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There is a reason why novelist Thando Mgqolozana’s statements about the unbearable whiteness of the South African literary scene were “shocking”. And not because he said anything new. There is little in antiracist discourse that is new, because the system is pretty much the same.
But things can be shocking when we pretend to be talking about them for the first time, when we conveniently forget. And South Africans are masters at forgetting – and also of talking about “race” instead of white supremacy.
Mgqolozana’s audience at the Franschhoek Literary Festival went there to talk about the role of anger in our lives and literature. “Does anger have moral purpose? Are we an irredeemably angry nation? Or should we just stop being so pissed off all the time?” asked the programme.
A nice, generalised, Kumbaya session. But a question such as “Why are (oppressed) people angry in a violent, white supremacist, hetero, patriarchal, capitalist society?” would have been different. It would also have meant half the crowd wouldn’t have shown up, because we talk about race and anger in a vacuum.
So when Mgqolozana talks about the racist structure of the literary festival model, there is much clutching of pearls because, as he mentioned, “as a black person it’s very hard to say ‘white people’ in front of white people”.
The pussyfooting around the big, ugly issues, wanting to make them comfortable, is how economic freedom is considered “radical”. In fact, we have far from a truly radical, intersectional approach to freedom – one that genuinely wants freedom for all and is willing to give up what privileges existing systems of power afford us (for example, where black men are truly pro-black and reject patriarchy and white liberals are truly antiracist and reject whiteness and capitalism).
We are still being shocked by “racism”. We then come up with interventions that look a lot like the City of Cape Town’s “don’t let racists speak for you” response, which, in fact, didn’t address the underlying structures of racism at all.
The other result of talking about the consequence (race) as if it is the real problem (white supremacy) is we will always be explaining racism.
I will keep writing what feels like the same column. Mgqolozana will keep having to explain why, even in a country with a black government, literary institutions that privilege whiteness are still the norm.
Endless shock begets explanation, and explanations keep us distracted until we meet again next year to talk about “race”.
Follow on Twitter @GugsM
