Don’t fudge black lives matter

The former seeks engagement on race and racism, as well as the small matter of symbols such as statues and place names in diverse societies. It also envisages platforms for reflection which engender a better understanding of race and racism, institutional cultures, history and its interpretation and how these have conspired to shape our world.

Its ultimate aim is to end racism and, as the South African constitution envisages: “Improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person” in a world in which race – gender and class – has determined how far one goes in life.

The second response, abstract and less salubrious, was manifestly evident in the cricket fraternity last week. It was precipitated by Proteas fast bowler, Lungi Ngidi, who set the cat among the pigeons by publicly imploring the Proteas to support the Black Lives Matter movement as other sporting codes around the world have done.

Some – mainly former cricketers – condemned Ngidi, asserting that “all lives matter”. This is part of an overall ostrich narrative which buries its head in the sand pretending that racism does not exist. It is a triple cocktail of abstraction, deflection and denialism.

In doing so, it in fact perpetuates racism since there is no need for societal action against something that does not exist. But have all lives always mattered? Do all lives matter? The distinguished historian, Colin Bundy, recently wrote: “Those who wish to construct a better future have to work with materials stamped ‘made in the past’.”

And so, in a 1993 paper, Whiteness as Property, African American legal scholar, Cheryl Harris, delineated the role of race in affirming humanity and inhumanity to citizens of the Unites States. “By according whiteness an actual legal status,” she wrote, “an aspect of identity was converted into an external object of property, moving whiteness from privileged identity to a vested interest.

“The law’s construction of whiteness defined and affirmed critical aspects of identity (who is white); of privilege (what benefits accrue to that status); and, of property (what legal entitlements arise from that status). White-ness at various times signifies and is deployed as identity, status, and property, sometimes singularly, sometimes in tandem.”

The obverse was true for black people in the US, South Africa and everywhere where racial oppression obtained. This is why it is impossible to answer the question whether all lives matter without historicising it.

From this vantage point, it becomes possible to see the all lives matter assertion as a most insidious form of ostriching which distorts society’s appreciation of an important and globally relevant statement of practical politics – “black lives matter” – by invoking a generally correct but decontextualised abstraction.

It deflects from the antiracism and broader struggles for social justice. This is not the self-sacrificial moral humanism of a Che Guevara which everywhere “trembles with indignation at every injustice”. Rather, it is a put down which is also deployed as a defensive retort which stubbornly refuses to concede the historical and contemporary social structural factors that necessitated the Black Lives Matter movement in the first place.

Similarly striking about last week’s battle in the cricket community were the chorus of attempts to place Ngidi’s call on the same scale of analytical equivalence with dreadful criminal incidents of farm murders. Former cricketer Boeta Dippenaar took to social media writing, among other things: “All lives matter. If you want me to stand shoulder to shoulder with you Lungi then stand shoulder to shoulder with me with regards to farm attacks.”

Another former Proteas batsman, Rudi Steyn, wrote on Facebook: “I believe the Proteas should make a stand against racism, but if they stand up for ‘black lives matter’ while ignoring the way white farmers are daily being ‘slaughtered’ like animals, they have lost my vote.”

For his part, former cricketer Pat Symcox wrote: “Now when Ngidi has his next meal perhaps he would rather consider supporting the farmers of South Africa who are under pressure right now. A cause worth supporting.”

That these cricketers are banging the tables for withholding support for a global movement which has galvanised reflection on racial justice speaks volumes about their priorities and political posture. In their unsporting insularity, they seek to privilege and in so doing run the risk of rendering less sympathetic, the plight of “white farmers” who, in fact, share a common plight of insecurity with other South Africans.

But how would the discussion have unfolded if the cricketers had pondered over the fact that theirs and Ngidi’s positions reflect South Africa’s unsustainable racialised social experience? This tells us of the distance our country still needs to traverse to “recognise the injustices of our past” and to “heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights” as the constitution enjoins us.

All lives must be equally valued. The Black Lives Matter movement arose precisely because since the advent of the transatlantic slave trade, the world has been organised in ways that asserted and reinforced the notion that black lives did not matter. The movement is galvanised by the reality that in 2020, black people across the world are still having to battle against public and social institutions just to assert their equal worth with others. That is the meaning of black lives matter, and why the framing of the all lives matter narrative quite deliberately obscures rather than illuminates an important discussion and required action.

Last week’s cricket confrontation also showed us just how poles apart South Africans remain in their appreciation of what it will take to construct a truly democratic and nonracial society. One says this not as an expression of a vote of no confidence in the sanctity of the nonracial project. Which is why we should talk about the implementation the National Action Plan to Combat Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance adopted by Cabinet in February last year. And where are we on the matter?

Mukoni Ratshitanga. Picture: Neil McCartney

Ratshitanga is a consultant, social and political commentator.

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