Delft, 3 February 2011

Dear …,

I read your article on moralizing the issue of racism and how that could lead to problems in society. It is a nicely written piece and shows true concern. Thanks to you for sharing. As I was reading, I developed a few of my own ideas to add to your objective viewpoints. With your kind permission I would like to enter the debate with this response:

Allow me to briefly define racism from my own viewpoint. In your article, you refer to the healthy faculty of discriminating between masses of sensory data when meeting people, and the act of stereotyping. We automatically assess someone’s appearance in order to anticipate what they might do, and what you should expect of them. I think that those are essential social tools, and I would proffer that has in fact nothing to do with racism at all. This is inherent human behaviour that need not be defended.

You mention that in the time before modern migration of peoples and due to the geographic separation of populations, racism was endorsed as a norm. I would like to add, that at various times in history, for instance in the time of slavery, the legal and social status of people ran tightly along the same lines as their ethnic semblance. This made easy work of people assessing. Even clothing was fairly uniform: everyone wore hemp overalls in the country in America; in the city everyone wore a grey suit and hat. It is only in the more recent era of global trends, marketing and celebration of the individual, that the differences between us in apparel are less subtle and get more attention. Static factors like skin colour, thickness of lips, or the slant of someone’s shoulders become redundant when assessing in which way we will be impressed by someone we meet. The way they walk tells you more about them. But it still doesn’t make you a racist.

I think that when we think we being are confronted with ‘colour’ differences, we are actually reacting to culture and level of education. It just so happens that large numbers of a particular ethnic group ended up with similar opportunities in life due to political history. Thus one sees the same traits in many of their ethnically related “brothers”. Take one such Khayelitsha kid at 18 months, transfer to a wealthy Parisian family, educate him at the Sorbonne, he will forget he ever ate Bunny Chow from a plastic bag, and in 20 years we will all be saying ‘sir’.

Racism on the other hand, is a base idea, which offers no debate. Racism is prejudice about skin colour and/or ethnicity only, and is practiced by idiots who are not trying to think otherwise, who are not trying to separate the moral from the judgemental. They are not trying anything – they are smug. A racist hangs out in on the fringe of society and will never enter any debate with you, nor will he question his own standpoint. Racists don’t seek reason, fairness or objectivity, or investigate their own behavioural patterns. They are at a social and intellectual dead end.

Stereotyping and discrimination, however, carry a healthy social function in life, as you point out clearly. Add each new person you meet to your own vast inner data base of who’s who, to maximize self-preservation and success. We would be stupid not to do that; it would even be unthinkable to not do that!

Why am I not phased by skin colour? Because it is an un-changeable factor (unless you’re Michael Jackson). Unchangeable factors like that add no extra value when attempting to understand how a person has developed in their life and what you should be looking out for. Crucial factors are clothing, props, type of car, context, setting… and accent: these are vital if you’d like to know if you will be conjugating verbs while speaking, or if engagement will be functional or recreational. Skin colour offers no extra information when exercising discrimination. Whereas quality of skin perhaps may tell us a lot.

This past January, I was sitting in a window seat on a flight to Joburg from Amsterdam. Next to me sat a large, fleshy African in his late-thirties. He wore an old pair of Pepe Jeans and a generic t-shirt with random logo. Other than the crumpled, unobtrusive financial section of a British newspaper in his hand, nothing led on to him being more than a trolley-boy lost on a plane. As it turned out, the man was from Pretoria and was just quickly checking on his Gauteng-based marketing company. He was currently living in Norway, and his three children were being schooled at a Norwegian-language school in Oslo. He had recently taken them on a 5-week hiking trip through the Chinese countryside, during which they took only local forms of transport so that they could get a proper notion of the Chinese rural population. He himself was raised in “Ian Smith’s Rhodesia”, in the city of Bulawayo, as he put it himself. In a time when Rhodesia had a self-respecting civil infrastructure, with clinics and libraries full of Enid Blyton’s books. “Nowadays,” he told me “children reject the idea of a fixed narrative.” I was blown away. Why, actually, was I so impressed? Because, based on expectations defined by his clothing, accent and general mannerism, I had anticipated something else when I first saw him.  If the man had on slightly better clothes and was catching a pub-lunch in London’s financial district, I would have perhaps expected what I got. With this story I would like to emphasize that it is clothing, props and setting that assist in gauging the quality and success of engagement with someone, and not their skin colour. Even when we make a false judgement.

…, you defend your so-called racial tendencies elegantly. You go on to say that we should admit to “feeling different about people”. From my perspective, I think it is perfectly acceptable to admit to applying tools of discrimination to daily life, and to ‘feeling differently about people’, without having to proudly brand one’s self a part-time racist. I feel a certain way about my neighbour’s dodgy gardener, and another way about the Kenyan businesswoman I met last week, who would put any educated white male to shame with her wit and wisdom. I don’t have to commit to her; she doesn’t have to be “my type” or my drinking buddy, but I can appreciate and respect her for who she is. But even if you can admit to feeling differently about people, I don’t think you are a racist at all. Going that far, in my view, is taking a step too many.

Imagine you are sitting at a café in… a nice neighbourhood, and you see a beautiful blond woman. She’s fabulous, she looks intelligent and you are inspired. She smiles at you, and you have half an hour to kill. Feeling confident you pull up a chair and offer her a cup of coffee. She opens her mouth… and she speaks English like an Afrikaans farmer from Rustenburg. Then you notice the tobacco stains under the fingernails, and a slight waft of Witblits comes your way. I think you will be feeling differently about her pretty quickly.

I think, frankly, that the issue of racism is obsolete. It’s the shortest debate ever: there isn’t one. Reverse-racism is more painful: it’s in somebody else’s head! This might cause us to stop and consider our own automated thought patterns, at best. At worst, it evokes irritation, and can make one defensive, or even angry.

But I believe that those people are not racists either: What they really want to know, is if individuals descended from previously advantaged cultural groups due to systems like Apartheid, or its American equivalent, still profit from this cultural and political inheritance. The “previously disadvantaged” ethnic groups are painfully aware of it being easy for us (whiteys) to gain merit from our history without making personal effort. We live in an era where these issues are in the spotlight. WE are in the spot light. And it’s all in the attitude. Have we, from our position of relative luxury, at least offered someone the opportunity to grow? Do we show concern in sharing a social context with others, all in suspended state of economic fluctuation? Do we make use of our personal circle of influence to help others improve along with ourselves? We are in no personal obligation, but I am sure that we all do, to some personal extent, our best. I cannot imagine otherwise. I don’t think that we need defend that fact. (At least, we employ people in and around our house, and pay our taxes; heaven knows what they do with it.)

I agree with you that ‘moralising the issue’ will not improve the debate. Exercising tools of discernment on culture, group identity and levels of education are warranted for any meeting, no matter how fleeting. This is especially true in South Africa, with its many different peoples and the myriad of backgrounds and social heritage.  Morals do not come into it, and do indeed mar a clear view on what the actual issue is. Add to this, that however one may practice discernment, judgement of the same is purely optional.

With kind regards,

Amber Cozzi-Nowak

Delft, Netherlands.

03 February 2011