In a recently released video, four white students at the University of the Free State (UFS) in South Africa can be seen treating black university staff in ways that many have described as barbaric, blatantly racist and in violation of human rights.
In the video, which is available on YouTube, the students entice the workers, many of them middle- to old-aged black women, to participate in a mock "initiation" process by promising 10,000 rand (roughly $1,250) and liquor for the winner. The contests were degrading and humiliating and were topped off by forcing the finalists to eat a mixture of dog food, garlic cloves and urine from one of the students. Many interpreted the video as a response from the students towards the university's newly integrated residence hall living program as well as an old fashioned expression of deliberate racism.
As a result of the video's release, there have been numerous riots in the streets of South Africa and many white students and faculty at UFS have received death threats. Some UFS faculty members and students have even being physically harassed by black students in retaliation. This video emerged soon after a move by Jacob Zuma -- the likely next president of South Africa -- to kick white journalists out of a conference at which he was appearing. His actions in turn sparked outrage from the nation's white minority.
What these two events show is that racism is still alive in South Africa, which has only been officially desegregated for 17 years. These events should also serve another purpose to those of us living in America. This is an opportunity for us to re-examine racism within our own nation, which, despite significant strides to diminish it, is still alive after over three decades since desegregation was completed in the 1970s.
Racism is one of those elephants in the room that we are only forced to acknowledge after certain outrageous comments (such as those by Don Imus) or particularly disturbing events (such as Rodney King's beating), but are never truly able to confront as a nation. Great progress has been made in that, for the first time in history, a black president of America is a possibility. Progress is also evident through the fact that today's public school students think of segregation as an antiquated relic of some forgotten and intolerant time.
Yet at the same time, intolerance and bigotry are still thriving. According to new data released by the Southern Poverty Law Center, hate groups are on the rise, numbering 888 in its latest statistics, a figure that's up from 602 in 2000. One of the most interesting things about hate is that it is non-discriminatory -- it is an equal opportunity emotion. Americans of all races are capable of hating people of different races; no one is exempt. I have received my share of outright racism ranging from receiving clearly racially related gestures and comments when walking in one part of D.C. to being taunted by a Nation of Islam street speaker in New York City who called me a "white devil."
Most racial tensions in this country, though, rarely extend to a blatant level of intolerance. In her groundbreaking book, "Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?" Beverly Tatum approached the issues regarding the invisible racial lines that separate white from black from Latino from Asian that go far beyond our skin pigmentation. She correctly highlights innate racial identities that are formed at a young age and influence our perspectives on race for the rest of our lives.
Racism is something we are all aware of and it manifests itself in a multitude of ways. One of those ways can be used as a weapon against it. I, along with many other students and the BSA (the hosting organization), welcomed comedian Aries Spears to campus last semester for his stand-up routine. In his performance, Spears made fun of just about every major racial group in America and played to stereotypes, yet he did all this in a way that diminished them -- belittling the stereotypes instead of the stereotyped by confronting them head on. While I wait for the day that a white comedian will be as free to pose similar jokes, I still applaud Spears and his powerful set.
My point is that certain inherent racism is one of those things that our society is nearly universally bound by. Only by confronting this debate in a way that ensures that we fully participate and that our children fully benefit from being raised in a diverse and tolerant society will we rid ourselves of those widely publicized and inhumane racist acts such as the recent one at UFS. Also, and perhaps more importantly, we will be able to rid ourselves of those countless racially related boundaries and injustices that occur everyday and go unreported by the international media. By blurring the conflictual differences between our various races, we will finally be free to live in a world where racism plays an increasingly marginalized role.