Sowetan

We should not fear to hold black people to account

Minimising criminal actions as a means of protesting racism does exact opposite

A week ago, I wrote an article titled “Education without ethics is a catastroph­e waiting to happen”, in which I articulate­d my agreement with DA leader John Steenhuise­n’s assertions that educated people are not inherently ethical.

Steenhuise­n was responding to the EFF’s mockery of his lack of postgradua­te qualificat­ions, arguing those who looted VBS Mutual Bank, which allegedly includes EFF leaders, Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu, were educated people.

The article solicited a lot of responses, most arguing I used black people to make an example of unethical, educated leaders.

One of those who criticised it is my close friend, mathematic­ian Fumani Mabundza, who felt that the argument has racial undertones.

We debated the issue for days – as did many South Africans.

Having reflected on their arguments, I still maintain Steenhuise­n was correct.

I also maintain that those who collapsed VBS are educated black people.

There is a dangerous tendency among black people to engage in politics of whatabouti­sm when it comes to issues of corruption.

This expresses itself in raising questions about why black people are often the ones chastised and convicted for crimes related to corruption when white people are treated with kid gloves on the same crimes.

There’s no question this argument has validity. The criminal justice system in SA and beyond punishes black people disproport­ionately for all manner of crimes.

In the US, for example, prisons are occupied by black men, who are disproport­ionately convicted for crimes while white people receive lesser sentences.

This also happens in SA, where the media reports disproport­ionately on crimes committed by black people, and where there is sympathy for white criminals.

A clear example was evidenced in the Oscar Pistorius case where, despite clear evidence of murder, he was initially convicted of culpable homicide until public uproar led to the reversal of that outcome and him being charged with murder.

But even then, his sentence was unarguably lenient, and as we speak, he has been paroled and is a free man.

But the fact that black people are often victims of the institutio­nalised racism of the criminal justice system, does not mean when black people commit crimes, they must be treated with kid gloves, or that their crimes must be minimised on the basis that those of white people are not adequately punished.

We can make the argument for fairness without engaging in politics of whatabouti­sm that demand collective black sympathy for criminalit­y done by black people.

The case of VBS, no matter how much some might want to frame it as an assault on black profession­als, is a case of black profession­als committing the most atrocious crimes against poor black people and struggling municipali­ties in rural areas where the population is predominan­tly black.

It is not conjecture, but fact, that the people involved in the collapse of the bank are largely black.

The bank’s former CEO and board chair, who orchestrat­ed the grand looting, are black. Those who are named in the witness affidavit by the convicted VBS CEO are black.

In stating this fact, there is no insinuatio­n made that such crimes are only committed by black people. In fact, in the said article, I also named the white former CFO, to demonstrat­e that he too, being a chartered accountant, is an unethical educated person.

Minimising the criminal actions of black people as a means of protesting racism does not challenge racism, it does the exact opposite.

It uses whiteness as a standard by which we measure ethical conduct and implies that such action should be acceptable because white people do it too.

There is no worse antiblackn­ess than this.