White people reaching for a better understanding of blackness … are still white

It was meant as a generous type of compliment, and was graciously received as such. But it got me thinking.

When a black person refers to a white person in this way, my understanding is that they are implying that their white friend is sympathetic to the black perspective and has some experience of black culture.

It is of course impossible for a white person to truly understand the black perspective. But we can try.

By some measures, this is a black person’s country. The population is overwhelmingly black and white people make up a minority. The poor people of our country are almost uniformly black people, so any attempt to end poverty and reduce inequality must start from prioritising the interests of these black people.

In that way, it makes sense to think of South Africa as a black country, although we are certainly a multicultural, multiracial nation, still working to define itself.

White people who think in this way may come to align their work and their values with those of black people. Ideally, this would not come from a space of self-hatred, but an acceptance of the need to prioritise black upliftment in an environment where black people remain disadvantaged by the iniquities of our apartheid past.

There were similarly white people in the struggle against apartheid, who had aligned themselves with their black brothers and sisters to fight for the freedom of black people from white-supremacist oppression.

Today’s struggle is more economic than purely racial, but it retains a race component because the complexion of poverty is so black. It does not take a genius, or an especially militant class warrior, to appreciate that.

Some of the people who see that are white people. They appreciate some aspects of the black struggle, even if they can never completely understand.

They appreciate black culture, now increasingly mainstream as it comes to dominate the music industry, makes further inroads into the cinema and literary space and essentially defines much of what we understand as popular culture.

Black celebrities are front and centre in much of the entertainment sector, in sports and media, where they have succeeded through their talent and dedication, surmounting many systematic barriers, and much structural racism, to do so. Black business people and black politicians are chipping away at the edifice of white dominance that has had the economy and global politics captured for centuries.

This is good. These are strides towards equity, equal opportunity, restitution perhaps, and some distant time of true equality for all of us.

There are white people who believe in this. They are few; they may have clumsy ways of expressing themselves. Some may be deeply committed social activists. Others may just enjoy the way Future raps, or dig that Colin Kaepernick is bringing the voice of oppressed black people into the mainstream discourse through sport…

Maybe they support Mercedes in F1, and by extension Lewis Hamilton. Maybe they think Deontay Wilder is a beast and the only person who can unite the heavyweight boxing division. Maybe they think Rihanna is the most powerful woman of all time.

There are white people like this. They are a minority of white people, perhaps. Perhaps there are more white people aligned with the pop and entertainment aspects of black culture, and when push comes to shove they will scurry back to defend their class and race interests.

There are other white people with a deeper commitment to reversing the structural racism that keeps black people oppressed. Some have been jailed for this. A few have been killed.

But these are white people. I believe it’s worth remembering that.

It would be ridiculous to imply that most white people are not born into a racist system that favours us and gives us privilege, and that we all have a lot of work to do to unlearn the sense of superiority, entitlement and, yes, racism that comes with this.

We must do this work. But as we clumsily feel our way towards race rapprochement, there will be the odd white person who gets it. There are not enough of them, sure, but I sense their number is growing. There’s a white dude on the radio, for instance, who seems to love black culture.

When noticing these people, I think it is useful to acknowledge that they are white. They are white people with some appreciation of the black cultural and social position. But they are white.

Saying that these are “black white people”, or positioning them as honorary blacks implies that they are outliers, exceptions to the rule that whites are uniformly racist, untransformed and untransformable. Only the odd, solitary, exceptional white person will ever get it, will ever support the black person’s ongoing struggle for representation, self-expression and justice.

This is not true.

These are everyday white people: perhaps using an odd speaking accent with some black in it, perhaps wearing a slightly incongruous urban-inspired fashion accessory, maybe some clumsy vernac in their vocab. Maybe a romantic partner who is black. Some black friends.

These are white people. They get it a little. Not completely and, sure, they might be in the minority. But they’re white people reaching towards a better understanding.

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