The color of one’s skin, shape of
one’s eye, and texture of one’s hair may vary across the globe, but these
physical attributes have no meaning in and of themselves, simply what we assign
to it. We decide which physical attributes are important, draw boundaries
around them, organize people according these boundaries and then behave in a
way which gives the categories meaning, thus creating races. The proof that
race is a social construction can be found in the fluidity of the meaning we
assign to these categories, changing them when it is in the best interest of
those in power. Whites have maintained power in both the United
States and South Africa since their inception through the creation of whiteness
as a hegemonic power structure. In this post I will argue that whiteness in
the U.S. and South Africa is similar in how it developed from slavery, has used
extreme forms of segregation to maintain white superiority and in how it
currently uses post-racial rhetoric to maintain the status quo.
The construction of race as we know
it (as binary black and white) began with expansion of European colonialism
(Winant, 2001). As Europeans arrived across the globe they brought with them
Western ideals and a hunger for resources which provided the reasoning behind
and the motive for deeming native peoples as different and inferior. Slavery
provided a means to attaining natural resources and build colonies with minimal
output from the colonizers. Slavery existed in various forms prior to the
chattel slavery that came with the Atlantic slave trade; some groups took
prisoners of war as slaves, while for others it took a form closer to
indentured servitude (Winant, 2001:53). As Europeans began transporting slaves
from Africa to the New World, slavery became racialized—chattel slavery was
permanent and transgenerational (meaning that slaves bore slaves) and Africans
became identified with slavery (Winant, 2001:54). The connection between color and freedom became a basis for white superiority myths.
Both the U.S. and South Africa used
this white superiority myth to create societies in which whites dominated and
exploited blacks (in addition to other racial groups such as Native Americans,
Indians and Asians) (Duster, 2001, Winant, 2001). Due to the fluidity of race,
it became necessary to create and maintain racial borders in order to uphold both
the myth and the domination. In both countries various borders between
whiteness and blackness have been established throughout its history to protect
resources and power for whites, such as: creating racial definitions and
classifications, the legislation of blackness through the one-drop rule,
anti-miscegenation laws and the perpetuation of the racialized space
established in slavery through Jim Crow and apartheid (Hale, 1998; Posel, 2001;
Goodman, 2004).
The creation of racialized space in
the U.S. began with slavery and the separation of white master and black slave.
This separation was perpetuated in the post-slavery era as Jim Crow—a series of
laws which enforced segregation, legislated the treatment of whites by blacks
and instated poll taxes and literacy tests which effectively disenfranchised
African Americans (Hale, 1998). Although Jim Crow existed largely in the
American South, segregation was also maintained in the North. Large cities such
as Chicago and Detroit contained massive black belts—crowded, congested areas
which became ghettos. On a federal level the adoption of the racially based
red-lining system by the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) and the Federal
Housing Authority (FHA) set the groundwork for establishing a white suburb and
a black inner-city as well as resource rich white schools and poor black
schools.
Since the arrival of the Dutch in
1652, racialized space has existed in South Africa. When Jan Van Riebeeck
arrived he did two things, planted a thorny impenetrable bush around himself to
keep Africans away and requested slaves (Goodman, 2001). Afrikaners had one
clear border between themselves and the arriving English immigrants, as well as
native African tribes—language. This is one
of the reasons whiteness is fragmented in South Africa. Another was the English
approach to slaves, Britain abolished slavery in 1833 (Goodman, 2001). Although
Slavery was abolished, this did not mean that the English pushed for equal
rights; both the English and Afrikaners establish laws and policies which
“undermined the economic and political power of Africans (Goodman, 2004:137).”
In 1910 the Union of South Africa was
formed and “founded on the premise that Africans would be denied voting rights
in all but the Cape Colony… (Goodman, 2004:146).” Shortly after this both the
Boars and the English worked to establish the 1911 Mine and Works act, which
reserved higher paying skilled labor for whites, the 1913 Land Act, which
restricted blacks to 7% of the land, and the 1923 Natives Act, which forced
native blacks to carry passes and live in segregated spaces outside the cities
(Goodman, 2004). When the National Party, a solely Afrikaner government, came
to power in 1948 they quickly set about laying the foundation for
apartheid—banning interracial marriage and sex, as well as mandating that every
South African was to be categorized by race and segregated, in housing, public
places and transportation (Posel, 2001; Goodman, 2004). Apartheid would find
South Africa divided into racial “homelands” and would see over four million
blacks removed from their homes and placed in congested reserves (Goodman,
2004). ). In 1990 the process of dismantling apartheid began, but it has left
the country an extreme imbalance of power, as well as economic and cultural
capital due to the increased access to wealth and education for whites (Duster,
2001).
One large difference in the whiteness
in America and South Africa is in the divide which exists within South African whiteness.
Although whiteness in the U.S. is not homogenous, it presents a much more
unified front than the stratified language and country of origin based
whiteness that exists in South Africa (Lewis, 2004; Salusbury & Foster,
2004; Steyn, 2004). Whiteness in the U.S. was originally Anglo-Saxon, but it
grew to incorporate various white ethnics in response to a growing black
population. Whiteness in South Africa originally referred to the Boers
(Afrikaners), immigrants from Holland, but as the English (WESSAs) and other
Europeans entered the continent and became the ruling elite they became
incorporated into whiteness (Salsbury & Foster, 2004). Apartheid served to
unify whiteness as a power structure in South Africa because of shared
privilege.
In both the U.S. and South Africa
post-racial rhetoric has been adopted in an attempt to maintain white
privilege. Within the U.S rhetoric comes under the title of colorblindness, and
in South Africa, nonracialism (Lewis, 2004; Dalmage 2011). Whites in both countries claim that in their
new post-Civil Rights and post-apartheid societies, people must be treated as
individuals without any attention to race. While this may seem like a
well-meaning and lofty goal, it serves the purpose of ignoring what served as
affirmative action programs for whites and lead to the accumulation of
generational wealth, cultural capital and unearned privilege for whites (Lewis,
2004; Dalmage 2011).
One way this is evident is in the
propensity for whites in both countries to claim that current affirmative
action programs (U.S.) and black employment equity (South Africa) are unjust
because they give an “unfair advantage” to blacks based on race (Lewis, 2004).
Both countries also seem to have taken a neoliberal approach; focusing on the
individual (this is more evident within WESSA whiteness in South Africa) and
individual responsibility rather than looking at structural causes for success
and failure (Salusbury and Foster, 2004). This may lead to a larger investment
in the discourse of meritocracy in South Africa, as meritocracy is already a
dominant ideology in the U.S.
In the both U.S. and South Africa the
imbalance of power associated with race is inextricably entwined in history,
culture and legislation. Both have created and maintained racist legislation
and policy that perpetuated the white superiority myth for the past four hundred
years, denying blacks the ability to build economic, cultural and social
capital, maintaining this racial power imbalance. Both countries have created whiteness as a
hegemonic power structure through the construction of a binary and stratified
racial system, segregation through Jim Crow and apartheid and the use of
post-racial rhetoric which continues to build privilege for whites while
simultaneously denying privilege still exists. To truly build a post-racial
society we must focus on extending privileges of whiteness to all people and
making it what it should be—a basic human right.
REFERENCES
Dalmage, Heather. 2011. Lecture Notes, Global Whiteness. January
2011-Februrary 2011.
Duster, Troy. 2001. “ The ‘Morphing’ Power of Whiteness.” Pp. 113-137 in The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness.
Edited by Birgit Brander Rasmussen, et al. Durham, NC: Duke University Press
Goodman, David. 1999. Fault Lines:
Journeys into the new South Africa. CA, Berkely: University of California
Press.
Hale, Grace. 1998. Making
Whiteness. NY. Vintage Books
Posel, Deborah. 2001. “Race as Common Sense: Racial Classification in
Twentieth-Century South Africa.” African
Studies Review. 44(2):87-113.
Salusbury, Tess & Don Foster. 2004. “Rewriting WESSA identity.”
Pp.93-109. In Under Construction.
Edited by N. Distiller. & M. Steyn. Sandton: Heinmann.
Steyn, Melissa. 2004. “Rewriting WESSA identity.” Pp.93-109. In Under Construction. Edited by N.
Distiller. & M. Steyn. Sandton: Heinmann.
Unknown. 2010. The Scramble for
Africa. Al Jazeera. Accessed Feb 1, 2011 < http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/2010/08/2010831112927318164.html>
Winant, Howard. 2001. The World is
a Ghetto: Race and Democracy Since World War II. New York: Basic Books.
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