The Curious Success of Post-racialism in Post-apartheid South Africa

• In Event: 130 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 04. Race and Ethnicity Beyond the United States

Abstract

South Africa is united in its diversity, the Preamble to the Constitution of South Africa proclaims. The actual meaning of this sentence, however, is difficult to pinpoint. In this article we use 151 in-depth interviews conducted on four different ethnic groups to explore the popularity of a post-racial ideology among young, middle-class South African students at two elite universities. Such educational institutions provide a unique setting for the study of racial interactions and racial discourse, as interactions with racial others are relatively frequent, in a supposedly neutral setting. We find that across ethnic groups, most young South Africans actively practice a post-racial ideology in which they celebrate diversity, emphasize that race no longer matters, and argue that this is what makes South Africa a unique country. The interviews also reveal that the actual experiences and racial encounters of students are often contradictory to a discourse that emphasizes that race no longer matters. We highlight tensions between idealized discursive conceptions about diversity and the reality of everyday life at university. The success of diversity thinking among all groups is difficult to explain by a single rationale or motivation, particularly given the daily racial frictions in social life. Instead, we found that each group has a set of distinct motives and reasoning that endorse and espouse the diversity discourse.

Author

• Jacob Rolf Boersema, State University of New Jersey-Rutgers