Systemic Racism in South Africa
Let me start from the beginning.
Company Representative: “Hi, welcome to our headquarters”
Me: “Thank you”
Company representative: “What is your name?”
Me: “My name is Peakanyo”
Company Representative: “Pee what?”
Me: “P-E-A-K-A-N-Y-O”
Company representative: “That’s too difficult for me to pronounce, don’t you have another simpler name, an English name maybe”
Me: “No I don’t have an English name, you can just call me ‘PK’ if you find Peakanyo too difficult for you to pronounce.”
Company representative: “great, PK sounds much better for me”.
I must admit, my name, Peakanyo, is unique, and it is difficult for most people to pronounce when they hear it for the first time. Every time I introduce myself to someone and they have no interest in trying to pronounce it right, I quickly resort to suggest they call me ‘PK’ since it’s easy to call out. Whilst this is not racist at all, it becomes so when it is compared to someone’s else name who happens to be a different race, and that race is White.
In this company I work for, I have come to realise that most black people’s names who are apparently “too difficult to pronounce” are abbreviated to make it easier for others to call out.
Sikhulule is “SK”
Phelelani is “PH”
La Tanya is “LT”
Peakanyo is “PK”
etc
Let me put this into perspective with some bit of history during apartheid. Our former first black President, Mr Mandela’s given real birth names, that is, the names given by his family were “Rolihlahla Madiba” and his surname Mandela. So, he was supposed to be “Rolihlahla Madiba Mandela”.
Upon his arrival at school, Rolihlahla was given the English name “Nelson”, and this was common practice during the apartheid days for black people to be given “English names” due to colonial British bias on our education system during that time.
Fast forward to 2020, 20+ years after apartheid, black people are still subject to daily acts of microaggression at schools, workplaces, churches, social gathering places such as restaurants and so forth. To elaborate on the above scenario, black people’s names are decoded to make them sound right or “easier” for people to pronounce. In my work environment, English names that most often reference white people, like Rob or John, are not changed because they are made to seem to be appropriate names for one to have, they are made to feel right and normal, and easy to be used by everyone. On the other hand, names like Peakanyo or Phelelani, names that often belong to black people have to be decoded, changed to make it apparently easy for others to use. While this culture seems okay from the outset, it does great harm in a work environment, it makes me feel as a person, as a young black person, that I am worthless. It demeans me and makes me feel smaller, makes me feel as if I don’t belong to this environment, that this place is not meant for black people but for people with names like “Andrew” or “Daniel” or “Candice”, and that a “Peakanyo” or ‘Whatever that means’ doesn’t belong there. It creates a great barrier in making meaningful healthy connections and relationships in the workplace, it makes one feel like you are there just to get work done, that you are some kind of machine or computer and therefore we should just give you a name that is easy enough for everyone working with you to reference, like “Machine PK” or “Computer PH”.
I do not like being called “PK” or any other names, for me, it amounts to being bullied, it’s the same as being given a funny name that you don’t want by a bully in primary school or social media these days. But it is hard to express how “you feel” in a work environment, after all, you are there to work and that’s what we are all there for, I’m therefore not expected to express how I feel, as long I get the work done, as long as you are a productive “Machine PK”. You cannot be catching feelings just over a name. I cannot gauge the impact this level of microaggression culture has on the productivity of black employees, who are made to feel like they don’t belong, compared to white people, who are made to feel the opposite, but I believe it has an impact on the attitude we bring to work and our daily tasks, which ultimately has an impact on the productivity of “PK” compared to just “Neal” or “John”.
Equal Work Appraisal for Unequal Workers.
One time in a zoom meeting that was supposed to be about “Employees’ wellbeing”, I remember one particular employee, who happened to be a woman of colour, expressing how working from home has been of great benefit to her. She briefly mentioned in passing how she used to spend over two and half hours every day travelling to and from work. This was generally seen as normal for whatever reason by the rest of the people in the meeting because no one put an emphasize to it, but at that very moment, I sympathised greatly with what she said. She, like some employees, most of them Black, have to stay far away from work as that is the only way one can find affordable housing in Cape Town.
According to a research by the International Monetary Fund, “South Africa suffers among the highest levels of inequality in the world when measured by the commonly used Gini index. Inequality manifests itself through a skewed income distribution, unequal access to opportunities, and regional disparities. Low growth and rising unemployment have contributed to the persistence of inequality.”
The best place to observe this high level of inequality is in Cape Town. There are places like Camps Bay, Clifton and Stellenbosch which are home to the highest net worth individuals in South Africa and obviously most of them are White people. Then there are places that are deemed inhumane to live in, places that come atop of being the most dangerous cities in the world, Khayelitsha, Mitchells Plain, places that most black people reside. We have options though, of where we can stay as employees, you could stay in much safer and affordable places that are way too far from the city, but spend a great deal of time commuting to and from work like my fellow colleague I mentioned earlier, or you could stay in one of the middle class suburbs if you don’t mind sharing the apartment with one or two other people, but still spend a significant amount of time commuting to work, or better yet, decide to stay closer to work in the City Central and nearby places but that will cost you more than half of your salary.
Most black employees find themselves sharing an apartment and commuting to work in a bus or having to take at least two taxis to work, while most White employees live at home, probably with family and have their own car to commute to work.
Then we all get to the workplace and all of the sudden we are supposed to appear to be equal, we are expected to perform at the same level, pretend like where we come from, or our social experience have no impact on our productivity in the workplace. While social problems such as transport, crime rates in different areas, affordable housing, etcetera, are issues one company cannot solve, it should however recognise such problems and acknowledge how they affect its employees. This means that employee appraisals should not be on the same scale as some employees are severely affected by these social problems which in turn affect their productivity. The company can go as far as taking initiatives of alleviating these problems for their employees, such as free shuttle transports to different areas where most of these employees live or relocating their lowest paid group of employees’ offices to the most affordable cities in the country. These are decisions that are made by executives, who happen to be mostly White people that have no or little considerations to social issues that affect their employees as most of their decisions are made on a cost-benefit analyses.
Promotions of White employees compared to Black employees
The equal work appraisal policy means that employees who are at a better position in society in general, who happen to be predominately White due to the obvious injustice of the past, are seen to be performing much better than most Black employees. So in this company, I have had to observe most White employees get promoted at a much faster pace than black employees simply because their “performance” is way better than black employees. This has been happening before I even joined the company, which means that most managers are White men. The greatest ordeal I had to endure, for me personally, is seeing how most white employee starters are able to so easily network and mingle with the White managers, how easy they find it to have a conversation with them and relate on so many levels and form strong relationships. I have had to observe in silence and yet frustration as White employee starters get handpicked and selected to work on different projects that give them exposure and much more experience. Meanwhile, an employee like myself, who happens to be black, has to focus on improving “his performance”, and it seems like no one cares to think that I can only do as much and that my performance is limited by the unequal social backgrounds we come from. Imagine you are a young black fellow, you decided to live in Khayelitsha so you can save on the exorbitant rent of Cape Town, so that means you have to travel for quite a long distance to the office and have to use at least two taxis to get to work, you can hardly get a peaceful rest at night or even engage in other activities at home such as studying further at night because it gets “very busy and noisy” at townships, even during the week (The “Mogodu Monday” or “Phuza Thursday” kind of vibes) and weekends are not even negotiable of anything “peaceful”, you are paying off your student loan or subject to “black tax”. You come to the workplace, which is made to feel like you don’t belong to (as explained earlier) and you are set to compete on the same level as someone else who is coming from the exact opposite of your social standing. It becomes obvious that the employee coming from a social standing with so many privileges will perform much better than an employee like myself who comes from a “poor background”, to put it bluntly.
Social injustice is not a company problem, it is a global issue, and the company cannot be blamed for it, at least directly. But it becomes a great injustice when the company “ignores” these kind of issues and the impact they have on their employees, particularly because the company is in a position to do something about the social injustice. I wish my company could do more to help black employees, appointing a “black/diversity transformation leader” could help a lot, having shuttle transports for employees, taking actions and initiatives that help improve the productivity of all its employees. But given that the “managers” that make these kinds of decisions are not even near any position to understand what it means to be on the other side of the society, these kinds of initiatives cannot be taken.
Corporate South Africa has not transformed
Most companies in South Africa are owned and led by white people. In fact, the trend with most board executives is that it is always compromised of White people and then one or two black members “for diversity” purposes, or as we gladly call them in South Africa, “BBBEE” Transformation candidates. It has always made me wonder what these “Darkies” (as referenced by Mteto Nyati) do or say in the executive meetings, do they have any say at all, do they have power to make any “transformation” in a company, are they always outnumbered when voting on important decisions, or they are well aware that they are just there for window dressing and personally just enjoy showing up to meetings and getting their fees. The recent outing of Daniel Mminele as CEO of ABSA gauge exactly how effective these “diversification” in board executives run. This form of racist outing of executives actually happen more often than we take notice. Peter Moyo from Old Mutual, Tidjane Thiam from Credit Suisse, and the list can go on and on, and there is always a perfect excuse to these outings, or rather, the board has a great way of justifying these outings without even a slight hint that it had everything to do with the executive’s race.
BBBEE is ineffective
Social issues such as Racism and Inequality are not just “South African problems” but issues experienced globally. What is interesting, however, is how South Africa deals with these issues. BBBEE is a solution that black African Leaders have chosen to tackle inequality and interestingly enough, it is also a solution that is best suited to benefit the very same leaders more than the majority black people. It gives a very small number of black people within the network of those black leaders who established or implemented BBBEE, opportunities that come at a very high opportunity cost to many black South Africans and opens the door for systemic racism to persist unquestioned in South Africa. Let me elaborate on this using what I believe is a great example. Take for instance Patrice Motsepe, who we all know is a “businessman” and is also a brother-in-law to current President Cyril Ramaphosa, who happens to have been one of if not the master architect or as we casually call them “Mastermind” of BBBEE. Mr Motsepe partially owns Sanlam as a result of BEE transactions and the systemic racism at Sanlam is unfortunately more observable from the outside than any other corporate in South Africa especially for a company that prides itself as being the most diversified in its ownership. Sanlam deliberately discriminates black people from its services by communicating exclusively in only English and Afrikaans. If you call Sanlam today, you will first be greeted in English and Afrikaans and this speaks volume in terms of who they prioritise in their service offering, this means that for them, their offerings are only made for people who speak English and Afrikaans only and if you cannot speak either of the two languages, you will most probably struggle to get any service or help. It is one thing to have predominantly Afrikaans and English speaking clients and to go to great extent to service those clients, but it’s quite another thing to subject other groups of people to discrimination and more so emotional to intentionally exclude them from your services. Imagine a Venda speaking middle-age lady calling Sanlam to inquire about getting help with saving for her retirement, will she get assisted? But an Afrikaans speaking person is serviced just as quickly as the phone is answered. This form of systemic racism is just as much deplorable as the BEE deals that goes with it. Financial literacy among black people is at the lowest levels in South Africa, and it is the practices of companies like Sanlam that can also be blamed for this, among other social ills.
What is more concerning for me personally is not the fact that politicians use BBBEE to enrich themselves and people around their circle, which is very much what one can expect from a “typical politician” but is the other leaders on the other side, the White business leaders that have accepted BBBEE as a way to transform South Africa or reduce the level of inequality even as they come to realise it is not the most optimal way of solving these problems. I always assumed that business leaders are highly rational and intelligent beings who make their decisions after thorough rigorous evaluations, but then this makes me question why business leaders accept BBBEE as the way of transforming South Africa, do they even have any alternative choice? are they forced to accept BBBEE? or they are just as equally cynical as Politicians.
Systemic Racism in the Private Equity
Raising capital is one of the most challenging part of any entrepreneurial journey, particularly at the early stages of the start-up. It is very easy for entrepreneurs who have a great network of funders to raise capital and you often find that most White entrepreneurs have concrete networks that allow them to get funding very easily. Meanwhile, most Black entrepreneurs who do not have strong networks find it extremely hard to raise early-stage capital because “they cannot be trusted” or that Venture Capitals just have very low confidence in Black start up founders. Consequentially most black entrepreneurs are then forced to find creative ways raise capital and most of them end up receiving their start-up capital from the government. What strikes me about this is the fact that once an entrepreneur receives funding from the government, they are automatically personally red flagged by most financial institutions, they are treated as “high risk” of being corrupt and become subject to some unnecessary discrimination, they are treated as if they are involved in money laundering and other financial crimes and so they become subject to some kind of red tapes and usually find it more difficult to raise further funding from either the private or public sector when compared to White entrepreneurs who raise their start-up capital in the private sector. While the Private Equity space has recently transformed very significantly in terms of funding for Black and White start-up founders, some Black entrepreneurs still face some form of systemic racism and find it hard to raise early stage capital.
Racism, especially systemic racism, is a very sensitive topic to have because it comes across as accusing one group of people, being White, of being inherently guilty of an action they are not aware of or even intentional about. I believe that no one wakes up and says “Today I am going to be racist towards others” but as people, we develop and maintain certain attitudes and views about other people, and then accept those views as facts and internalise them to such an extent that we end up discriminating those people.
We are social beings; our attitudes and views can be changed overtime through socialisation. If Black and White people spend more time understanding each other, our background, our history, and what each of us is hoping to achieve in life, we will eventually realise that we are all human beings and we all strive to achieve equally the same goal in life, which is to live a happy prosperous fulfilling life and none of us want to be subject to or subject the other to any form of discrimination, including racism.
