Your Excellency, Mr White,
As South Africans, black and white, who are conscious of the benefits that democracy has brought to us, we take great exception to the grounds on which asylum was sought and granted to South African Brandon Huntley by Canada's immigration and refugee board.
Huntley paints a picture of white South Africans as a victimized minority group, persecuted by a vengeful and racially vindictive black majority. This is deeply insulting both to the great majority of black South Africans who have embraced reconciliation and also to those many white South Africans who value the opportunity to participate in building the non-racial, non-sexist society envisioned by our constitution.
The outrageously distorted representation of contemporary South Africa does not square with the realities in our country, by any factual measure. While the crime rates in South Africa are high as a consequence of numerous interrelated factors - many of which are the working through of the past brutalization of our society by the system of white supremacy, and none of which relate to inherent criminal tendencies in black people - it is simply untrue that white people are being targeted disproportionately. Black South Africans are much more likely to be victims of crime, largely because they are less able to afford the protections and security measures which most white South Africans, as still privileged citizens, are able to acquire.
The account of the position of white men in relation to employment as a consequence of affirmative action is similarly inaccurate. Indeed, it is ironic that this decision comes in the very week that the 2008-2009 Employment Equity statistics were released, showing the advantaged position that white people, especially white men, still hold relative to other groups. White South Africans, who represent some 12 percent of the country's Economically Active Population (EAP) and some 9 percent of the total population, occupy 72.8 percent of top management positions. Whites on average earn more money at nearly every level than Africans. The report showed that white men accounted for 44.7 percent of promotions and 48.2 percent of recruitments. Despite the fact that the majority of skilled people are black African, many remain unemployed because they are not given the opportunity to prove their worth.
Perhaps even more concerning to us than the blatant distortions in the testimony led at this hearing is the fact that the board's panel chair, William Davis, so readily bought into evidence that surely must have been patently suspect even to the excessively credulous: Seven assaults and not one reported to the police? Tabloid newspaper articles? A person with a job who maintains the country's laws "prohibit" his employment?
The sad truth is that this case demonstrates not the perilous condition of white South Africans, but the kinds of things some people are still willing to believe about Africa and Africans, based on assumptions that continue to circulate in the white worlds they share. That the panel's chair could not recognise white backlash for the reactionary discourse it is tells us that the struggle for racial justice has a long way to go, and not only in South Africa.
We wish to distance ourselves in the strongest possible terms from the world view this case perpetuates.
Sincerely,
Melissa Steyn (Intercultural and Diversity Studies, University of Cape Town)
Martin Hall (Vice-Chancellor, University of Salford)
Max Price (Vice-Chancellor, University of Cape Town)
Jonathan Jansen (Vice-Chancellor, University of the Free State)
Thandi Sidzumo-Mazibuko (Acting Vice Principal: Strategy, Planning & Partnerships UNISA)
Crain Soudien (Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor, University of Cape Town)
Adam Habib (Deputy Vice-Chancellor, University of Johannesburg)
Arnold van Zyl (Deputy Vice Chancellor, University of Stellenbosch)
Gordon n. Zide (Deputy Vice-chancellor, Vaal University of Technology)
Cheryl Potgieter (Research, University of KwaZulu Natal)
Judy Favish (Institutional Planning, UCT)
Nazeema Mohamed (Transformation and Employment Equity
University of the Witwatersrand)
Norman Duncan (School of Human and Community Development,
University of the Witwatersrand
Jerome-Alexander Van Wyk (Employment Equity and the Promotion of Diversity Stellenbosch University)
Ruby-Ann Levendal (Organizational Transformation and Equity, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University)
Samuel Henkeman (Cape Peninsula University of Technology)
Therese Fish (Faculty of Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University)
Gerhard Lubbe (Faculty of Law, University of Stellenbosch)
Dorrian Aiken (Integral CoachTM, Procorp)
Kopana Ratele (University of South Africa)
Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela (Dept of Psychology, University of Cape Town)
Mokubung.Nkomo (University of Pretoria)
As South Africans, black and white, who are conscious of the benefits that democracy has brought to us, we take great exception to the grounds on which asylum was sought and granted to South African Brandon Huntley by Canada's immigration and refugee board.
Huntley paints a picture of white South Africans as a victimized minority group, persecuted by a vengeful and racially vindictive black majority. This is deeply insulting both to the great majority of black South Africans who have embraced reconciliation and also to those many white South Africans who value the opportunity to participate in building the non-racial, non-sexist society envisioned by our constitution.
The outrageously distorted representation of contemporary South Africa does not square with the realities in our country, by any factual measure. While the crime rates in South Africa are high as a consequence of numerous interrelated factors - many of which are the working through of the past brutalization of our society by the system of white supremacy, and none of which relate to inherent criminal tendencies in black people - it is simply untrue that white people are being targeted disproportionately. Black South Africans are much more likely to be victims of crime, largely because they are less able to afford the protections and security measures which most white South Africans, as still privileged citizens, are able to acquire.
The account of the position of white men in relation to employment as a consequence of affirmative action is similarly inaccurate. Indeed, it is ironic that this decision comes in the very week that the 2008-2009 Employment Equity statistics were released, showing the advantaged position that white people, especially white men, still hold relative to other groups. White South Africans, who represent some 12 percent of the country's Economically Active Population (EAP) and some 9 percent of the total population, occupy 72.8 percent of top management positions. Whites on average earn more money at nearly every level than Africans. The report showed that white men accounted for 44.7 percent of promotions and 48.2 percent of recruitments. Despite the fact that the majority of skilled people are black African, many remain unemployed because they are not given the opportunity to prove their worth.
Perhaps even more concerning to us than the blatant distortions in the testimony led at this hearing is the fact that the board's panel chair, William Davis, so readily bought into evidence that surely must have been patently suspect even to the excessively credulous: Seven assaults and not one reported to the police? Tabloid newspaper articles? A person with a job who maintains the country's laws "prohibit" his employment?
The sad truth is that this case demonstrates not the perilous condition of white South Africans, but the kinds of things some people are still willing to believe about Africa and Africans, based on assumptions that continue to circulate in the white worlds they share. That the panel's chair could not recognise white backlash for the reactionary discourse it is tells us that the struggle for racial justice has a long way to go, and not only in South Africa.
We wish to distance ourselves in the strongest possible terms from the world view this case perpetuates.
Sincerely,
Melissa Steyn (Intercultural and Diversity Studies, University of Cape Town)
Martin Hall (Vice-Chancellor, University of Salford)
Max Price (Vice-Chancellor, University of Cape Town)
Jonathan Jansen (Vice-Chancellor, University of the Free State)
Thandi Sidzumo-Mazibuko (Acting Vice Principal: Strategy, Planning & Partnerships UNISA)
Crain Soudien (Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor, University of Cape Town)
Adam Habib (Deputy Vice-Chancellor, University of Johannesburg)
Arnold van Zyl (Deputy Vice Chancellor, University of Stellenbosch)
Gordon n. Zide (Deputy Vice-chancellor, Vaal University of Technology)
Cheryl Potgieter (Research, University of KwaZulu Natal)
Judy Favish (Institutional Planning, UCT)
Nazeema Mohamed (Transformation and Employment Equity
University of the Witwatersrand)
Norman Duncan (School of Human and Community Development,
University of the Witwatersrand
Jerome-Alexander Van Wyk (Employment Equity and the Promotion of Diversity Stellenbosch University)
Ruby-Ann Levendal (Organizational Transformation and Equity, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University)
Samuel Henkeman (Cape Peninsula University of Technology)
Therese Fish (Faculty of Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University)
Gerhard Lubbe (Faculty of Law, University of Stellenbosch)
Dorrian Aiken (Integral CoachTM, Procorp)
Kopana Ratele (University of South Africa)
Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela (Dept of Psychology, University of Cape Town)
Mokubung.Nkomo (University of Pretoria)
