Maimane decries racism
JOBURG – A child of Soweto, a proudly black South African, a son of the African soil as he normally refers to himself, Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane spoke against racism as he said, “Part of the problem is that we – as black South Africans – are still made to feel inferior because of the colour of our skin.”
Maimane stated that racism demeans people, black and white as it opens the wounds of its victims and exposes the ignorance of those who perpetrate it. He delivered his speech at the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg on 19 January. He said, “It robs us of the dignity that so many fought for…I stand proud to live in a country that is no longer the skunk of the world, proud that out of the ashes of Apartheid a new nation could rise.”
He said apartheid may be history, but the racism that nurtured and sustained it continues to this day and that racism divides people and at the very moment people needed to be standing together, as they are being torn apart. “Because, two decades into our new democracy, it feels as though we are drifting apart,” Maimane said.
He stated that part of the problem is that black South Africans are still made to feel inferior because of the colour of their skin. “And this inferiority complex runs deep. I remember growing up how we used to refer to successful black South Africans as ‘ngamla’ (a white person). And I cannot tell you how many times I am told by black South Africans that I have “done well” because I happen to be married to a white woman,” Maimane remarked.
He said apartheid was so dehumanising that too often, even today, white people remain the benchmark that black people set themselves. “As black South Africans, we are entitled to ask uncomfortable questions. We are entitled to ask why a black child is 100 times more likely than a white child to grow up in poverty. We are entitled to ask why a white learner is six times more likely to get into university than a black learner. We are entitled to ask why the unemployment level of young black South Africans is well over 60 percent,” Maimane said.
The DA leader added that all South Africans – black and white – must talk about the persistence of racialised inequality twenty years after the end of Apartheid. He said if people believe this government has failed to redress apartheid’s legacy, they must say that as well. “There can be no conversation more important than this one. It is a conversation we must keep having until the structural inequalities of our society have been flattened,” Maimane said.
Watch a video of Maimane’s speech
