LEWE NA APARTHEID: LIDMATE SE NARRATIEWE VANUIT 'N ...

Hoofstuk 3: Die verhaal oor apartheid – verlede tyd
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so stel: "a black man has no rights if his rights clash with the self-interest
of the whites."
Hoe waar hierdie opmerking is, is byvoorbeeld duidelik uit die implikasies van die
Ontugwet. Hierdie wet, wat seksuele verkeer tussen verskillende rasse verbied, is by
nadere ondersoek baie meer spesifiek. Die wet verbied enige seksuele verkeer tussen
wit en swart mense, maar nie enigsins seksuele verkeer tussen enige van die ander
rasgroepe in die land nie (Groenewald 1986:27). Dit is dus duidelik dat die rassisme in
apartheid net die voordeel van die wit mense bevorder het, selfs ten koste van swart
mense. "While blacks were treated as inferiors and lived in a culture of marginalisation
and insecurity, whites believed that they had established a peaceful and just society by
the establishment of homogenous black nations and states” (Kinghorn 1990:68).
Rassisme is volgens Biko (1987:88) nie bloot die uitsluiting van een rasgroep deur ʼn
ander nie, “it always presupposes that the exclusion is for the purposes of subjugation.”
En dit is die vraag: Het rassisme altyd te doen met mag en die misbruik daarvan?
3.3.2 Rassisme en mag
Oor die kwessie van misbruik van mag skryf Biko (1987:25) elders soos volg:
“Those who know, define racism as discrimination by a group against
another for the purposes of subjugation or maintaining subjugation. In
other words one cannot be a racist unless he has the power to
subjugate.”
Dit is ooglopend dat rassisme dikwels met mag en magsmisbruik te make het. Terry
(1975:2) se omvattende definisie van rassisme sluit hierby aan:
Racism exists when one race/color group intentionally or unintentionally
refuses to share power, distributes resources inequitably,
maintains unresponsive and inflexible institutional policies, procedures,
and practices, and imposes ethnocentric culture on any other
race/color group for its supposed benefit, and justifies its actions by
blaming the other race/color group.