Friday, January 8, 2016

"White Consciousness"

South African Squatter camps for whites

…the type of white man we have today has lost his manhood. Reduced to an obliging shell, he looks with awe at the black power structure and accepts what he regards as the ‘inevitable position’. Deep inside his anger mounts at the accumulating insult, but he vents it in the wrong direction… No longer does he trust leadership …nor is there any trust. In the privacy of his toilet his face twists in silent condemnation of black society but brightens up in sheepish obedience as he comes out hurrying in response to his master’s impatient call. Around his braai, he joins the chorus that roundly condemns the black man but is first to praise the government in the presence of the police or his employers. His heart yearns for the comfort of black society and makes him blame himself for not having been educated enough to warrant such luxury. All in all the white man has become a shell, a shadow of man, completely defeated, drowning in his own misery, a slave, an ox bearing the yoke of oppression with sheepish timidity.

This is the first truth, bitter as it may seem, that we have to acknowledge before we can start on any programme designed to change the status quo. It becomes more necessary to see the truth as it is if you realise that the only vehicle for change are these people who have lost their personality. The first step therefore is to make the white man come to himself; to pump back life into his empty shell; to infuse him with pride and dignity, to remind him of his complicity in the crime of allowing himself to be misused and therefore letting evil reign supreme in the country of his birth. This is what we mean by an inward-looking process. This is the definition of ‘White Consciousness’.

(All I have done is change the words black and white around – this was written by Steve Biko and it is 100% true of the majority of our white citizens today)