Author: Charl Linde
Published: 24/08/2018
The Transformation Office of Stellenbosch
University (SU) and the SU Museum recently hosted Tiffany Caesar, a doctoral candidate
from Michigan State University in the United States, as part of the Ubuntu
Dialogues series and Women’s Month. Tiffany shared her insights and experiences
derived from the Black Lives Matter movement in the States and her academic
research on related topics.
Tiffany spoke broadly about eugenics
and how it still influences the lives and social mobility of the black
community and transcends continents. Focusing primarily on structural racism
and how it pertains to education, she explained how segregated and poorly
funded education and higher unemployment in black communities often lead to a
vicious cycle that impacts people of colour throughout their lives. Add to this
the way in which the police and the justice system treat people from the black
community, the impact of all these issues on families and communities lasts for
generations.
Everyday examples of structural
racism highlighted by Tiffany that also still exist in South Africa include the
Pretoria High School for Girls case, which made international headlines in 2016
when black pupils’ natural hair was found to be against school policy. Why are
white hairstyles universally seen as neat and tidy; why are natural black
hairstyles considered unruly and untidy?
Tiffany also interrogated the notion
of meritocracy and the common narrative in the States that people from the black
community simply have to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps”. Is this fair
or even possible in a milieu where poor education, high unemployment and an
overt focus on black people by the criminal justice system converge and
accumulate?
After her
address, Tiffany was in conversation with Nomzamo Ntombela, former Students’ Representative Council
president, and then took questions from the floor ranging from topics linking
to institutional responses to the renaming of symbols of white power on
campuses worldwide and what she describes as a false ideology of colour
blindness. Her experiences in the States with regard to the slow pace of change
in the higher education sector is that “students have to cry first” before
something is done to address the issues that they have about making these spaces
more welcoming for students of all races.
*Before
the event commenced, a moment of silence was held for the death of one of South
Africa’s struggle icons Zondeni Veronica Sobukwe and for that of the queen of
soul and icon Aretha Franklin.