Samantha Vice is decent and therefore wrong
Samantha Vice ("Why my opinions on whiteness touched a nerve", Mail & Guardian, 2 September 2011) seems to think that on account of her being "white" she is not a "basically decent" person (see here). I disagree. First, I don't think that somebody's being "white" tells us anything about whether she is basically decent. We should judge people by the "content of their character" rather than by the colour of their skin. Second, I know Dr Vice and I think that she, as an individual, is a decent person.
I think that her views on this matter are significantly and dangerously mistaken, but she does not deserve the abuse that has been heaped on her by some of her critics. Vitriol is cheap and in abundance. It is careful argument that is in short supply but that is much needed. We should coolly engage her arguments and show their faults.
It is not possible to do full justice here to the arguments she advanced in her academic article. (I shall do that elsewhere.) Here I confine myself to responding to her attenuated newspaper argument and I shall be similarly brief.
Dr Vice suggests that "whites" should "refrain from trying to manage and shape a political landscape still scarred" by their "destructive presence". She says that they stand "on no moral high ground ... from which to issue public criticism of the government of black politicians".
There are a number of problems with this view. First, it seems to overstate the political influence of "whites". While this minority of the population can clearly have some affect on the political landscape, they are hardly capable of managing and shaping it. For "whites" to overstate their influence is to lack the humility Dr Vice recommends.