Open Stellenbosch statement on the blackface developments
8 February 2016
A blackface incident ‘rocked our campus’ on Friday which angered and painfully touched a lot of black people and students on campus. In the midst of the outrange that was displayed at the meeting held at Heemstede residence, with the presence of university management who facilitated discussions of the incident, it was the general consensus of students and the university that this was in fact a blackface incident. Since the release of the first statement on Saturday 6 February, however, new information has surfaced that challenged our understanding of the “blackface” incident and created confusion. In response to this new information an apology was quickly released yesterday, 8 February, in a rush to reconcile our understanding with that information.
This apology was however issued without the consensus of the collective and should not be considered to be the current stance of OS on the “blackface” incident. We recognise that the incident is now not generally considered (by the media and the white hegemonic institution that is Stellenbosch University community) to be blackface. We as OS maintain that the fact that the student filtered the photo to appear black and then knowingly continued to upload the photo herself onto social media clearly confirms that this is a blackface incident. Hence we retain our stance calling on Stellenbosch University to put an end to blackfacing and to expel the two students involved in this incident with immediate effect, and to remove the residence head and committee which allowed this incident to take place under their watch.
It is important to consider that this incident took place in the context of the current racial tensions in the country, Stellenbosch University racist dynamics and previous blackface incident of 2014. So even if the colour of the paint was indeed purple at the time the picture was taken, it would be naive for a white student to upload such a picture without reasonably foreseeing the possibility of it being perceived as blackface. Moreover, it is also difficult to imagine any South African to be so ignorant of the effects of colonization, apartheid and their legacies and how they continue to determine the ‘black condition’ of the majority of black South Africans.
Black facing speaks to all the racist persecutions committed against black people across the whole of our country, continent and the world. It is about the land taken away from us, generations of lives and livelihoods that were lost to racism. And more importantly, to the current socioeconomic status of the black majority in this country.
In light of this, the fact that people went to great lengths to technically dismiss the incident as not blackface shows the extent to which white privilege is still powerful in this country. The argument from white people that says “this time around I didn’t cross the line, I just stepped on it so what’s the fuss” is revealing of this problem. It is unbelievable that 22 years after apartheid, beneficiaries of the system are comfortable enough to take racism so light that they are okay with stepping on the ‘line’ every now and then.
Black students at Stellenbosch University constantly have to navigate racism, this is despite the fact that no white South African to date would admit to be racist. So it is important for us to really consider how painful a blackface is to someone who live both structural and covert racism on a daily basis if we are truly concerned about fairness. And it is important that we engage from a perspective that has the eradication of racism as its point of departure.
This article first appeared on the Open Stellenbosch Facebook page, see here.
