Bringing Down the House Apartheid (Racism) Built

Since the fall of apartheid in South Africa in the 1990s, the question in many South African Universities has been one of how to transform the educational system that apartheid built. One significant way of doing this has been around the personnel of each university. However, the clamor for change has not been limited to personnel. Monuments that bear apartheid insignia are now being brought down. Recently the case of Rhodes at the University of Cape Town drew public attention. Now a plaque honoring former South African President, H. F. Verwoerd, is going down at the University of Stellenbosch. The point here seems to be that monuments that epitomize racism should not stand. However, considering that South Africa as it is today was built on the back of racism, the trick may be determining what needs to stand and what needs to go.

One of my students once informed me that the building in which I taught African studies at the University of Alabama bears the name of a slave owner and that the man perhaps gave a lot of money for the building to be built. I responded, rather sheepishly, I think, that if we focused on the history of our places of luxury today, we may be filled with revulsion. Think of how the wealth that build St. Peter's Square in the Vatican came about? Perhaps what catches our attention now is the most egregious displays of exploitation. The egregious exploitation seems to be still fresh in the new South Africa. That is why those monuments are coming down. In America, we have learned to make our peace with such monuments, especially here in the South.