EFF STATEMENT ON ANTI-BLACK RACISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

04 January 2016

The year 2016 has opened with a stark reminder of the painful reality that anti-black racism in South Africa has become normalized. This is telling because as 2015 ended, it closed with the same phenomena being displayed by FW De Klerk who opposed the fall of Rhodes' statue in Oxford by saying colonization was politically correct thus, Rhodes must not fall just because it is now politically incorrect. De Klerk set another leading example next to that of the DA's Dianne Kohler Barnard, that it is right to uphold apartheid, miss it, romance it, including its statues, as well as talking about it as a politically correct system.

Twenty two years after democracy, white people in South Africa continue to wear white supremacy with pride in our public and social media spaces. What used to be closed door dinner conversations are now being hanged in the open and in full view of everyone through status updates on Facebook and Twitter. Their desire for racial exclusivity which must be expressed through segregated public spaces like "whites' only" beaches, parks and neighborhoods is gaining momentum and confidence.  Their lament is that these spaces like beaches are being crowded by "dirty blacks".

What is most concerning is that many people who are reacting to these recent public manifestations of racism on Facebook have often been the first to silence those who fight and seek to expose white supremacy in our country. Over the years, people have labeled many leaders of the EFF as being racist when they often spoke openly against the continuation of white supremacy in our country.

The recent Facebook posts are a manifestations and results of a failed reconciliation project which was conceptualized without justice in the first place. These posts talk about black people as "barbaric", as "animals", "dirty" and as not belonging in public beach spaces as apartheid would have them be. Why would racists never fear thinking, writing and openly declaring their racism in South Africa? It is because there is nothing that will happen to them. They do not lose any privilege and benefit from being anti-black racists.

The ANC is the first to blame for the comfort white racists enjoy in our country. It taught them to just say sorry and life will move on as normal. This is despite the reality that white people's anti-black racism is responsible for the collective impoverishment and dispossession of black people, as well as the systematic human rights abuse in the form of colonization and apartheid. Black people remain the degenerate race they always were in the eyes of whites; they remain landless, poor, providers of cheap labour without any dignity. The ANC has not only failed to transform this condition, it has protected white privilege with everything, including death as we saw in Marikana.

Without changing the condition of black people, they remain visitors in the country of their birth and this will always provide a platform for racist anti-black attitudes like the recent racist Facebook posts to flourish.

Racism must be fought where ever it raises its ugly head. We must speak against it, shame it, and isolate it. However, this cycle will lead nowhere until the collective dignity of black people is restored through economic freedom and justice.

The EFF will lead a debate in parliament on how to come up with legislation that will punish anti-black racism and make it a crime once and for all.

Statement issued by the Economic Freedom Fighters, 4 January 2015