How can you see that the black guy is thinner than the white guy, if anything his chest seems more developed and his shoulders and arms quite similar. And if you think there is anything feminin in the earring the black guy is wearing then you have not really followed popular culture: Having a large “diamond” stud is part of the hip-hop or gangsta or rapper or whatever (I am a bit too old to know exactly) culture that is very popular among young men (in particular young men of colour, I believe), both in SA, the US and other places, and you would probably not be advised to refer to this as feminine when around adherents of this fashion trend.
Dmwangi says:
January 26, 2012 at 5:41 am
“First, stop calling yourself African. You are not.”
Interesting yet predictable comment. As I said the hierarchy of entitlement in this Black nationalist framework is then first the African as based on some arbitrary race identification and then all the “others”. This then fits in neatly with PdV/UCT et al Critical Race Theory where the African then assumes the role of the perpetual martyr or victim of “White supremacy”. You do get slight variations on this theme – for example when discussing Northern Africa with Black nationalists in USA and up north of our borders the “other” are the racist Arabs who despite also being black and having been in Africa since the 8th century are still not considered to be quite African enough.
@PdV
“Lastly, the poster reminds us that many South Africans have internalised a notion of sexuality which has its origins in Judeo-Christian culture. We might call ourselves “Africans” but we often think about sex like modern day Christian missionaries. The assumption underlying the Judeo-Christian tradition is”
Have you ever heard of the saying about living in glasses houses. I was under the impression you called Jacob Zuma a sexist [Zulu] pig. Then you never let go of an opportunity to take a swipe at his “many wifes”. Perhaps you are just as White as Antie Zille in your condescending attitude towards tradition African customs?
Have you contemplated the ethical origins of your insufferable guilt complex, the notion of collective punishment such as “taxes on Whites” and quaint Judeo-Christian concepts including the visitation of the sins of the forefathers on the children and subsequent generations?
http://www.wordbasedcounseling.org/Articles/SinsOfTheForefathers.htm
[...] African constitutional law scholar Pierre de Vos has a fascinating analysis of the controversy here. He argues that the thought never seems to have occurred [to critics] that the women in the poster [...]
I wonder what professional Black will have to say about this one:
“I would like to lay out a few things others of all races should know about ‘Indian’ people.
1. We are not Indian. Our race may be stated as ‘Indian’ on official documents, but we are South African. Most of our families have been in this country for up to seven generations. Most of us have not even been to India. The term ‘Indian’ is for (ugh) classification purposes. I personally do not like being referred to as another nationality entirely just because of my heritage. I am as South African as wors. Also, there is a difference between ‘Indian’ and ‘Muslim’. Islam is a religion. ‘Indian’ is a nationality. Some Muslims do come from India. Some Hindus come from Pakistan.
2. Not all of us are Hindu. We may come from a country where majority of people are Hindu, but, like all over the world, we all have different practices. Christianity hit India long before the British decided we’re better farmers than them. (Unfortunately for them, we’re also better at cricket.) Some of us are Buddhist, Baha’i, Christian, Muslim and even (gasp) atheist. Don’t expect Diwali goodies from all of us.
3. We don’t all cook, and we don’t all eat curry or hot food. I buy roti at Spar. Making briyani is beyond me. And some of us do eat beef and pork. And we do not appreciate an introduction followed by “I had a great curry the other night.” I don’t care what you eat. Don’t associate the colour of my skin with food. I don’t say to white people “I had really bland food the other day” and expect them to relate.”
http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/2012/01/09/the-mystical-nature-of-the-indian-south-african
I guess the standard CRT response would be that facts don’t matter. As long as there is one subjective narrative of some hyper-sensitive Black soul who experienced racism at the the hands of an “Indian”.
The “free market” rejects DA multiracial posters in NWU-PUK. What a surprise. LOL>
“NWU-PUK GAAN NIE OMSTREDE PLAKKAAT VERSPREI
By Abrie Bronkhorst
2012-01-27 01:00
Die opspraakwekkende werwingsplakkaat van die DA nasionale jeugliga. Hewige reaksie is ontlont nadat ‘n plakkaat van die DA studenteorganisasie (Daso) om ‘n bewustheid vir die organisasie te skep, die lig gesien het. Horde gebruikers van die sosiale netwerk Facebook het gegons oor dié werwingsplakkaat waarop ’n wit man en swart vrou met kaal bolywe mekaar omhels. Die slagspreuk op die plakkaat lei: “In ons toekoms sal jy nie twee keer kyk nie.” Die plakkate sou van Maandag af op elke kampus in die land opgesit word. Daar sou ook glo strooibiljette met dieselfde foto en boodskap daarop uitgedeel word. Mnr. Makashule Gana, DA-jeugleier het glo gesê hy sal die plakkaat verdedig met alles wat hy het. Volgens hom maak mense ’n onnodige bohaai oor twee halfkaalmense op die plakkaat. Die doel van die plakkaat is glo om mense te laat dink hoe die toekoms kan lyk waar ras nie ’n kwessie is nie. “Dis ’n veldtog wat deur die DA se nasionale jeug van stapel gestuur is. is,” sê ’n woordvoerder van Daso van die NWU-Puk. “Ons het wel die plakkate ontvang, maar as gevolg van ’n gesamentlike besluit van die provinsiale leier, provinsiale jeugstrukture asook die LP-kiesafdeling en die provinsiale direkteur het ons besluit om nie die plakkate te versprei nie. Ons teikenmark gaan nie by hierdie plakkate baatvind nie.” Intussen het ds. Theunis Botha, leier van die Christen-Demokratiese Party (CDP) in ‘n verklaring gesê is daar talle ander maniere waarop die DA sy nie-rassige ideaal kon uitdruk, anders as deur ’n plakkaat wat die boodskap van seksuele losbandigheid uitdra. “Dié plakkaat is walglik en ’n belediging vir talle jong mense, wit en swart, wat ‘n hoë premie op moraliteit plaas,” luui die verklaring.”
http://www.potchefstroomherald.co.za/13237/news-details/nwu-puk-gaan-nie-omstrede-plakkaat-versprei
This is better than posters for DA supporters. Malema need these supporters for the next Economic Freedom March.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/world/2012/01/28/naked-ukrainian-protesters-detained-in-davos
OB
Were you part of this march?
http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2012/01/30/not-black—so-turned-away-from-university
Gwebecimele says:
January 30, 2012 at 14:05 pm
No one seems to see the irony… white people painting themselves black to protest against their alleged exclusion on racial grounds…
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=163620
Gwebecimele
January 30, 2012 at 14:05 pm
No I wasn’t but i would understand and be supportive if my son exercised his right to a freedom of expression and his democratic responsibility to express his disgust with a racist and immoral system.
“Young people who were born from 1993 onwards should not be subjected to racially driven policies. They deserve a fair chance and are stripped of their dignity when they are placed in racial categories,” said Oberholzer.”
This is truly pathetic. Pretty fucking disgusting. A crying shame:
“AfriForum Youth said in a statement they represent some 30 prospective students who collectively earned 190 distinctions in Matric, but were turned away by the university’s Veterinary Science Faculty owing to “poor academic performance”.”
“Places are even reserved for international students while white South Africans who earned between seven and nine distinctions are turned away,” added Oberholzer.”
Jansen: Employers dismayed by graduates’ lack of basic skills
http://mg.co.za/article/2012-01-19-graduates-lack-of-skills-affect-workplace-says-jansen/
Who wrote this???
Is it an unexamined assumption?
“men has both financial and physical power over their wives and act like tyrants and expect their wives to serve and obey them”
Can I say- if you have any service delivery problems, contact your Local Da pimp/ councilor? Politically inspired ethnic amalgamation is the opposite pole of apartheid. What happened about freedom of choice, association and privacy? I have a right not to get involve with any other ethnic group, as per freedom of choice. It’s farfetched unethical to even try and measure racial integration with ethnic amalgamation. In Sa, we are integrated, from 1985 with 3 chamber parliament. Think about coloureds and indians having the vote from 1985, before making methane gas propaganda about a subject. It is schyzophrenic to consider yourself socially ‘white’ and politically ‘black’. Hans Richardt