Violent Black Criminals . . .

I know you will probably not believe me when I tell you that this post has nothing to do with Steve Hofmeyr. For what it is worth, it does not. It is as a result of a conversation on tweeter, between someone who calls himself comradesipho and another by the name of sentletse. These two among others seem to have been talking about black criminals and how they are violent or maybe there were just talking about crime, I don't know. In the cause of the conversation, there was a suggestion that if we could figure out why black criminals are so violent, then we would go a long way in solving South Africa's problems. I may have gotten the whole thing wrong though but I hope to learn from it.

Is this conversation about black criminals as opposed to white criminals? Is the use of black in this conversation the same as the use of that term in relation to BEE? How would understanding the violent black criminals help to solve the problems of South Africa? Are these problems of violence or of crime or problems generally?

Anyway, back to violent black criminals. Does it really matter that violent crimes are committed by blacks? Well, in South Africa it does matter. It provides important statistical evidence that blacks, not crime, are violent. Consequently, there is or must be a link between violence and race. The continuum would be from white (non-violent) to blacks (very violent) with (who exactly) in the middle - here I must admit I am stumped. All this is no news. It is human to seek out "facts" or (more appropriately) incidents that support your view of the world. It is the same thinking that supports the view that muslims are terrorists, jews are wealthy, indians are cheats and so on and so forth. It is on this naturally human basis that race becomes a study object of violent crime.

What interests me in this whole race-is-a-function-or-cause-of-all-else world view, is how I get to represent or be represented by others of "my race". A few years ago, some boys with "good breeding", who also happened to attend one of Johannesburg's finest schools, just happened to beat one of their own senseless. This violent criminal act was seen just as that. Of course there was a problem here - white boys of such good breeding just don't do such things. It must have been the alcohol. No, wait a minute. It turns out the lion's share of the violence was carried out by some boy from "the wrong side of the tracks". I think he was from the east rand and did not attend the top school concerned. These boys and others like them do not and are never said to represent whiteness in their dastardly acts. I happen to yawn without covering my mouth? Ah yes you got it, the double-whammy of bad breeding and race.

This of course is a complex web; it had to be to be sustainable over such a long time. The racist project is one of the most clever systems to be devised. It survives on its appearance of complexity; on this need to explain it. The system is so clever that very clever people spend a lot of time considering its merits and demerits. I have often wonder why the system is simply not destroyed just as it was constructed. The response I get all the time is that "you are being too simplistic - you don't understand". I concede that I am a great fan of simplicity; it is irresistible to me and has served me well so far.

To illustrate: black people routinely go to rugby matches, cricket matches, golf at sun city, etc. This is never celebrated as incidents of a society transformed and united - correctly so. Six white people among 7 thousand soccer fans? "Oh just see how our country has changed and how the people are together". People often ask with what seems to be genuine puzzlement: "what happened to the goodwill of the soccer world cup?" Nothing happened to the goodwill, it wasn't there in the first place. People behaved because security was good and they sat together because that's just how the ticketing worked. A lot of white people went to the events because more white countries qualified and more white people could afford it. Simple really. After the game we all go home.

This may come as a surprise to some folk but I would rather no one comes over the wall at my home to rob and kill me and my family, no matter what race they belong to. I would rather no one turned their children into porn stars or kept their daughters in the basement for their sexual pleasure. Unfortunately though, people do just that. It seems to me that violent crime is ok as long as its victims are not white, regardless of the perpetrators at least in South Africa.

Crime is a function of a whole lot of things, some known some not. Some day we will knuckle down to deal with those things. In the meantime, do watch out for those violent black criminals.