DA leader Mmusi Maimane’s recent comments about white privilege and black poverty caused a huge uproar which once again revealed the cracks at the heart of our supposed Rainbow Nation.
To start off with, anyone who argues against the fact that white privilege definitely exists, is guilty of the type of denialism and revisionism that the likes of AfriForum and Kallie Kriel are guilty of with their stance on Apartheid not being a crime against humanity.
A few years ago, I used to co-run a recruitment company for high end finance professionals, with a clientele made up of largely big corporate firms specifically in the financial services sector. Our specialty as a company was in sourcing and supplying high calibre, high quality, skilled, educated, black candidates for our clients in order to fill vacancies that had arisen and help them meet their transformational objectives.
One of the interesting common themes that we encountered when engaging some of the candidates we represented, was how many of them would often want to leave a big corporate environment because they were frustrated. Despite being educated and skilled, often these people would hit a ceiling in the corporate space and it would not be because they were lacking in capacity.
The white kid with the same qualification as them, who came into the company at the same time as them, who happened to have the inside lane on them because he watched rugby and played golf with the boss on weekends, would be moving upwards rapidly whilst they would be stagnant with no foreseeable prospects for upwards mobility or they would just be given menial work which would frustrate them till they wanted to leave.
The issue with white privilege is that it is pervasive and accepted as the norm. In my recruitment company experience, black professionals would often get very frustrated because whenever they were put in a position, they would be assumed to be incompetent, unskilled and lacking in capacity until they prove otherwise. A white professional on the other hand is assumed to be innately competent until he or she proves otherwise.
White privilege is also seen in the fact that corruption and ineptitude is assumed to be an inherent government thing (because the government is run by the blacks as our racist fellow countrymen are wont to say in their dinner table conversations) whilst the private sector is seen as squeaky clean and innately efficient because it is mostly dominated by white males. It is seen in the fact that there is more media noise when an ANC politician is caught in corrupt activity than when Steinhoff and the likes wipe of billions of rands worth of value through corrupt activity.
White privilege is also manifested in that nebulous thing called company culture. Many times in my recruitment experience, we would have a black candidate who would undoubtedly be the best performer in an interview only to be turned down for a job because, “he or she doesn’t fit into our culture.” That is just simply code language for saying he is too black to work in our company.
I once had a client turn down a brilliant black candidate for a senior post because he did not have the correct accent, read as he does not speak like a white person so we don’t think he is suitable.
White privilege is also seen in the inequalities between young black and white kids when they start working. I once attended a mate’s birthday celebration and the place was filled with young, black professionals who were still training to be chartered accountants within audit firms. The conversation turned to how different their lives were as compared to their white colleagues. Someone highlighted that the white kids at their firm all had cars bought for them by their parents when they started working or before and most of their white colleagues where living in apartments owned by their parents or paid for by their parents.
White privilege is a mate of mine “innocently” mentioning to me a while back, “but Mugabs, you are not like the other black okes hey. You are so much more cultured, well-spoken.” Basically, he was saying that just because I speak English with a white man’s accent and enjoy things that would be considered “typically white” in this race conscious country of ours, then I am a “good oke.”
For a black young person in the same space however, you have to buy your own car and pay rent for an apartment, so the playing fields even at the beginning are not equal for blacks and whites she argued. That my friends is white privilege in action.
White privilege is walking into a clothing store and automatically being assumed to be dodgey, whilst a white person will never face the same scrutiny. It is my family once being out for dinner at a popular Johannesburg hang out spot and being told we are “loitering” whilst waiting for each other at the parking lot because we are so many.(What is that silly joke that a mate of mine once told me again: what do you call a gathering of black people? A crime scene. See, white privilege creates these kinds of perceptions).
For us black people, white privilege exists and is evident in so many of our ordinary, day to day interactions. It is a reality that we are constantly faced with and have to deal with. Of course, if you are a beneficiary of something, it may well be that it becomes difficult (or perhaps convenient) to overlook and downplay its existence and impact but for us who are on the other side white privilege is indeed as real as black tax.
Mugabe Ratshikuni works for the Gauteng provincial government; He is an activist with a passion for social justice and transformation. He writes here in his personal capacity.
