The myth of the colour-blind children

I’ve often heard people tell the stories of how their children have become “colour-blind”, meaning that they don’t see race, and thus they aren’t “racist”. It’s a hopeful statement, talking about a future that can be different. It’s also a confession of sorts, saying that our children are able to achieve what we (“we” being whichever generation is saying this) couldn’t. It also calls out for redemption. No matter our past, we were able to give birth to children that are no longer indebted to that past.

But the important question would be: is it true? Are we creating a generation of colour-blind children? Is it even possible to be colour-blind in 2010? Or is colour-blind a myth created by the white liberals, used to be politically correct? A trend towards ignoring race in a attempt at sidestepping forms of racism had been identified in white studies all over the world. Would this comment on our children be part of that?

Obviously there is something very problematic embedded within this statement, since stating it already recognize our own racial struggles, and the fact that we couldn’t or wouldn’t reconcile with people from other races. And it’s deeply problematic is a white person and a black person, both 50 years old, with 30 years ahead of them together in this country, leave reconciliation to a next generation.

What bothers me is the fact that I doubt whether the next generation will be “colour-blind”. Maybe in the white liberal sense of the word, meaning refuse to talk about issues of race (which creates huge problems when it comes to reconciliation), but I doubt whether “colour-blind” will be achieved in the next generation – “colour-blind” in the sense that they don’t think whites should in some why continue to have specific privileges, or in the way where the humanity of all people of all races are equally recognized, and thus the death of all people from all races equally mourned.

Maybe what bothers me most is the fact that I’m wondering whether the colour-blind children myth might not be an easy strategy to postpone the painful discussions and actions that is so long overdue. If we can convince everyone that our children will be colour-blind, then it does in a way excuse us from the difficult work of reconciliation necessary today. This idea can be an easy strategy to claim that reconciliation has been secured for the future of South Africa, and that we can take if of the agenda.

The reality is however that our children will inherit our ideas. They will imitate the reconciliation that we embody. They will carry over the racialization that we received. Except if we work to intentionally change this. If parents, schools, society, media, and other role-players work together to slowly but surely become a mirror and a model. A mirror for our children to find out how they’ve been racialized, and a model for what might become in the future.

The myth of the colour-blind children is a hopeful myth. But even with hard work it will take more than one generation. By simply retelling the myth, without every saying: we will be reconciled with our neighbour. Us. This generation. Me. Myself. I will reconcile with someone, build a friendship with someone that is a racial other, and model the reconciliation which I hope for my children, this myth might become just another one in the line of hopeful stories which let us down.

(colour-blind is a misleading idea at this stage, and not something I propose that we make our aim).

Papers from conference on violence

I’ve been involved with the Centre for Public Theology at the University of Pretoria for the past number of years now. We just finished a conference titles: Violence in the Democratic South Africa: A Challenge to Theology and the Churches.

The papers were brilliant. And the vibe was not that of a typical academic conference where ideas were merely “interesting”, but a very strong drive to be involved to change what is happening existed, and grew stronger as the extend of the problem became clearer over the three days.

My own paper was on the effect of whiteness in my own church’s public discourse concerning violence. It’s still a research project in progress, but what was presented at the conference can be found here.

All the papers we have so far (more are still coming) can be downloaded here. They are still to be finished up for publications in the coming months. Some in academic journals, and we most, if not all, in a book (hopefully). Still a lot of work for those who were involved.

In tensious sexual space: between Victorianism and Hollywood

This intro might be tough for some parents to read. Especially if you’re the church-going type (of whom I am a part), who find joy in the fact that your university-aged-children attend the local student congregation faithfully.

I remember a specific church “outreach” tour back in my undergraduate years (actually, this story was true of more than one such event). After being fed-up with the fact that for days without end the one group with whom a friend of mine was spending time with seemed to be talking about sex non-stop, he attempted to rather hang out with some of the other groups of friends in the (quite large) group. He returner a day or two later with the conclusion that it wasn’t only his own group of (mostly theological students) friend that was talking about sex non-stop, it was all students.

I guess I was reminded about that time again last night when I spent an evening with a group of students. Slightly younger than most of my friends, slightly more religious, and slightly more conservative, I was struck by the fact that they couldn’t get out of conversations with some form of sexual undertone (or simply blatant sexual references). Probably weirdest would be that the whole conversation was dotted by someone (random participants, not just one sour grape) reminding the group that they are “going too far”, or that “this should stop”, after which this same person would continue with the conversation.

In a way I have a lot of sympathy with groups like these. This are a generation that was raised with some of the most hypocritical approaches to sex. They find themselves in some tensious space between Victorianism and Hollywood. Not on the way from the one to the other, but in both at the same time. Victorianism has been full of hypocrisy since its inception, with an outward pretence of puritan moralism often covering an underlying hedonism. But these groups of young people experienced being raised on Victorian ideas, where sex was never discussed or even mentioned (and even pronouncing the word is often difficult of near-impossible for some), but at the same time raised on Hollywood, where blatant and extremely visual references to sexuality was part of the upbringing of even the most religious among them.

Neither these strong influences on their developing sexuality provided a healthy approach to talking about those things sexual. Maybe that is why there search for balance include lots of laughter about sexual practices considered “dirty” by Victorian standards and jokes about the sexuality of others within their groups of friends.

Update: After reading the post Tiaan said that I can mention that he was the friend from paragraph 2.