Make Indigenes Unconscious of Whiteness: A Response to Green,Sonn,and Matsebula

Abstract

Green, Sonn, and Matsebula (2007) present a useful review of studies that theorise, research, and suggest possibilities of looking at race and racism through the lens of whiteness. In the process, however, they elide some intriguing specifics of the history of race in South Africa, such as that in the entire history of the race classification board there were no instances of any African turning white or of any white person changing into the category of African. By placing the focus on white rather than black subjectivity, whiteness studies runs the risk of drawing attention away, not only from the suffering, but also from the resilience, beauty, and love, that arises, for indigenous people, out of a history of oppression and solidarity.