So entrenched is institutional racism in the DNA of SA government institutions after colonialism and apartheid, that many government departments and entities still treat blacks in similarly dismissive ways as the colonial and apartheid governments did.
Many may be surprised to hear that government departments and agencies predominantly managed by a black government and staffed by blacks could exhibit institutional racism. Institutional racism is embedded in most of SA’s institutions which predate 1994 and which were dominated by white South Africans: state bodies, private companies, churches, schools, universities, police, the courts and the media.
The Sri Lankan scholar of race, Ambalavaner Sivanandan, described institutional racism accurately as a form of racism which, whether “covertly or overtly, resides in the policies, procedures, operations and culture of public or private institutions”. A big part of institutionalism racism is the “routine ways” in which black people are treated by organisations whether public or private.
Under institutional racism, black employees within organisations and black clients and contractors “receive different and less favourable treatment” than whites. Such “differential treatment need be neither conscious nor intentional, and it may be practised routinely”. In public and private organisations, institutional racism is often disguised in the supposedly ‘standard’ operating procedures, practices and behaviour everyone has to follow – but which is skewed against blacks.
To start, in many state institutions, blacks still get paid less than whites for similar jobs and ranks. In government departments such as home affairs, blacks coming for services are often treated by black employees with disdain, uncaringly and with less attentiveness than they treat whites – in similar ways to how the old apartheid home affairs, then staffed by whites, used to treat blacks.
Immediately after the 1994, the ANC government built low-cost housing, called RDP houses, for poor blacks. However, the houses were built like matchboxes, far away from the commercial and transport hubs and along the same apartheid spatial lines that relegated blacks to the periphery of towns.
Similarly, during power outages more recently, historically black townships are likely to be more in the dark than historically white suburbs. The argument is often in such cases that historically white areas contribute more tax to local authorities than poorer historically black townships.
The police and the army also display institutional racism. The police are likely to view a black South African with more suspicion than a white South African. During Covid-19 the army was more heavy-handed with blacks when it enforced lockdown regulations than with whites.
Sadly, the value of a black life is still seen as less than that of a white life – as it was under colonialism and apartheid. Often state institutions treat the problems of blacks with less care than those of whites.
Obviously, the phenomenon of internalised racism, whereby blacks who have suffered from white prejudice against them, treat other blacks without care when they are in positions of power, as racist whites would do, also contributes to prejudicial treatment of blacks by black staff of public organisations.
All state organisations must introduce compulsory prejudice, racism and diversity awareness programmes to all staff.
In state organisations, the awareness of blacks should also be raised about the fact they may treat other blacks prejudicially. Black clients and customers must be treated with dignity, equality and respect by both white and black staff of state institutions. State organisations must do regular race climate surveys to test institutional racism – and customer service satisfaction reviews to gauge whether blacks were treated worse than whites.
Institutional racism undermines the trust, credibility and authority blacks have in state organisations. Blacks prejudiced feel they have no ownership of state institutions. This is one of the reasons during public service delivery protests black South Africans often destroy state property and infrastructure – because they feel no ownership of these public assets.
• Gumede is associate professor, School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand and author of Restless Nation: Making Sense of Troubled Times (Tafelberg)
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