FOR DECADES those leading the challenge against race labeling, the idea that all individuals occupy distinct race categories defined in law, and backed by pseudo-scientific theories, for example the discredited multi-regionalist theory of human evolution, were predominantly by people of color.
This is no longer the case. Persons such as Kallie Kriel, Ernst Roets, Solidarity and Afriforum are all pitted against race labeling under the current government. So let’s take a look at where this opposition originated and why it has become so contentious today.
Our Common Humanity.
Robert Sobukwe of the Pan Africanist Congress was one of the foremost proponents of a common humanity, famously stating in 1959: “The Africanists take the view that there is only one race to which we all belong, and that is the human race. In our vocabulary therefore, the word ‘race’, as applied to man, has no plural form.”
Student leaders such as Steven Bantu Biko then acted to shift blackness out of the realm of apartheid race theory and into the domain of existential philosophy. “Being black is not a matter of pigmentation,” said Biko whilst giving evidence on 3 May 1976, “being black is a reflection of a mental attitude.”
My own mentor, the late Dr Neville Alexander who led the Unity movement so-named because of his belief in a common stream of humanity as opposed to separate streams, taught fellow inmates on Robben Island that “race” is a mere social construct. Alongside fellow Africanists, he was eager to dispose of the term ‘multiracialism’ in favour of a new paradigm, ‘non-racialism’.
Alexander argued “race” has no scientific nor biological basis, but rather is a social and political construct linked to economic and power interests, constructed under a ‘system of racial capitalism’.
Unity Movement
The Unity Movement and its successors fought for the negation of racial categories: Alexander’s vision involved the active effort to unthink and ultimately eliminate all racial labels and categories (such as “black,” “white,” “coloured,” and “Indian”) from political and social discourse.
By continuing to use these labels, even in post-apartheid policies, he believed, we risked perpetuating racial thinking and divisions.
And one can trace the history of these important ideas and their contribution to the epic history of our country, from the multiracialist position so-evident at Kliptown to the non-racialism of the Mandela-era and the current Constitution, all of which has a parallel within the scientific establishment.
Paleo-Science informs us
In 1961 paleoanthropologist Philip Tobius published a paper titled “The Meaning of Race” in which he questioned the academic usefulness of the category of race, based upon his scientific discoveries that inform the ‘Out of Africa’ hypothesis.
The idea that human beings spontaneously evolved on separate continents, was thought to explain differences in skin color, but is no longer the prevailing wisdom. To paraphrase, ‘adaptive traits such as hair and skin color are not evidence of a separation between the species. We are all one species.’
In essence our country is founded upon ideas once advocated by Sobukwe, Biko and Mandela, and backed up by scientific facts not mere ideology. The republic was birthed upon a foundation of ‘non-racialism’, in other words, opposition to the racialisation policies practiced by the apartheid government and scientific establishment, and a resistance that extends beyond our nation’s political discourse.
Enter the Opposition of 2025.
Today the meaning of non-racialism is not as clear and certain. There are many who are more than a little bewildered to observe some discordance since the current motive for removing race labels arises not from progressives on the left, but rather from conservative criticism of policies such as Black Economic Empowerment (BEE)
Those once considered traditional advocates of racialisation policies, the self-same lobby groups who once supported white privilege and race segregation, are now the greatest disciples of non-racialism.
Afriforum, an Afrikaner-lobby group for example, holds a strong stance against the use of race labels in BEE policies, viewing them as a form of “plain racism” and racial discrimination. The organization argues that these policies are unconstitutional, have failed to achieve genuine equality in South Africa, and borne out by our nation’s lack-lustre growth.
There are some ‘142 active racial laws on the statute books’ claim Afriforum, who are challenging the government to amend or remove such laws. It is obviously disconcerting to see the left on the back-foot, defending their own policies against the exact same criticism once leveled at the apartheid state.
Debunkers Debunked
Yet attempts to debunk such assertions, invariably end up cherry-picking one or two contested laws, (to show the impact amounts to positive discrimination, when it achieves a political objective, and thus can’t be unfair) or by pretending that our nation is color-blind when it wants to put on a good impression, as a government press release asserts in the shade of a G20 summit: ‘no race laws exist.’
A point immediately contradicted by Herman Pretorious who tweeted: “I’m old enough to remember @CyrilRamaphosa defending the existence of race laws in…May this year. The mental gymnastics required to both double down on and then deny the existence of race-based laws and policies is rather remarkable, @GovernmentZA’
A piece by Anton Harber claiming to provide an independent outlook, seeks to absolve himself from the intellectual activity of analyzing the law, in order to promote a new form of moral rectitude and sophistry based entirely upon race. “ I could go on through the list of laws, but it is clear that many of the so-called “race laws” do little more than promote inclusivity and representivity — hardly a surprise in a country where until recently most of these positions were reserved by race and gender.”
Harber’s claim, however, is patently false as can be seen from his statement: “There is another critical difference between today’s laws and apartheid law. Under apartheid, racial categorisation was imposed by law and implemented forcibly by low-level bureaucrats. The current law is based on self-identification — a very different treatment of race.”
If race-identity were all about self-identification, Mr Harber, I would not be sitting here with a corrupt 2010 Labour Court decision stating: “He made absurd claims that he was a ‘coloured’.” For the record, I am a ‘coloured assimilationist” according to criteria enumerated by A Abdurahman and C Vogel. You can read about my ordeal here with apartheid race classification and justifications for newsroom segregation that include segregation of news concerns.
Down-playing an important debate by declaring “today’s laws are governed by our Constitution, which outlaws discrimination unless it is done for the purpose of redress for historical inequities. Anything that goes beyond that is subject to judicial scrutiny,” does absolutely nothing to redress those impacted and affected by ludicrous unscientific assumptions, which continue to be upheld up by our nation’s jurists.