6.2 Blackness as relational to whiteness
6.2.1 Black white binary oppositions as black markers
The following four extracts illustrate three different ways in which blackness was constructed in relation to whiteness in the interviews with respondents.
Extract 1
Notyholi: I did my Secondary School at X [name of school] a Girls‟ School I went to a boarding school and the school was a good school that time.
I: explain why you say good school that time, is it not a good school now?
Notyholi: no no because at that time the principal was white and some of the teachers were also white it was good but now that its all black it has lost that good reputation.
Extract 2
Sida: when I was taking the chair and I could see that everybody was losing hope ukuba [wondering reasoning] what is it that we are going to discuss because she does not know a thing.
I: just tell me who was losing hope?
Sida: these white people (mhhm) … then they [whites] came and said chairperson you are so good in this meeting and you are learning fast and I thought oh God! they noticed that I was a mampara in terms of finances you know (mhhm) so for the first time they [whites]
were shocked in this meeting.
Extract 3
Sana: it was horrible not that it was horrible but it was such a drastic change because I was in a black Christian school… when I had to move to a white school I was excited but
… my first day was so horrible I couldn‟t speak English so well and all the other kids were there I could not swim like them (mhhm) their advantages they had like tennis
159 courts they were exposed to so many things that we never had in black schools (mhhm) I did not think then I would be able to fit … It was very drastic for the first six months I did not like it because it was clear ukuthi [that] I was an outcast mina because ndivela eTownship [I come from the Township] and these people were already looking at me funny (yes) like I can‟t really communicate with them … even though the teachers had to welcome me and nurse me like take extra care to look after me like I had to take extra classes to learn how to speak English it was horrible so I did not like it that much.
From the three extracts above the relationship between black and white has been constructed in the following three binary ways: 1) black failure/white excellence, 2) black irrational/white rational, and 3) black disadvantage/white advantage.
In extract 1, Notyholi uses a white excellence/black failure discourse as proposed by Robus and Macleod (2006). She explicitly claims that the school she went to was good at the time because it was led by white people, but now that it is led by black people it has lost its reputation as a good school. Notyholi associates whiteness with excellence and black identity with failure. Notyholi is treating it as a given that the school was good because the leadership and teachers of the school were white and now that it is led by black people it is bad. She is uncritically positioning black identity with the poor reputation of the school by contrasting it with the good reputation that it had under the whites. As a strategy to overcome “crisis” she disassociates herself from black identity which she has constructed as a „failure‟ and associates herself with whiteness which she perceives as excellent. Notyholi subscribes to negative stereotypes about black people in contrast to herself who she has positioned in a Eurocentric perspective. This subject position supports the pre-encounter stage as proposed by stage theorists like Cross (1971, 1995) and Helms (1993,1995). Similarly, Nothyoli at this stage shows appreciation of whiteness and anti-black attitudes. She uses a black failure/white success discourse.
In extract 2, Sida echoes Said‟s (1991) theory of Orientalism that sees blackness as entwined in whiteness. Similarly, Sida problematises her black subject position as she constructs her identity according to what she perceives to be the white people‟s perception of her. In so doing, Sida uses a black irrational/white rational discourse. She judges herself negatively as she imagines how
160 white people judge her performance. Based on this opinion blackness becomes a production of binary opposition to whiteness. Sida constructs herself as irrational, a person who is foolish and who does not know what she is doing in order to position whiteness as rational, empowered to educate, modernise and to develop her as an inferior black object.
We witness her saying that the whites were losing hope because “she does not know a thing”, but the claim is made by her not by the white people. Also the praise she received from the white people that she has done well is received in a negative interpretation of her as a “mampara”
[fool]. In using the term “mampara” she shows how she doubted herself and her ability to make sense of the financial matters.
Similarly, Sana in extract 3 recognises herself as disadvantaged and she constructs her black identity in relation to whiteness. Sana uses a discourse of white advantage/black disadvantage. In so doing she claims that her experience in the school was horrible because she could not speak English, could not swim, and had not been unexposed to privileges like tennis courts. Like Sida above, Sana imagines herself as unfit in the white context. She uses terms like “outcast” to show the extent to which she does not belong to the social class as she comes from the township (a black-only environment). Her inability to speak English is linked to the position of her blackness as a stigmatised inferior “Other”. Black identity is constructed as an assessment of Sana‟s socio- political condition in encounter with whiteness.
In all three stories, there is evidence of hierarchical thinking about black and white; it is blackness that is racially qualified. This has been done in two different ways. The first entails offering no critical judgement of the inferior construction of the position of blackness in relation to whiteness, as in extract 1. The second entails self-assessment: in extract 2 and in extract 3, respondents use the discourse of blackness as failure, as foolish and as disadvantaged in order to position whiteness as successful, clever and advantaged.
From this discussion the images of blackness are products of a racist society, thus “fixing”
difference between races as attributable to nature. This is evident in the way in which black people must know themselves in the white eyes, thus objectifying themselves in terms of the
161 discourse of white supremacy (Fanon, 1986). It is in this light that the meaning of blackness is constructed through difference with whiteness, fixed and underpinned in discourses of black failure that positions black people as foolish, bad, dirty, uneducated, corrupt and lazy.
The following extracts show how the white gaze makes it impossible for blackness to shake off the stigma