Can you imagine how the Spur bully spoke to his nanny?

What transpired at Spur on Human Rights Day only touches the surface of the kind of abuse black women and children have to endure at the hands of merciless masculinity – and yes, it also has to do with race.

Although patriarchy, among other factors, played an influential role in the Spur incident in which a large white man attempted to assault a black woman, we need to understand that the abuse of black women has a long historical context.

It dates back to colonial times when black people came with a price tag, and in the era of the slave trade black women were said to be more expensive than men because they could give birth to more slaves for their “owners”. They were considered, by colonial masters, a commodity capable of tripling the colonial masters’ “investments” through their wombs. Worse, the master could rape her whenever his testosterone demanded.

And, for that, a black woman was (and still is, by many) presumed to be a commodity that can be owned.

In patriarchal African communities, a woman has long been seen as a commodity – as something men can own. There are many practices in which women can be taken against their will into marriage. Sometimes, young girls (even today) are forced to marry men old enough to be their fathers. They are deprived of their childhoods, and have to engage in adult “activities” against their wishes.

Anyone who moans about people “playing the race card” or “patriarchy card” in the Spur incident is either ignorant of our history or they are suffering from amnesia. The bully in the video that went viral was not raised in a vacuum. He was nurtured by a society that makes some men think they can use their muscular power to “discipline” women who are not subservient to “kak”.

The Spur bully grew up in an environment where domestic workers, almost always black women, have no rights and are treated as subhuman in their employers’ homes. In these homes, black women toil like slaves for peanuts. Worse is when they have to play the role of two characters when they are home and when they are at “work”. At home they are considered mothers worthy of respect by their children, but when they’re at work, where racism and patriarchy are often normative, they often have to endure abuse even from the employers’ kids.

Of course I don’t know how he was raised, but one can easily imagine the Spur bully as a kid with his black nanny, talking down to “the maid” or “the ousie”, and having his view of black women forever altered by his simple acceptance that this power arrangement is the norm. Nothing was probably ever done to show or teach him otherwise – to suggest that disrespecting a black woman might be wrong.

The Spur bully is not just a random, angry, white guy, he’s the product of the historical inculcation of the white and male superiority complex. He’s the product of a society that has normalised patriarchy.

Did the woman in the video solicit the abuse by responding? Maybe, maybe not. But what we want to avoid is a society in which men, or anyone, resort to violence whenever there’s disagreement. Can you imagine a world if we all assaulted people because we differ? Most of us would end up wounded one way or another every day.

There are almost always amicable ways to solve differences. But more importantly, we need to build a society in which violence is taboo.

Senior content producer Austil Mathebula