Tuesday, October 17, 2017

The Big White Lie

“But it’s all over! Let’s just get on with life and leave all that nasty racism behind” 

I am sure many may respond in that way after having read my first post on how it came to be that people were labelled white and black.

But it isn’t all over.  

Some things are, thankfully, over.

Slavery has been condemned as an evil; Colonialism is finished and countries have their independence; Scientific Racism has been renounced; Apartheid has ended and South African has a new constitution.

Somethings are not over.

Racism remains to oppress people of colour. However, I have found the term “racism” to be too broad and such a despised term that most white people can’t help but dismiss their personal involvement with it. I have found it helpful to create more nuance by using the following terms: 1. Raw Racism, 2. Discrete Racism, and 3. Tolerating  the Big White Lie. Let’s explore these a bit more. Only then can start thinking about how we respond – and this I will cover in a separate post.


Raw Racism

This is easy to spot. It includes physically attacking someone, hateful speech and name calling because of skin colour discrimination. It includes openly declaring one’s establishment for “whites only”. Most people will oppose this form of racism, except maybe the extreme right wing groups.


Discrete Racism

This is the basic discrimination against someone based on their having black or brown skin. Most of the time it is carried out in subtle and sophisticated ways as opposed to the crass aggression of the raw racism. Sadly this still happens here in South Africa in 2017. Here are some examples shared with me by friends living in Southern Suburb, Cape Town.


  • shop security racially profiling suspects, and only following around people of colour.
  • restaurants telling black patrons that they are full when they aren’t.
  • landlords telling potential black renters the property is unavailable when it isn’t.
  • tolerance of racist jokes.
  • racial profiling in neighbourhood watch groups, only being suspicious of black or Coloured men and using code terms like  “bravo male” or “charlie male” to mask racial profiling.
  • black adult still being called boy or girl e.g. “garden boy”.


Thankfully, these types of behaviour are, more and more, being "called out" in real life and social media and are broadly condemned when they occur.


Agreeing with The Big White Lie

Let’s start by looking at what is The Big White Lie. Remember that the terms “white” and “black” were not designed to be objective descriptions of skin colour difference, rather they were a statement of who is better and who is less. This thinking was underpinned by the belief that  “white is better and black is less”.  This lie has two parts to it: first, that white or Western ways are better, and secondly that white skin or Western ways are the norm or the standard.

It is only recently that I came to see the many ways I had been believing this lie. I had not been aware of it, as it felt so normal to me having grown up in South Africa. I propose that only a few white people in South African have escaped believing the Big White Lie on some level, and most are unaware that its even there. This is because the invisible barriers setup by this lie do not impact the lives of those with peachy skin. But, talk to a friend of colour and you will find out how real it is. Further, the Big White Lie has, over centuries, seeped into the fabric of the very institutions and organisations within our society.

Here are some examples, from the seeming innocuous to the life-threatening:

Friday, October 13, 2017

Becoming "White"?

I could almost feel something in my thinking shatter. It was when I was reading about how the white identity was specifically and intentionally created by peach-skinned people in order to justify stealing land and enslaving people with brown skin. The terms “white” and “black” were not designed to be objective descriptions of skin colour difference, rather they were a statement of who is better and who is less.  The label “white” is birthed in greed, dominance, theft, and exploitation.  I had never really thought about that. I knew that judging someone by their skin colour was racism and wrong, but never really thought about where this label had come from – I had assumed that it had  always been.  


When and how did people become white and black?

Until 1600 and 1700 people defined themselves by their tribe or ethnicity, not their skin colour. Certainly there was lots of prejudice, discrimination, superiority and inferiority, but these were along ethnic differences. This terms is called ethnocentrism. 

"Historian Dante A Puzzo, in his discussion of Aristotle, racism and the ancient world writes that: Racism rests on two basic assumptions: that mankind is divisible into superior and inferior stocks. Racism, thus defined, is a modern conception, for prior to the XVth century there was virtually nothing in the life and thought of the West that can be described as racist. To prevent misunderstanding a clear distinction must be made between racism and ethnocentrism. The Ancient Hebrews, in referring to all who were not Hebrews as Gentils, were indulging in ethnocentrism, not racism. So it was with the Hellenes who denominated all non-Hellenes - whether the wild Scythians or the Egyptians whom they acknowleged as their mentors in the arts of civilization - Barbarians, the term denoting that which was strange or foreign. 
The reference for this quote is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism. Read more about ethnocentrism at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnocentrism

So let’s look at the factors that worked together to lead to the creation of the term “white” and “black”