Tag Archives: South Africa

Dear White People

“Settler Sister” Gillian Schutte started the year with a letter to her white fellow citizens and thus once again flared up the debate in South Africa about historical responsibility and the strategies of anti-racist and decolonial struggles. In their response, Black Consciousness activists Athi-Nangamso Esther Nkopo and Andile Mngxitama criticize Schutte for producing herself as the good white woman and suggesting that whiteness can be individually discarded or transformed into a good, anti-racist whiteness. Jackie Shandu’s critique is more directed at blacks who are celebrating Schutte and thus indulging their longing for the white messiah rather than fighting their own battles. Here is a collection of many worthwhile comments in response to the letter and on the debate as a whole. Schutte then also spoke up again yesterday. Such politically engaged and intellectually high quality debate in the mainstream press … And all that is left for us to do is to get angry about the thin-board drilling in Zeit and Spiegel.