It’s important not to view these as isolated incidents, or as slips of the tongue, but rather as manifestations of a structurally unequal system that allows white people to feel confident in expressing hateful and hurtful commentary about black people, or to claim ownership over land (‘our beaches’) or experience (‘victimhood’). Thus, racism and inequality go hand in hand, and racist ‘outbursts’ are facilitated by our system of economic and political inequality which continues to oppress the black majority. In a system where black and white people were not only legally but substantively equal, these comments would be readily identified as problematic. This system also allows racists to think that they are not racist, because their position of white privilege is so normalized (see Eusebius McKaiser’s discussion of that here).
Racism is harmful, that is indisputable and it manifests in economic inequality, in the continued dominance of white males in all business sectors (if you don’t believe me, check out the annual report of the Commission for Employment Equity). I was thus not surprised to read this morning that the ANC has decided to target racism as one of the primary themes of their local government election campaign. I assume opposition parties will soon be doing the same.