Why whites don’t talk about whiteness
The previous Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan famously said that tolerance, intercultural dialogue and respect for diversity were more essential than ever in a world where people were becoming more and more closely interconnected.
There is a growing concern about the observation that many white people, particularly Afrikaners, prefer not to participate in public discussions about race. About a month ago, I participated on a panel discussion about racism at the University of the Free State (UFS). There were about four white people in the room, of whom two were panellists. As I have witnessed several times before, whites were lambasted for their absence at these discussions.
This is not to say that white people do not talk about their views. The topic is frequently discussed around braais and at social gatherings, but not at public events where the actual battle of ideas takes place.
Racism is obviously a matter that is important to all of us. The reality is that many white people refrain from participating in discussions on race because such discussions are often so one-sided that it leaves no room for constructive engagement.
For example, after I spoke at the UFS discussion (which I was invited to do), I was told to “shut up and listen”, while the mere fact that a white person had been invited to talk in front of black people was aggressively questioned.