Now THAT's white power!

[HamdenRice]

OK AA DUers, we talked about posting pro-active pieces to explain the nature of racism, even among the well meaning. Here is my first draft. Please let me know what you think. And yes, that is the subject line I would like to use.


Peter was getting more agitated as he tried to explain why his home town of Jane Furse was threatened with some kind of inscruitable disaster. It was the winter of 1988 and we were in one of the black homelands of South Africa, called Lebowa, which has since been re-incorporated back into South Africa as part of the Northern Province. Peter was one of my students back in Johanessburg, and he was taking Santu, a newspaper and documentary photographer, Matthew another student, and me, on a tour of his hometown, far, far from the Johanessburg in which we normally met. Jane Furse is an odd name for a black town, but it had grown up haphazardly around a hospital founded by a white South African philanthropist called Jane Furse Memorial Hospital.

Peter felt that we did not fully understand the catastrophic threat to Jane Furse. It seemed to be a relatively peaceful place. Lebowa even had one of the better, or at least less bad, homelands government, and it had allowed the banned opposition, the United Democratic Front, to operate and even run candidates in the Lebowa legislature.

But here in Jane Furse what troubled Peter was the large number of small sticks no more than a foot high, planted in the ground around the town, that sported red strips of cloth that fluttered like flags. These had been planted by construction crews of the Department of Cooperation and Development.

This was the department of the South African government that dealt with African affairs, and it treated the homelands as though they were foreign countries and as though it was providing development assistance. One strange aspect of the Department of Cooperation and Development was that it tended to attract the most idealistic of young Afrikaner bureaucrats who still wanted to work within the apartheid system. In other words, some branches of the government were violent and brutal; some were exploitative. But Afrikaners who really believed that South Africa could help the black areas "develop" often ended up on Cooperation and Development. They even had a word for this kind of new Afrikaner -- the "verligtes" or "enlightened" ones.

Jane Furse had been scheduled for a good deal of development assistance and these little flags seemed to be evidence of an upgrading that was being carried out.

Peter asked us to climb one of the very tall, rocky hills -- called koppies -- that dot the South African countryside and that surround Jane Furse. Only when we got to the top of the koppie could we grasp what so upset Peter. Only from there could we see the pattern of the sticks and flags.

Some idealist Afrikaner bureaucrat had carefully laid out streets and residential blocks for Jane Furse as an improvement over the haphazard dirt roads and sturdy houses, with their gardens and cattle enclosures, that the people over many decades had constructed. From the top of the koppie, we could see that the roads were planned to run right through gardens, right through front doors and out back doors, over wells, across stores. In fact, it took us climbing this mountain to achieve the god-like perspective of this unnamed, faceless bureaucrat, who could sweep away homes and lives with the scratch of his pen.

That was the day that I truly understood what power was. Somewhere in Pretoria was an idealistic young Afrikaner bureaucrat who had decided to "improve" Jane Furse. The only problem was he had never visited the place. It was an abstraction to him and he had planned the town's improvements without knowing anything about the people, their houses, their roads, their gardens or the cattle kraals.

Yet no one could deny the reality of this plan. In fact, the plan, the imagination of this bureaucrat was more real than the reality of the people and stuctures of Jane Furse. Black people were not just subjugated in South Africa; they had an unreality, a lightness and inconsequentiality compared to the plans and dreams of white people.

Ever since then, I have noticed this phenomenon -- that white people not just in apartheid South Africa, but here in America, and well-meaning liberal ones as well as racists -- don't necessarily bother to truly grasp what they are talking about when they debate policy about African or African American people. Their dreams and fanatasies, in turn, are more real than our realities. It happens here in America, whether we are debating public housing, crime and punishment, welfare reform. White people have a certain imagination of how things are and that imagination is more real than the reality, because it is on the basis of imaginary black problems that benefits are given or taken away, buildings are raised or demolished, people are punished or forgiven and power is exerted.

<edited>

[msgadget]

1. The Verligtes

Thank you, Hamden, for drafting this and allowing us to review it.

Could the title be something like The Verligtes or are you pretty much set on yours? :)

I read this essay as being about The Man and the influence powerful people have over the lives and well-being of the powerless. How is this high handedness exclusive to the relationship between whites and blacks? That's an honest question, not a challenge, btw.

The powerful, imo, are ruled by a desire for status, money and influence and use as their tools the underclass, whatever that might be to them. Racism is the result of their need to maintain the upper hand and those anywhere above the lowest rung adopt those mores. With such a history it's no wonder we don't understand each other.

[kwassa]

2. I love your writing, Hamden

and the final paragraph is superb, but I think you are using an allegory that is too subtle and too lengthy for the readership in DU.

I think it will be ignored or misunderstood, and the point will be lost upon them.

It is a great story, but I think that simple, more direct approach with clear examples from daily life in the US might work better. I think that it needs to be that simple for this readership to get the point.

Just my opinion.

[Solly Mack]

3. I like it

I don't think a lot of people will "get it"

because they will not see themselves in the story...

Still...it's a great story!

[mark414]

4. beautifully written hamden

however i would agree with the other posters in saying that it would probably go right over the heads of most DUers.

but a masterful piece of work, i really enjoyed it.

that said, being a pale progressive, whatever approach you not-so-pale progressives decide to take is the one i'll work with you and support you on. i am just a side player in this and you guys are the ones who have to deal with this bullshit so i just want to do whatever it is i can.

[Swamp Rat]

5. Kick

[Robeson]

6. Good essay....

...It reminds me of when I was working on a Masters of Urban Anthropology at a southern university, and the head of my department wanted me to do a study and thesis on a interstate by-loop that had been built in the city, that ran right through black neighborhoods. Basically, what I found out, is that it destroyed black businesses, broke up the black family structures, and created a larger burden on the black population, by disrupting the very social support system of the community. Roads that had families living on them, were suddenly cut in half by the interstate, thus separating the families. The effects were huge, and went on and on. What was the city's answer to all this? They sporadically built walkways over some areas, then washed their hands of the issue, as if that solved the problem. Of course this has happened in cities everywhere, but the total disregard and washing of the hands, is an untidy little issue that falls to the background. And the aftermath, can be devestating.

Anyway, I basically submitted my report to the head of our Anthropology Department, and reviewed it with him accompanied by slides I'd taken to use on his projector. As I got further into the story, he became increasingly agitated, with his face getting redder, and redder. Eventually, he looked at me and said he didn't know if I was right for the department. I guess he didn't like the fact that I didn't go along with the city planners and engineers, and their - and his - thinking that those few walkways, were going to put the black community back together again....

That is the reason I left that department in the middle of working on my Masters, and never returned. When he looked at me and said he didn't think I was right for the department, I looked back at him and said that I didn't think that department was right for me...

[HamdenRice]

7. Thanks -- and your example is spot on nt

[mark414]

8. this happened in a few milwaukee neighborhoods

Milwaukee’s Bronzeville was a business and entertainment district that blacks inhabited on Walnut Street between North 3rd and North 12th Streets. The area was one that spurred the formation of black business organizations, mostly started by those having no other alternative for survival due to discrimination, the Depression and other prevailing social and economic barriers. In the 1930's, while world-renown musicians such as Duke Ellington, Dinah Washington and Cab Calloway played to appreciative Milwaukee audiences of all races, the number of black businesses exceeded those owned by whites in Bronzeville. Host to the Regal Theatre, nightclubs and taverns, the growth of Bronzeville paralleled the growth of black businesses in Milwaukee.

and then they built a freeway right through the middle of the neighborhood. hasn't been the same since, though there is currently a lot of investment to try to get the neighborhood going again, it's going to be a lot of work though. then there's the washington park neighborhood (with the park being designed by frederick law olmstead) that used to have a zoo...when they moved the zoo out to the suburbs, they destroyed half the park by putting a freeway through it, and the surrounding community

i'm sure every major city has a lot of similar stories...

[bobbieinok]

9. some people just 'know' what is right ......some are naive or unknowing

like your SA example appears.......others just have 'important priorities' in which powerless people simply are invisible

[noiretextatique]

10. unlike others, i don't think DUers are too dim to understand

your example, so i wouldn't suggest dumbing it down. i get your meaning, and i'm sure those who want to get it will get it.
the problem with some people getting it is a part of the nature of the dynamic itself. as you put it "imagination is more real than reality." that dynamic enables people i've never met to tell me my interpretation of my experience is not real at all...because i am too sensitive, or because i haven't considered other possible explantions. and most importantly, because i don't see things from their perspective, which they always assume is the correct one.
ever been admonished about using the word "racist" or "crying racism?" it's a really strange thing that happens...the admonishment to "be careful" when talking about racism. it's funny in that it's so incredibly predictable.
another problem i've noticed in having discussions about race...the knowledge gap often makes real communication impossible. with privilege comes the luxury of being appallingly ignorant when it comes to race, and i mean from a basic education persepctive...that imagination thing again. it's a luxury some of us have never been afforded.
i look forward to reading the final version.