Confronting racism in South African schools — Assembly

In June 2020, I was in the process of phasing out my Facebook account when I stumbled upon a post about racism and discrimination at my South African high school. The increased momentum for the Black Lives Matter movement after a police officer murdered George Floyd in the U.S. had provoked an online conversation among alumni about how teachers and White students treated Black and non-White students at our school. In over 200 comments, alumni shared their stories — and their words forced me to confront my own experiences of racism in high school.

My high school is a Model C school, which means it was formerly a Whites-only school that became more integrated after apartheid. Because I was one of three Black students in my academically inclined home room, I believe I was spared the more overt accounts of racism that my Black peers experienced at the hands of our teachers. Being in these classes was a form of protection; teachers didn’t underestimate me and automatically assume I was incompetent on the basis of my race. But I still saw racism all around me.

Teachers would make comments to Black students to try to shame us into silence, like "this isn't a taxi rank" (Black people often use informal taxis because they cost less than formal public transportation). Or "this isn't a township school" (townships are underfunded areas that were demarcated for non-White citizens during apartheid). Or "this isn't a shebeen" (an informal, often unlicensed, bar in a township). In grade 10, I was in an elective class with predominantly Black students when the teacher stated, unprovoked, that he was looking forward to seeing some of us working as car guards and minding his vehicle outside a shopping mall. It was clear that this teacher had low expectations for what Black students were capable of achieving and had no qualms expressing it.

I started to recognize the school administration’s double standard for students of colour. Although our country has 11 national languages, teachers reprimanded or threatened to punish Black students for speaking their home languages, even during breaks or between classes. They would remind us that we were attending an English-speaking school, yet they allowed White students to speak Afrikaans to each other and oftentimes to the teachers too. Muslim girls had to carry concession cards to wear trousers or a hijab for their religious practices. Hindu students were forced to remove the sacred rakhi or mauli threads from their wrists. Administrators told Black girls that their natural hair was a distraction, that it was messy and untidy and went against the clause in the school code of conduct about neat presentation. However, the White girls could go from brown hair to platinum blonde hair and have unconventional piercings on display without getting punished for uniform infringement.

Intolerance was also present within the student body. White students would use the N-word, saying that it was an American slur so it was not offensive in a South African context. They would call an area where Black students often hung out at break “N-wordland.” They also used the K-word — a deeply offensive term that has roots in South Africa's apartheid history — against Black students. Whenever a student would express their discomfort or unease about the terms waged against them, White students accused them of making everything about race. Although Black students took these complaints to teachers, the administration wouldn’t punish White students. At the time, my school had a teaching staff of about 90 and only three of them were teachers of colour. Black students often felt that reporting such instances was futile because teachers would tell them it is a privilege to attend such a school and that they should be grateful. The lack of intervention from the teaching staff enabled division and racism to fester. The school takes a lot of pride in having a zero tolerance policy for bullying that each learner has to sign, however the lack of action proves that they have plenty of tolerance for racism.

At the time, students only learned apartheid history if you chose to study history in grade 10 and onwards. In my own year, not many students took history as a subject. In a country with a democracy that is only 26 years old, I felt that apartheid history should be mandatory and not optional. I heard some of my own friends say that it happened such a long time ago and that I should get over it. But if students learned apartheid history, we could confront the roots of racism and have constructive conversations regarding privilege and class in a controlled academic environment. We could recognize that the communities around the country still feel the aftershocks of apartheid today and if other students were aware of this, it would make it harder to dismiss the experiences of people of colour. Teachers avoid these topics because they fear it may create division but this deliberate omission of our country’s history is causing the polarisation.

Due to the spaces that I occupied, I was dissociated from my Blackness and people often referred to me as a coconut or an oreo, which was somehow meant to erase their insults. It became clear that as a Black or non-White student in the school, teachers and White students merely tolerate your presence. You are only accepted if you are exceptional and if you are accepted, you have to forfeit some aspect of your identity or risk being punished or socially outcast for refusing to assimilate to the intolerant environment. South Africa is often called the Rainbow Nation for having a diverse population of people with a diverse heritage living alongside one another in relative peace. If a school is a microcosm for the values a country is meant to uphold, unfortunately, the majority of people are not embracing our differences. They are still using them against us.

“It became clear that as a Black or non-White student in the school, teachers and White students merely tolerate your presence.”

— Valentine Atsango

With the hashtag #racisminSAhighschools, students across the country have been sharing their encounters with racism and discrimination in the classroom. Their experiences make it clear that these issues have gone unacknowledged, unaddressed and uncontested in too many schools for too long. Because of students’ courageous decision to share their stories, leaders are actually talking about these problems for the first time and government officials promised to launch investigations in the schools mentioned based on the allegations.

Bontle Ndlovu, an alumna of my school, launched the #icantspeak campaign to expose the covertly toxic cultures and the microaggressions students of colour have faced and continue to face. By harnessing the power of the hashtag, she has helped people whose voices were previously overlooked to tell their stories, aiding the education authorities in our province with their investigation into our school. Bontle has also mobilized a group of alumni to use their social media platforms to raise awareness about these issues and initiate conversations around race and racism. My friends and I also formed an unofficial transformation committee to discuss the interventions our school can take to prevent a hostile learning environment for students.

As overwhelming as the process of unearthing these truths has been, there is an opportunity for true change. We have the chance to create learning environments where each student is treated with the dignity and respect they deserve. To the critics of our campaign, I'd like to ask: Why do we send kids to school in the first place? Is it not to learn about our history so that we can grow from it? Is it not to be inspired? Is it not to be imbued with the confidence to not only navigate the world around us but to perhaps change it, to perhaps improve upon it? Do we not send kids to school so that we can usher in a new generation determined to leave behind a better legacy than the one they inherited?

My generation has learned this lesson and we will continue to advocate for growth and change one tweet, one hashtag, one petition signature at a time.