Wikipedia says “white privilege is a way of conceptualizing racial inequalities that focuses as much on the alleged advantages that white people accrue from society as on the alleged disadvantages that people of color experience”. Now if one is to take our history from colonization throughout to the apartheid system you would see that racial inequalities were guaranteed to the advantage of the white man and his family at the disadvantage of the black African.
For me , as a child born in the 80’s who grew up to see the political structure of apartheid crumble. I remember associating white privilege with the good life as seen on tv, the surburbs, the private schools, the malls around your corner, the freedom to be who want to be without restriction. That was my concept of white privilege in 80’s and early 90’s .How was this communicated to me , through television, through the movies and more importantly through geo – graphical spaces one occupied. From Naledi to Jane First from Jane First to Jourberton to Mafikeng (Mafikeng which was slightly different from the other areas) it was never said but one could see it.”WE” had our “lives” and “they” had “their lives”. Advertising and TV re-emphasized this, the more expensive and “better products” were always targeted at white ,we had “our black products” . Black programming on tv hardly reflected the township or even rural lives of our people. Whilst programs like Die Swart kart and co showed a suburban world where everything was perfect and no black people existed, if they did they were at the peripheral.
Now post 94’ in the Madiba years and after, with the birth of the rainbow nation one would think that would change. That perception of superiority that PW Botha would preach from parliament would finally crumble down to reveal that underneath the skin we are all human. That advertising would start reflecting the South Africa we live in better. That waiters would smile at you as they used to smile at the old missies and the baas happy that our fellow Africans can now afford to be patrons in the restaurants. But yet the more things change the more they stay the same.
The privileges from the apartheid era have continued with little to no change. Due to the economic history of our country , advertising and business is still controlled by white interests and reflects white interest.ie Check out television today and see in a country with about 44 million black African how much of the prime time ads reflect that? From the Lories, to the Independent Producers Organization the scales are tipped to the white man.See how advertising and TV is still trying to perpetuate apartheid stereotypes of trying to figure programming and products around race.Mnet will try to claim that its market is mainly white while theres thousand more black people who own DSTV than white folks then SABC ! would try to perpetuate the myth that SABC 1 is a Zulu channel whilst its very popular with a lot of different language groups and espicially young black folks who don’t have DSTV.
The shamefull part is when Africans perpetuate this privilege by giving preferential treatment to the white lady at the aisle or the restaurant. Then you are treated as if they are doing you a favour when you are all spending the same money. Another shameful aspect of this collaboration of perpetuating white privilege is seen when Africans buy into “white marketing” and those who gain means do not open up doors for others to move on up. What do I mean by white marketing, if you look at popular culture at the present one could speak of a white and black one; from slang to trends. Then we see Africans merely adopting white slang ,hang out spots and denigrate anything that comes espicially out of the black working class or tainted with blackness irrespective of its merit.Yet we see n push coming from the white market to do the same.
Case in point Chicken Licken. Chicken Licen is very big in theblack communities but if one was to look at their campaings for the past three years , they have abounded their marketing towards the black folks and solely target the white market.Whilst Chicken Licken coremarket is black and was build on black money. The failure of black business to support young black entrepreneurs continues to foster white privilege in the sense that white money supports white money look at Gavin Hood. Theres nothing wrong with white participation in the arts and business but if 16 years into our democratic state and black business still has not created its own Barry Ronge’s, Gavin Hood’s and mark Shuttleworth it empowers the idea of white is better and progressive and black can’t achieve much which is not true. For most young black folks especially within the arts are struggling with finance, and I doubt if Big white business sees it in their interest to help entrepreneurs to grow, which is a pity.
Up to this day, since the time of Jan van Reebeck landed at the cape with his three ships, the black man has been forced to learn the white man language. Whilst the man ,even if he is a 7th or 8th generation South African is okay without being able to speak one black African language nor to be able to pronounce his fellow African name. Yet the man can speak fluent French or Spanish that they learned from a book and not even speak the tongue of the nanny who helped to raise him/her.
Yet the truth remains there’s more black Africans in this country and continent than white, Indian or so called ‘coloured” goups. So it’s in the interest of the continent and the country to have these black Africans playing a meaningful role in the economy, sport, politics, religion and art. For it is the majority that will either propel us forward as a country or bring us down. Yet if the minority still holds onto their ivory towers and look down on the majority and not think of ways of redress, in a meaningful way,of generations of state sanctioned marginalization and inferiority complex fostering ,where does it leave us? Where does it leave none – racialism and the rainbow nation? Those chicken will come to roost in a way that is very destructive to the disadvantage of all.
Don’t get me wrong I don’t see the white man as the answer to our problems as a country but I believe we all need to play a meaningful part in creating a South Africa that our children can build on. Yet how can we have a rainbow nation when theres no redress? Where there is no change from not just legal implications of apartheid but its psychological and economic implications? Where the language of the indigenous is looked down on? Where advertising still propagates apartheid mentality of creating strictly mini Aryan communities of bliss? What does it say about us a country when we see nothing wrong with the status quo? What does it say when we see apartheid legacies continue without being questioned or challenged?
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