by Justin Foxton | Jan 4, 2019 | Citizen Participation
Over many years I have struggled with how to deal with racism
when it rears its ugly head in conversations with friends, family or colleagues.
This struggle has become ever deeper as I have worked on owning my “recovering
racist” status and as I have made great Black and Indian friends. In the past 8
years it has become pressing as I raise a black daughter and as I experience
the joy of my Dad being happily engaged to a black woman.
When I am in social or business situations and someone uses
a racist word or weaves a racist attitude or sentiment into the conversation, I
find it very difficult to take a stand in the moment. I find myself seething
but saying nothing whilst trying to change the conversation. This is cowardly
and self-serving. If I am going to take a stand against racism and
discrimination from behind my keyboard or from a podium, I must be brave enough
to do it in the real world where my work and social relationships may suffer as
a result. Because values that aren’t worth suffering for have little value at
all. They are just words.
After a recent racist incident (our Lolly was fortunately not
in earshot), Cathy and I decided that as a family, we will protest against racism
and discrimination by speaking out against it in the moment. This however will
only be done in situations that are conducive to dialogue. In situations that
aren’t, we will simply remove ourselves. This will be done politely but firmly
and immediately.
This is not simply about overt racist words like the k-word
and others. It’s about expressions like darkies, monkeys, cockroaches, coolies,
non-swimmers etc. It’s about references to “they and them” and the veiled or
overt questioning of black people’s abilities. It’s about references or words
that dehumanise or strip others of dignity, enforce one groups superiority over
another or labels other’s differences in a way that is not loving and celebratory.
And it extends beyond racism to all discrimination; derogatory
names/references for women, LGBTQIA people, people with disabilities, people of
other nationalities and religions and – from any person of any colour – any
defence of apartheid or colonialism.
I understand we will be criticised for this stance in all
kinds of hateful ways. But we really don’t care.
We just felt it was right to put it out there.
by Justin Foxton | Dec 3, 2018 | Citizen Participation
It is not simple being a recovering racist. Just as I think I am making progress I go and make a rookie error that leaves me aghast at my lack of progress.
I recently met a friend and colleague at a restaurant in Durban. At the next table was a black lady and a white man, working and drinking cups of coffee. They were clearly happening: Well dressed, laptops out, suitably adorned with the right brands and very chic.
My friend and I finished our meeting, paid our bill and got up to leave, but as I swung round in the direction of the “cool couple”, the woman was also getting up from her table and gathering up her things.
In my mind – my recovering racist (or perhaps more accurately, my recovering-stereotyping, recovering-patriarchal mind) I just saw a black woman picking things up off a table in a restaurant where a white guy was sat – ergo the waitress. She turned to face me at the precise moment I turned and faced her. Our eyes met and in my typically overly-friendly-white-guy-cum-recovering-racist-voice, I thanked her for her service and gestured to the tip I had left on the table for her. I realised my mistake mid-deed. She paused for an instant that felt like a lifetime to me, put on her outsized Dolce and Gabbana shades, and mercifully decided to ignore this white idiot and walk out.
Burning red with embarrassment, I pretended to be referring to the waitress who was indeed standing directly behind her. This only made matters worse because that waitress wasn’t our waitress at all! She just stared at me bewildered. The damage was done.
I am a 45-year old white man. I have an adopted black child whom I adore as mine. I genuinely have best friends who are black. I have done years of processing of my own racism; I read the work of black feminists and I mostly agree with what they say about white people and white men particularly.
And yet I am still – frustratingly – a recovering racist at best. I still catch myself thinking and acting in ways that belie my genuine and passionate desire to live a non-racist and totally non-discriminatory life. Why?
Because racism is hard-wired into us. Period. We are products of a world that pumps racism and discrimination into the atmosphere in the same way as industrialisation pumps greenhouse gases. We just breathe it in. My parents were never racist – I grew up in a typical liberal South African home. But the garden boy was the garden boy. The maid was the maid. It’s just how things were. And we must work daily, hourly to dismantle that often untaught, often unintentional discrimination that placed us in “the big house” and black people in the “servant’s quarters”. Black people were always the servants.
So, in an unguarded moment I revert to type. I swing round and I give a big beaming liberal thank you to a woman who is my age, clearly very successful and a long way from her waitressing years. In
This piece is not intended to be an exercise in self-flagellation. I left and smiled an ironic sort of smile at myself and how long I still must go.
No, this piece is just an exercise in vulnerability and a humble invitation to join me on this journey – regardless of where you are along the road. It’s the most challenging but deeply rewarding journey you will ever take.
My name is Justin and I am a recovering racist.
by Justin Foxton | May 11, 2018 | General
An article in last weekend’s Sunday Times entitled “White flight ‘over fear and mother tongue’” tells us that white people are pulling their kids out of schools where there are too many black people.
In former Model C schools there are now only a handful of white pupils, some have none. The article says that most white pupils have moved to private schools or Afrikaans-medium schools. This is not new – it has been happening for over two decades now; schools can be a safe place for birds of a feather to flock together.
However, the only white mother left at Saxonwold Primary in Johannesburg says that she doesn’t think the exodus of white families is all about the massive enrolment of black families over the past years. She says that the white families had just “lost faith in government education”.
But at our daughter’s school – a private school – we have noticed the same trend. Unlike most white couples, we have a black daughter and one of the reasons we chose her school was precisely because it is so multi-racial. Since we started there in 2016, most of the white families have left and now there is just the one in Lolly’s class. It is generally accepted that this migration is at very least partially due to the darkening hue of the place, but ironically the reasons given are something along the lines of: “We have lost faith in the school”. So, it seems that the same reason for white flight is being given at government and private schools.
Now just for clarity, our daughter’s school is world-class. Sure, you can move your kid from one privileged school to another in search of ever improving facilities, but is this all school is about; a case of my astro is bigger than yours?
Educating the 21st Century child is so much more than this. Learning and socialising in a multi-cultural environment that prepares them for the world they will one day live in, is as vital to their future success as lessons, sport and extra murals. We stunt our children’s growth and development if we don’t expose them to as many cultures, colours, religions and worldviews as possible.
And not just at school, but at home as well.
