Black Identity Politics
King & Biko

Black Identity Politics
"The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed."
Steve Biko,
Speech in Cape Town,
1971

Apartheid Basics
• Apartheid became official legal policy in
South Africa in 1948, and stayed in effect until 1994
• Legal system was similar to US “Jim
Crow” era statutes
• Laws determined habitation, marriage, education, access to public accomodations according to race.

Apartheid Basics
•
Massive protests break out across
South Africa on 21 March 1960; government response is quick and violent
• “State of Emergency” declared and left in place for most of 30 years.
• Under these laws, individuals could be detained for up to 6 months without hearing. Torture was common.
• Thousands died in police custody; while those who made it to trial were sentenced to life imprisonment or death

Steve Biko
• Steve Biko (1946-1977)
– South African (Bantu) activist
– Founded the South African
Student’s Organization
(SAS) in 1969 while in medical school
– Founded the Black People’s
Convention in 1972, a group that brought together the various black consciousness groups working in South Africa against the apartheid regime

Steve Biko
• He was “banned” by the government in 1973, which meant he was not permitted to travel across the country.
• He was arrested on 21 August
1977 and, while in police custody in Port Elizabeth, sustained a massive head injury.
• Police reports indicated he was behaving erratically and uncooperative.
• Left lying naked and shackled to a metal grille in cell.

Steve Biko
• Three doctors on duty disregarded the injury.
• On September 11, another police doctor recommended medical attention, but instead he was driven 600 miles to
Pretoria (about 12 hours), a trip which he made lying naked in the back of a Land Rover.

Steve Biko
• After arriving at the
Pretoria Central Prison he was left naked on a floor and unattended, awaiting transfer to the hospital.
• A few hours later, on 12
September, alone and still naked, lying on the floor of a cell in the Pretoria
Central Prison, Biko died from brain damage.

Steve Biko
• In 1985, the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission (created after the fall of apartheid) found that:
" The Commission finds that the death in detention of Mr Stephen
Bantu Biko on 12 September 1977 was a gross human rights violation.
Magistrate Marthinus Prins found that the members of the SAP were not implicated in his death. The magistrate's finding contributed to the creation of a culture of impunity in the SAP. Despite the inquest finding no person responsible for his death, the Commission finds that, in view of the fact that Biko died in the custody of law enforcement officials, the probabilities are that he died as a result of injuries sustained during his detention ."

Black Consciousness
• In the context of the struggle against apartheid, Biko argued that the first step towards liberation was to reshape the way in which black Africans understood their own situation

Black Consciousness
“Black Consciousness is an attitude of mind and a way of life, the most positive call to emanate from the black world for a long time. Its essence is the realisszation by the black man of the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause of their oppression -- the blackness of their skin -and to operate as agroup to rid themselves of the shackles that bind them to perpetual servitude.”

Black Consciousness
• Blacks must reclaim their identity and redefine it on their own terms, rather than in those set by the white oppressors.
• “The philosophy of Black Consciousness therefore expresses group pride and the determination of the black to rise and attain the envisaged self. Freedom is the ability to define oneself with one’s possibilities held back not by the power of other people over one but only by one’s relationship to God and to natural surroundings.”

Black Consciousness
• How do we effect that change? Education
• Biko draws attention to the corrupting effects of education when it is in the hands of, and done for the benefit of, the oppressor.
• White educators try to impart “civilization” and “culture” and in doing so are -- explicitly or not -- denigrating native black culture
• In the process, traditional African mores and beliefs are ripped apart and discarded
• Biko argues that blacks need to resist the indoctrination and rediscover their own history

Black Consciousness
• “Ours is a true man-centered society whose sacred tradition is that of sharing. We must reject, as we have been doing, the individualistic cold approach to life that is the cornerstone of the Anglo-Boer culture. We must seek to restore to the black man the great importance we used to give to human relations, the high regard for people and their property and for life in general; to reduce the triumph of technology over man, and the materialistic element that is slowly creeping into our society.”

Black Consciousness
“We have set out on a quest for true humanity, and somewhere on the distant horizon we can see the glittering prize. Let us march forth with courage and determination, drawing strength from our common plight and our brotherhood. In time we shall be in a position top bestow upon South Africa the greatest gift possible
-- a more human face.”

Black Consciousness
• Note that in celebrating black consciousness and black identity, Biko is careful to point out that this itself is not just another form of racism
“Racism does not only imply exclusion of one race by another -- it always presupposes that the exclusion is for the purposes of subjugation. Blacks have had enough experience as objects of racism not to wish to turn the table”