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Darcy du Toit in Weekly Comment in IR Network published by LexisNexis [subscription required]
Racism, or questions of black and white
Excerpt
“On the one hand the court emphasised the broad principle that “all human beings will be accorded equal dignity and respect regardless of their membership of particular groups” (para 4). On this basis, as the chairperson of the disciplinary inquiry had put it, to “sing out loud that the ‘blacks’ would be happy when ‘beating’ the whites/boere, amounts to hatred speech towards the ‘white’ race” (para 15). This can be seen as disrespecting “whites/boere” because of their membership of a particular racial group – in other words, racism.
But “equal respect” also has a more precise meaning. As the court had previously explained, equality “does not imply a levelling or homogenisation of behaviour” but “affirms that difference should not be the basis for exclusion, marginalisation and stigma” (para 5).
Equality, in other words, is not about the elimination of difference in general but more about the elimination of top-down disparities in terms of privilege, access to resources or social status based on “membership of particular groups”. Similarly, the prohibition of unfair discrimination is about preventing the “exclusion” or “marginalisation” of people because of the “group” they belong to.
This is the grain of truth in the over-broad generalisation that “blacks cannot discriminate against whites”: those at the lower end of the social ladder cannot “exclude” or “marginalise” those who are in a superior position. The same, it follows, does not apply to black people who are higher up on the ladder.
But the workers at Duncanmec were not high up on the ladder, and the employers against whom their song was directed were decidedly in a superior position. This did not make the song a mere exercise in musical expression. As noted already, the CCMA found – and NUMSA did not disagree – that it was “inappropriate and offensive” (para 39). But offensive conduct, or rudeness, does not equal discrimination. The former may upset a person, but the latter diminishes their sense of self-worth as well as their social esteem.”