By: Jochen Peiper

Jochen Peiper — Sun, 11 Sep 2016 20:25:00 +0000

My kids are in a small white Afrikaans school. We have two black kids who are being schooled in Afrikaans. They are deeply religious Rastafari. The only rule applied to them (which applies to all girls with hair longer than their shoulder) is that it should be tied up. Their parents are quite fine with this. The boy is a prop in his age group’s rugby side and his mother vociferously supports him at games. I was totally stunned when she told me our white Afrikaans school was the only one where her two children had been completely accepted despite their dreadlocks with no questions asked. It was one of the reasons she shifted her kids to our school from township and a local English school. The kids have quickly and easily been accepted among class mates and the language “barrier” was very quickly overcome with intensive help from our dedicated teachers.
It is fallacious to suggest this hypocricy following from “whiteness” of which you speak is universal. Nevertheless I would admit to its existence.

Comments on: Only privilege speaks: White racism & black hypocrisy(Around hair politics) in South Africa

By: Jochen Peiper