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Steve Biko

Roger SanerJun 06,2009
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Identifying with the oppresor

I've always wondered why white South Africans, particularly Christians, didn't live more differently during Apartheid. I keep on hearing about "small things" that people did, and they seem...small.

Steve Biko continues from my last post:

"A game at which the liberals have become masters is that of deliberate evasiveness. The question often comes up "what can I do?". If you ask him to do something like stopping to use segregated facilities or dropping out of varsity to work at menial jobs like all blacks or defying and denouncing all provisions that make him privileged, you always get the answer - "but that's unrealistic!". While this may be true, it only serves to illustrate the fact that no matter what a white man does, the colour of his skin - his passport to privilege - will always put him miles ahead of the black man. Thus in the ultimate analysis no white person can escape being part of the oppresor camp."
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Roger SanerJun 04,2009
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Steve Biko's take on white South African Christians in 2009

Steve Biko wrote a chapter called "Black Souls in White Skins?" in "I write what I like" which, while written 40 years ago, has an eerie ring. Here are some excerpts (with occasional comments by me):

"Basically the South African white community is a homogenous community." [No, he's wrong! It's changed! We're not, uh, THAT homogenous! We are integrated! And have lots of friends of different colours! Some of my best friends are black! I can say "Hello" in Zulu! We've heard it said that the most segragated hour in the US is Sunday morning - well not so in non-racial SA! Simunye - we are one! I feel the pain of the lack of service delivery to the black masses!]

"We are concerned with that curious bunch of nonconformists ... These are the people who claim that they too feel the oppression just as acutely as the blacks and therefore should be jointly involved in the black man's struggle for a place under the sun. In short, these are the people who say that they have black souls wrapped up in white skins." [Hey, I've thought that about me! My friend Solomon is from Zimbabwe - I call him "White man" and he calls me "Black man." I think only our mothers can tell us apart.]

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