MIKESTOPFORTH

Yes, you heard me right.  I am a racist.  And I venture to suggest that you might be too, if you’re honest with yourself about it.

Recent events in South Africa have, to borrow Jenny Crwys-Williams of Talk Radio 702′s phrase, “lanced a boil” filled with putrid racist muck, and the contents are spilling out over everyone.

While listening to one of the many debates raging over extremists Malema, Terre’Blanche and everyone inbetween, I started thinking about racism. What it means, what it is and just how big a role prejudice plays in my own life. It’s at times like this that I cannot avoid asking of myself, “what example do you set, where do you stand and how can you contribute positively to this situation”.

In discussion with a good friend over lunch the other day, he challenged me when our conversation drifted to examining what roles we would have played if we had been born 25 years earlier, and found ourselves responsible, mature white South African adults faced with the reality of Apartheid at it’s ugliest. Would I have been a vocal activist against the atrocities or would I have chosen to pretty much ignore the situation, like so many good South Africans did. As the saying goes, all that needs to happen for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.

I have some strong opinions about racism, opinions I want to share with you and hear your thoughts about. Some of them might not be easy to hear but I trust you’ll hear my heart and understand my intentions.

I think racism is a disease, and a hereditary one at that. My son, at 5 years of age, does not make any distinction between himself and his good friend Tsepelo. He does not see colour. He doesn’t know (yet) that black people are supposed to be worse at keeping to appointments (“Africa Time”) – and I’m using the most harmless example of prejudice I can think of – because he hasn’t been told yet. Every single negative thing I’ve ever ‘known’ about black people has been injected in my mind by some joke, jibe or sideways comment, and choosing to listen or repeat that means I am electively racist. I used to think all black people drove badly because all taxi drivers are black and they all drive badly, right? That was until I took a cab in New York… It turns out cab drivers are bad drivers, not black drivers.

Sometimes I’ve heard racism in the fears and deepest concerns of those closest to me, and how can I blame my father when he himself inherited this disgusting disease from his ancestors and propagandist breeding grounds like the army? I know for a fact the exposure my dad has had to black people and black culture at work, and the fact that my mom teaches at a government school where 99% of the kids are black, has changed both their perspectives on black people remarkably. But still traces remain – the same traces that are buried deep down in my heart, as much as I have tried very consciously to dispel them.

Despite the tectonic shift in our country’s reality in 1994, racism can not be obliterated in a day, or a month, or even a year. Deep-seated racism and racist prejudices, be they white against black or vice versa, will take generations to eliminate, and even then you’ll still likely have extremists on either end of the spectrum. Racism is a rusty blade that was thrust deep into the heart of our country through years of slavery, discrimination and Apartheid, and even though many of us – the majority of us – try to heal the wound every day a small minority on either side insists on picking the scab, agitating the infection – the infection that diseases all of us.

How then do we overcome? I want to believe that my children will grow up in a South Africa, in a world, where racism is a memory and not a reality, but I know in my heart of hearts that is not a possibility. Maybe their children, and even more likely their grand-children, will hopefully get a taste of a world like that. A good practical example of this is the contentious issue of transformation in SA sports. Honestly – until we allow one or two generations of young black sportsmen and women to rise up the ranks through equal opportunity and recognition of their natural talents, teams will continue to be chosen on colour and not on merit (which is the issue people have with transformation). When we’ve achieved that, 90% of players in teams (rugby, cricket or soccer) will be black. Not because of their skin, because of their ability and the ratio of black to white people in our country. This is pure logic. The point I’m making is that transformation happens in 2, 3 or maybe 4 generations. Not in one team selection meeting, for crying out loud.

I believe the key to overcoming racism is admitting that we can’t do it in one day, or with one TRC, or with one vote. The first step to dealing with our own prejudices will be admitting they exist, which brings me back to the title of this post. I am a racist – I admit it. I bear the scars, the disease, the infection of our past. All my friends inherited it. My children will too. The clincher is what we choose to do with the disease – whether we let it overrun us, or whether we take ARV’s (Anti-Racist Virals :)) to combat it daily. I don’t wan’t to be a racist. Nor do you. So do something about it with me.

Do an exercise for me – take the Implicit Association Test (or IAT) for racism. I discovered the IAT while reading Malcolm Gladwell’s fascinating book Blink. The test seeks to examine our racist prejudices, even the sub-conscious ones. See how you do. Then tell me if you, like me, are in fact a racist in recovery.

I believe the cure to the disease is exposure, connection and relationship. Like Edward Norton’s character in the powerful movie Amrican History X, so often our fears and misconceptions about each other are dispelled when we seek to spend time with each other. Soon our differences become things to celebrate, not mock.

I’m writing this because I don’t think the way to fight racism is by ignoring it. I think we need to face our fears head on, confess our own short-comings, and get our hands dirty in fixing it. I’d like you to hold me accountable in my journey to health, and I trust you’ll share your opinions and thoughts in this regard as you do.