It’s time to fold in the game of race-card poker

I find it immensely saddening that almost 15 years after South Africa became a democracy in which all its citizens were deemed equal, so much emphasis is still placed on skin colour.

Let’s face it, all one needs do is listen in to any radio talk programme and you’ll hear race being used as the cause of everything from crime to bad performance on the sports fields, high cellphone prices, inflation, road rage, Eskom’s woes, SAA’s dismal service and financial performance and indeed any form of blunder, bribery and dodgy goings on you care to mention.

Race seems to have become an integral part of a new and popular finger-pointing national culture that in my view has more supporters than football, rugby and cricket combined.

I wonder if this ugly form of intolerance is indeed part of the South African psyche, or whether the man or woman in the street is somehow being encouraged to cling to the insane belief that skin colour does represent a massive human divide.

One of the major reasons why racism keeps rearing its ugly head in South Africa is politicians using race either to score brownie points, or to make desperate excuses when there are actually no excuses. And the mass media need to share responsibility for perpetuating racism by playing the race card in the interests of sensationalism and sales.

Even big business is not guiltless in trying to convince us all that there are two entirely different markets for their products in South Africa—a “white” market and a “black” market.

In 1997 the South African Advertising Research Foundation (Saarf) decided to scrap race from it research data because it found that it is no longer relevant in terms of marketing and the media.

The use of racial demographics was originally put in place during apartheid, a time when blacks and whites were separated by law and when marketers needed to know what blacks living in black areas thought, bought and aspired to, and what whites living in white areas sought, caught and acquired.

When this data was scrapped, the marketing fraternity blew a fuse and insisted that Saarf continue to produce research data showing blacks on one hand and whites, coloureds and Indians on the other.

After the parliamentary hearings into racism in advertising seven years ago, Saarf once again decided to scrap the iniquitous “WCI/Blacks” element from its research. Once again there was whinging from marketers who claimed they desperately needed these data.

Right now there can be no good reason to perpetuate what is nothing more than blatant racial discrimination. There can be no reason marketers want to keep this other than as some sort of crutch.

Saarf’s own figures showed that 30 years ago, rich and middle-class whites held all the wealth, and blacks were mostly poor. These days, the middle class can no longer be defined by race. And among the wealthy classes, backs have reduced white domination considerably.

What happens in any middle or upper class is that the most powerful drivers of brand loyalty and the very basis of advertising are emotion and desire. According to research, there is no difference between what upper and middle class consumers from any of  apartheid’s racial categories aspire to.

Then, look at research from 16-24 year old youths — black, white, male and female. Altogether 94% believe all people are equals regardless of race, gender or religion — a remarkable statistic which asserts that young people today all aspire to the same things. These make up the vast majority of our population. Certainly, in terms of the middle and upper classes, one cannot possibly argue that white and black youth think so differently that it is necessary to create to produce separate market research data.

But in spite of all this, until such time as politicians, business and, to a certain extent, the media stop playing the race card for personal or corporate gain, South Africa will never be free of racism. Unfortunately, I can’t see anything changing much soon, particularly with an election looming; an election that will undoubtedly see the race card being played quite unashamedly. All we can do is pray that ordinary South Africans will begin to see the futility of race-based blame. And that whites will stop talking about “them” and “us” and blacks will stop generalising about “whites” and their supposed proxies being responsible for everything that goes wrong.