research on racism in south africa

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30 years on, South Africa still dismantling racism and apartheid’s legacy

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Rethabile Ratsomo said it’s the little things that remind her of her perceived “place” in South African society.

There are the verbal slights and side-eye in workspaces, where she’s been viewed as a B-BBEE hire (The Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment programme in South African that seeks to advance and transform the participation of black people in the country’s economy) and therefore not capable of doing the work. There are the passive-aggressive comments from colleagues, constantly complimenting her on how well she speaks English. She has lived through the daily microaggressions that form part of her life.

“I am a born-free and despite being born after the advent of democracy in South Africa, my race continues to play a huge role in my being, as a South African,” Ratsomo said, 29, who currently works at the Anti-Racism Network and the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation. “Many people continue to normalise racial discrimination and perpetuate harmful behaviours. Racism remains rife.”

Thirty years since the end of Apartheid, South Africa still grapples with its legacy. Unequal access to education, unequal pay, segregated communities and massive economic disparities persists, much of it is reinforced by existing institutions and attitudes. How is it that racism and its accompanying discrimination continues to hold such sway in this, majority Black populated and Black governed nation?

Racism has deep roots in the economic, spatial and social fabric of this country. It reflects the legacy of oppression and subjugation from apartheid and colonialism. While progress has been made to eliminate the scourge of racism it requires everyone to do their part for it be eliminated, said Abigail Noko, Representative for UN Human Rights Regional Office of Southern Africa (OHCHR ROSA)

“Dismantling such entrenched racist and discriminatory systems requires commitment, leadership, dialogue and advocacy to put in place anti-racist policies that implement human rights norms and provide a framework to help address and rectify these injustices and promote equality,” she added.

Free your mind and the rest will follow

The project of dismantling racist systems in a place like South Africa, must go hand in hand with the process of decolonization – both at an institutional and an individual level, said Professor Tshepo Madlingozi, a Commissioner at the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC).

“History has shown that unless you have decolonized your mind, you are going to step into the shoes of the oppressor and oppress other people over and over again,” he said.

Madlingozi’s comments were part of a panel discussion on dismantling racist systems in South Africa, which took place during the Human Rights Festival in Johannesburg in March, which aligns with national Human Rights Day and the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The discussion, sponsored by OHCHR ROSA, had three panellists providing their answers to the overarching question, how can racism present in the “rainbow nation” be dismantled to bring about freedom, equality, and justice for all?

Samkelo Mkhomi, a social justice and equality activist in her 20s, agreed that an internal mindset change was needed, especially among young people. She said she noticed that many of her born-free peers, i.e., someone who was born after the advent of democracy in South Africa, harbour suspicious and distrustful attitudes toward other races. She mentioned a friend who has a distrust of all white people. When Mkhomi asked why, he told her “because of what they did in the past.” She called this deliberate lack of understanding among her peers as hereditary and a big stumbling block in moving forward.

“We have set perceptions and stereotypes that we've inherited from family, from social experiences, experiences that are not our own,” Mkhomi said. “And we've used that as a blueprint to view other people. Once you can get rid of that as young people, I feel like we can start moving on and dismantling racism.”

Madlingozi suggested one way to do this could be to not only focus on individual racist incidences, but also to bring more awareness, and push for policies in institutions that deconstruct current ways of working.

“What matters is, have we dismantled the institutions, the cultures that perpetuate racism,” he said. “Because unless you do that, you’ll have Black people, you will have a Black government that will continue to perpetuate racism because that is the nature of institutionalised racism. So yes, let’s focus on individual human rights. Let’s focus on social justice, but where it matters the most is structural institutionalized oppression.”

Casting a long shadow

The scars of Apartheid run deep, leaving a legacy of segregation, discrimination and inequality. This is evidenced by the stark economic disparities in the country. A 2022  World Bank report on inequality in southern Africa  gave South Africa the unfortunate distinction of being the most unequal country in the world.

The report stated that 80 percent of the country’s wealth was in the hands of 10 percent of the population. And it is the Black population who factor the most into the poorest category. The report places the blame for the income disparities directly on race.

“The legacy of colonialism and Apartheid rooted in racial and spatial segregation continues to reinforce inequality,” the report states.

The spatial divide mirrors the economic one.

The evil genius of Apartheid was the segregation project, as it allowed the Government to not only separate people based on arbitrary categorisations, but through this create material differences between the communities to reinforce the idea of actual racial differences, said Tessa Dooms. These racial classifications also encouraged the idea that the different groups needed to compete for basic human rights, dignity and economic opportunities, she added.

“The Apartheid government didn’t just give people categories, they gave real live material meaning to those categories,” said Dooms, Director of Programmes for Rivonia Circle during the panel discussion. “As long as those categories mean something in the world, we still have work to do, to undo Apartheid, to undo colonialism, to decolonize.”

To do this, Dooms recommended practical vision as to what a decolonized South Africa would look like, being very specific about the results wanted. She also called on the privileged groups to do the heavy lifting of helping to create more equality. Until those with privileges work to broaden access to them, the cycle will continue, Dooms added.

“We cannot leave creating a more just world to the people who are most affected by injustice,” she said. “It’s not fair, it’s not right and it won’t work.”

Taking concrete action

Globally, South Africa’s post-Apartheid long walk to freedom has garnered an international reputation as a leader in global efforts to combat racism. In 2001, South Africa hosted the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (WCAR), which resulted in the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA). The DDPA is a roadmap, providing concrete measures for States to combat racism, discrimination and xenophobia and related intolerance.

One of the big recommendations was to have each country create its own National Action Plan (NAP). The plan is a means through which governments locally codify their commitment to taking action, with concrete steps on how they will combat racism. South Africa launched its plan in 2019, with OHCHR ROSA providing technical assistance. This assistance took many forms including participation in the consultations that led up to the final NAP and helping to set up support structures for its implementation, and support for research and other work to help develop systems for data collection on issues related to the NAP.

“Human rights play crucial role in dismantling racism by providing a framework for addressing and rectifying historical injustices, promoting equality, and ensuring that all individuals are treated fairly and with dignity,” Noko said

Various other sectors have pioneered innovative approaches to chip away at Apartheid’s remnants. Corporate and governmental diversity programmes, such as B-BBEE, and the Employment Equity Amendment Bill of 2020, aim to promote diversity and equity in the workplace.

Ratsomo of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation said these and other efforts to address the underlying issue of what to do about that still exists in the country are key to taking it down. Everyone must  learn, speak up, and act on racism, racial discrimination and related intolerances, she said.

“The beginning point to tackle and dismantle systemic racism is to understand that being anti-racist does not only mean being against racism,” she said. “It also means being active and speaking out against racism whenever you see it happen. The more we understand racism, the easier it becomes to identify when it happens, which allows us to speak out and act against it when we see it happening.”

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News & events

Paradise lost: a book on race and racism in post-apartheid south africa.

In June 2022, Brill Publishers released Paradise Lost: Race and Racism in Post-apartheid South Africa, co-edited by HSRC researchers Gregory Houston, Yul Derek Davids and former HSRC researcher Modimowabarwa Kanyane. This arose out of an HSRC project focusing on why race remains so salient and racism so pervasive after almost three decades of democratic rule. Gregory Houston and Yul Derek Davids outline the content of the book.

The central concept explored in the recently published book Paradise Lost: Race and Racism in Post-apartheid South Africa is that racism persists in the post-apartheid era because of the loss of privilege for some sectors of society, and the failure of the post-apartheid government to deal with issues of race and racism adequately. The chapters draw from the history of apartheid, theoretical debates on race, qualitative and quantitative accounts of experiences of racism, and quantitative studies of attitudes towards race to describe and explain this situation.

Race and racism

Two premises on race and racism are held in common by all of the authors. The first is that ‘race’ has no basis in biology, and that it has been scientifically proven that the genetic differences between people are too small to justify grouping humans into ‘race groups’ or tying these differences to inherent capabilities. The second premise is that the reality for most South Africans is that race is a lived experience, largely consequent to a lengthy process during which “the core function of institutions … was to produce identities of superiority and inferiority” ( Soudien & Botsis 2011: 90 ) based on race .

Order of items and central concerns

In the foreword, Crain Soudien, former chief executive officer of the HSRC, highlights the lack of frameworks to describe the effects of racism on people as one of the problems which the volume attempts to resolve.

The other chapters in the volume are divided into the three thematic areas as outlined below.

White privilege and the racialised power structure

In Chapter 2, Gregory Houston tracks the evolution of white privilege and the creation of a racial hierarchy. He concludes that the history of South Africa is characterised by processes through which white dominance left a legacy of white privilege, and a racial hierarchy in which some race groups better enjoy society’s benefits than others.

One attempt to change the racial power structure in the post-apartheid era was by introducing legislation and policies aimed at racial redress as well as racial discrimination. In Chapter 3, Alexis Habiyaremye locates one of these policies, black economic empowerment, at the centre of the process in which race is used to incorporate a black elite into the ‘monopoly capitalist class’, largely dominated by whites.

Catherine Ndinda and Tidings Ndhlovu also focus on policies to transform the economy in Chapter 4, in this case, affirmative action in employment. They draw on data from employment equity reports to illustrate the extent of gender and racial transformation in the South African workplace and conclude that only certain categories of women have benefitted from the transformation.

In Chapter 5, Neo Lekgotla laga Ramoupi examines racial exclusion from academic positions at universities as a consequence of government policies in the apartheid era and racial discrimination in the post-apartheid era. Case studies highlight significant incidents at South African universities where black academics have been individually targeted to prevent a challenge to white privilege in these institutions.

Konosoang Sobane, Pinky Makoe and Chanel Van der Merwe argue in Chapter 6 that the South African education system continues to maintain features of a racialised past, characterised by the institutionalisation of English and Afrikaans as languages of learning and teaching in higher education, to the exclusion of the other nine official languages. The authors draw on the experiences of students to demonstrate how university language policies affect them.

Manifestation of racism in post-apartheid South Africa

In Chapter 7, Thobeka Zondi, Samela Mtyingizane, Ngqapheli Mchunu,Steven Gordon, Benjamin Roberts and Jare Struwig use data from the HSRC’s South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS) to look at how patterns of reported discrimination by race (population) group have changed over the period 2003–2018. They investigate both personal and collective experiences of racial discrimination, providing important insights into the practice of modern racism.

In the next chapter, Yul Derek Davids, Benjamin Roberts, Gregory Houston and Nazeem Mustapha use data from the 2012 SASAS survey to examine perceptions of the causes of poverty among the various race and class groups. Their study reveals the persistence of racial stereotypes in the understanding of causes of deprivation.

Chapter 9, written by Aswin Desai, seeks to uncover individual forms of racism in how Cricket South Africa has approached issues of racial representation in national cricket teams. Drawing from the recent report of an independent inquiry into the causes, nature and extent of racism in cricket, Desai illustrates how perceptions of ascribed racial capabilities in sport and of certain sports as white spaces, as well as political pressure to transform sport in post-apartheid South Africa, make racial discrimination a key feature in national sports in several ways.

In Chapter 10, Steven Gordon considers how cues from trusted elites inform popular attitudes on immigration. He dismisses the argument that these cues, as well as economic factors, are the main causes of xenophobia, and places race and racism in a racialised society at the centre of the issue. He argues that interracial conflict appears to have a significant impact on South Africans’ attitudes towards foreigners, and goes a long way to explaining why some groups are less welcome than others.

Race and identity in South Africa 

The third part of the book explores the significance given to racial identity in post-apartheid South Africa. In Chapter 11, Natasha van der Pol, Zaynab Essack, Melissa Viljoen and Heidi van Rooyen examine the internal conflict and discomfort faced by mixed Indian/white youths in having to decide which race they belong to in what is supposed to be a non-racial South Africa. When asked about their race, they have to decide whether to respond by saying they are white or Indian, pretending to be foreign, opting for a ‘coloured’ identity, or refusing to identify with a race.

Chapter 12 by Joleen Steyn Kotze draws from an empirical survey conducted among students at six South African universities to assess values and perceptions of whether their quality of life had improved since the first democratic elections in 1994. Steyn Kotze finds that racial identity is becoming stronger among young South Africans, and that there is increasing identification of individual opportunities and constraints with the race group to which individuals belong.

In Chapter 13, Luvuyo Dondolo explores the impact of colonial and apartheid monuments, such as the Paul Kruger Statue in the Church Square heritage precinct in Pretoria, on racial identity in post-apartheid South Africa. He argues that the Paul Kruger Statue symbolises the sociocultural, political and economic identities that paved the way for the formation of the Boer Republics, the apartheid ideology and the consolidation of racial segregation in South Africa.

In Chapter 14, Modimowabarwa Kanyane explores several developments since 1994 that are linked to racism in the post-apartheid era from the perspective of decoloniality. The author concludes that the only way to bring about the erasure of race is by decolonising the mind to deal with complex issues such as transformative justice robustly, as well as to promote national reconciliation and unity.

Target audience and availability

The book is intended for academics from a range of disciplines, including African studies, political science, economics, contemporary history, sociology, and education, and would also be useful for the general public from all walks of life who are interested in issues of race and racism, inequality, social justice, non-racialism and transformation in the South African context. It is available in paperback and electronic format. For more information or to purchase the book, click here .

Dr Greg Houston is a chief research specialist in the HSRC’s Developmental, Capable and Ethical State research division and a research fellow of the history department at the University of the Free State.

[email protected]

Dr Yul Derek Davids is a research director in the HSRC’s Developmental, Capable and Ethical State research division and an advisory member in the Department of Applied Legal Studies at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology.

[email protected]

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Perceived Discrimination, Race and Health in South Africa

Dr david r. williams.

Harvard School of Public Health Boston, MA UNITED STATES [Proxy]

Hector M Gonzalez

Wayne State University, ude.enyaw.dem@zelaznogmh

Stacey Williams

East Tennessee State University, ude.utse.liam@lsailliw

Selina A Mohammed

University of Washington, Bothell, ude.notgnihsaw.u@maniles

Hashim Moomal

Univerity of Witwatersrand, az.ca.stiw.hps@lamoom

Dan J Stein

University of Cape Town, [email protected]

To assess the levels of perceived acute and chronic racial and non-racial discrimination in South Africa, their association with health, and the extent to which they contribute to racial differences in physical and mental health, data were used from a national probability sample of adults, the South African Stress and Health Study (SASH). All Black groups in South Africa (African, Coloured and Indian) were two to four times more likely than Whites to report acute and chronic experiences of racial discrimination. Africans and Coloureds report higher levels of ill health than Whites, but acute and chronic racial discrimination were unrelated to ill health and unimportant in accounting for racial differences in self rated health. In contrast, all Black groups had higher levels of psychological distress than Whites, and perceived chronic discrimination, was positively associated with distress. Moreover, these experiences accounted for some of the residual racial differences in distress after adjustment for socioeconomic status. Our main findings indicate that, in a historically racialized society, perceived chronic racial and especially non-racial discrimination acts independently of demographic factors, other stressors, psychological factors (social desirability, self-esteem and personal mastery), and multiple SES indicators to adversely affect mental health.

Goffman (1963) indicated that the “undesired differentness” of a stigmatized category such as race can lead others to both turn away from and actively discriminate against the stigmatized. Thus, discrimination is an important component of stigma ( Link & Phelan, 2001 ), and where social inequalities exist, it is a key feature of intergroup relationships and serves to reinforce the symbolic boundaries that separate social groups from one other ( Jackman, 1994 ). Discrimination based on race has received extensive research attention and there is continuing scientific interest in the pervasiveness and persistence of racial discrimination for racially stigmatized groups (Blank, Dabady, & Citro, 2004). Qualitative descriptions of these experiences suggest that they incorporate important elements of stressful situations that are known to be predictive of adverse changes in health ( Mohutsioa-Makhudu, 1989 ; Essed 1991 ; Feagin 1991 ). Health researchers are also examining the extent to which perceptions of discrimination, racial and non-racial, are stressful life experiences that can adversely affect health ( Harrell et al. 1998 ; Dion 2001 ; Clark, Anderson, Clark, & Williams, 1999 ). South Africa has a historical legacy of deeply entrenched racial discrimination ( James & Lever, 2000 ). The institutionalized social inequality of apartheid and its legacy has been decisive for a broad range of outcomes in South African society ( Seidman, 1999 ; Moller, 1998 ). Several researchers have noted that the oppressive nature of apartheid in South Africa had pervasive negative consequences for mental health ( Dommisse, 1986 ; Mohutsioa-Makhudu 1989 ; Turton & Chalmers, 1990 ; Straker 1987 ). However, there is limited population-based data on the current levels of and racial differences in the subjective experience of discrimination in post-Apartheid South Africa and the extent to which such experiences are consequential for health and racial disparities in health.

Discrimination and Health

Equity theory has long noted that unfair treatment can lead to negative emotional reactions and psychosomatic symptoms ( Adams & Berkowitz, 1965 ). Research also suggests that both the psychological and physiological correlates and consequences of discrimination are similar to those of other psychosocial stressors ( Dion, 2001 ; Clark et al., 1999 ). Laboratory studies have assessed the physiological and affective reactions of African Americans (or blacks) to mental imagery and videotaped vignettes of discriminatory behavior. They have found that such exposure to racist provocation leads to increased cardiovascular and psychological reactivity ( Harrell, Hall, & Taliaferro, 2003 ). Other laboratory studies in Toronto, Canada indicate that the experimental manipulation of unfair treatment, unrelted to race, induces stress and adversely affects psychological well-being for multiple social groups such as Jewish undergraduate males, Chinese students, and undergraduate women ( Dion 2001 ).

Recent reviews have identified over 135 empirical studies that have examined the association between perceived racial/ethnic discrimination and some indicator of health ( Krieger 1999 ; Paradies 2006a ; Williams, Neighbors, & Jackson, 2003 ). The majority of these studies found a positive association between discrimination and indicators of morbidity. Scales of nonspecific distress, followed by general self-report measures of health status have been the most common outcomes examined. Most of the early studies of discrimination and health used cross-sectional data but some recent prospective studies continue to document an adverse association between discrimination and health ( Schulz, Gravlee, Williams, Israel, Mentz, & Rowe, 2006 ; Lewis, Everson-Rose, Powell, Matthews, Brown, Karavolos, et al., 2006 ). Some recent studies have also examined a broader range of outcomes including subclinical cardiovascular disease ( Lewis et al., 2006 ) and low birth weight and pre-term deliveries ( Collins, David, Handler, Wall, & Andes 2004 ; Mustillo, Krieger, Gunderson, Sidney, McCreath, & Kief, 2004 ). Importantly, some studies have found that perceptions of discrimination account for some of the racial differences in health ( Williams, Yu, Jackson, & Anderson,1997 ; Ren, Amick, & Williams, 1999 ; Mustillo, et al., 2004 ; Harris, Tobias, Jeffreys, Waldegrave, Karlsen & Nazroo, 2006 ).

Social contexts, including national ones, can affect both the levels of racial bias and its consequences for health. Most of the early studies of perceived discrimination and health were U.S.-based, with a strong focus on the black experience in America. However, the emerging literature suggests that perceived discrimination is a neglected stressor that adversely affects the health of Hispanics, Asian Americans, American Indians, and Whites( Williams, Neighbors & Jackson 2003 ; Paradies 2006a ). Recent reviews also document that perceived discrimination is adversely related to health for immigrants in Canada, the Netherlands Finland Ireland, England and Wales ( Williams, Neighbors & Jackson 2003 ; Paradies 2006a ). A recent national study in New Zealand found that reported racial discrimination was positively related to self-rated ill health, lower physical functioning, cigarette smoking and cardiovascular disease ( Harris et al., 2006 ), and, a study of indigenous Australians found that perceived discrimination was adversely related to depressive symptoms, self-assessed health and homocysteine levels ( Paradies 2006b ).

Some evidence suggests that perceptions of racial and non-racial discrimination are similarly related to health ( Williams, Spencer, & Jackson, 1999 .; Kessler, Mickelson, & Williams, 1999 ). Similarly, a recent report from the Whitehall study in the UK found that a generic measure of perceived unfairness was inversely related to occupational grade and was an independent predictor of incident coronary events ( De Vogli et al. 2007 ). One recent U.S. study documented that although perceived everyday discrimination attributed to race was unrelated to coronary calcification (CAC) for Black women, a combined measure capturing perceived racial and non-racial discrimination was positively associated with CAC ( Lewis et al., 2006 ). In this study, both racial and non-racial discrimination were unrelated to CAC among White women. These findings suggest that the generic perception of unfairness may be pathogenic and it is important to capture both racial and non-racial discrimination, especially when studying socially disadvantaged groups. At the same time, the findings are not uniform. One U.S. study found that Black women who attributed chronic discrimination to race demonstrated greater blood pressure reactivity than those who attributed them to other social status categories ( Guyll, Matthews, & Bronberger, 2001 ).

Discrimination and Health in South Africa

Consistent with its use by the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa during the 1960s, this article uses the term Black to refer to all of the historically marginalized groups in that society --Africans, Coloureds, and Indians ( Subreenduth 2003 ). Coloured, a term historically and currently, fraught with conflict and contradiction refers to a heterogeneous racial group, primarily consisting of persons of mixed racial ancestry ( Goldin 1987 ). During the apartheid era in South Africa, there was marked racial stratification with Whites at the top, Africans at the bottom and Indians and Coloureds, in the middle. Along with Africans, Coloureds and Indians experienced systematic discrimination compared to Whites.

South African researchers have long described the multiple ways in which the deeply entrenched differential allocation of material and socio-political privileges based on race could have pervasive adverse consequences on the health of Black groups. Straker (1987) described the “continuous traumatic stress” of apartheid. Other researchers documented the multiple institutional and interpersonal mechanisms by which apartheid could adversely affect the mental health of Blacks ( Dommisse, 1986 ; Mohutsioa-Makhudu, 1989 ; Turton & Chalmers 1990 ). In the post-apartheid era, research continues to document large racial differences in health in South Africa and to suggest the legacy of institutional and interpersonal racism as a contributing factor ( Moller 1998 ; Burgard 2002 ). One recent study used a micro-simulation-based decomposition framework to understand the multidimensional contribution of racism to racial disparities in self-rated health ( Charasse-Pouele & Fournier 2006 ). It found that discrimination, primarily through structural differences in SES is a major source of racial disparities in health.

There have been few recent population-based studies in South Africa that have assessed the levels of perceived discrimination and its potential health consequences, and there is reason to believe that assessing perceived racial discrimination will be challenging. The discourse of race is changing in South Africa with the expression of blatant racist beliefs by Whites declining (Duckett 1991), and despite broad recognition by Blacks of the persistence of racism, there is a growing reluctance to explicitly discuss it (Subreendath, 2003). While South Africa remains a racially stratified society, the transition to a multiracial democracy in 1994, has produced among some, a sense of solidarity and an emphasis on a unified national identity that downplays references to race ( Moller 1998 ; Carrim 2000 ). For example, a study of university students found widespread minimizing of overt references to race, both as a source of personal identity and as a determinant of differential life chances ( Franchi & Swart 2003 ). Moreover, South African Whites perceive considerable constriction in socioeconomic opportunities and exaggerate the difficulties that they will have in securing employment opportunities in post-apartheid South Africa ( Moller 1998 ; Franchi & Stewart, 2003 ). South Africans Whites loss of political supremacy appears to have led to their increased perception of blocked opportunities (Miller, 1998).

The changing discourse of race in South Africa has implications for the assessment of perceived racial discrimination ( Carrim 2000 ). Research in the U.S. indicates that the language utilized in the measurement of discrimination affects the reported levels. Specifically, making race salient in the assessment of discrimination leads to response bias compared to the use of neutral terminology ( Gomez & Trierweiler, 2001 ). There is also the related challenge of attributional ambiguity ( Williams, Neighbors & Jackson, 2003 ). Respondents are often uncertain of the reason (or attribution) for a negative interpersonal experience. Building attribution into the question is likely to underestimate discriminatory encounters for which the attribution is uncertain. Thus, asking questions about both racial and non-racial discrimination can capture all of the potential pathogenic phenomenon of perceived unfairness, and also reduce some of the measurement error that can occur if questions are asked only of racial discrimination.

Unresolved Questions

The study of perceived discrimination and health is at an early stage. Our understanding of the conditions under which discrimination is more or less likely to affect health is limited. First, our knowledge is limited regarding the extent to which discrimination affects health independent of other measures of stress. Some evidence suggests that adjustment for other stressors reduces the association between discrimination and health to non-significance ( Taylor & Turner, 2002 ), while other research suggests that discrimination affects health independent of other stressors ( Williams et al., 1997 ). Second, individual dispositions can affect both the perceptions of discrimination and the likelihood of reporting them ( Williams, Neighbors, & Jackson, 2003 ). Accordingly, adjusting reports of discrimination for indicators of social desirability and core psychological factors such as self-esteem and self-efficacy can provide a more conservative estimate of its potential effect. Third, we have limited knowledge of the differential distribution of perceptions of racial and non-racial discrimination in South Africa and about the relative effects of biases based on race versus those attributed to other reasons.

This paper uses national data from South Africa to examine racial differences in the levels of discrimination and the contribution of discrimination to racial differences in health. We will explore how perceptions of racial and non-racial bias combine with other risk factors to affect the self-rated health and psychological distress for multiple racial groups in South Africa. Our research questions are:

• To what extent are there racial differences in the prevalence of perceived racial and non-racial discrimination?
• How do perceptions of discrimination relate to self-rated ill health and psychological distress? This will include an examination of: a) how the relationship between perceived discrimination and health varies depending on the attribution (racial versus non-racial); and b) the extent to which the association between perceived discrimination and health is independent of traditional stressors and SES, as well as psychological characteristics such as social desirability, self-esteem and mastery.
• What contribution, if any, do perceptions of discrimination make in explaining racial differences in self-rated ill health and psychological distress?

The data are from the South African Stress and Health Study (SASH). The SASH study was a national probability sample of 4,351 adult South Africans living in both households and hostel quarters ( Williams, Herman, Kessler, Sonnega, Seedat, & Stein, et al., 2004 ). The unweighted sample was 76% African, 13% Coloured, 4% Indian and 7% White. Hostel quarters were included to maximize coverage of young working age males. The sample was selected using a three-stage clustered area probability sample design. The first stage involved the selection of stratified primary sample areas based on the 2001 South African Census Enumeration Areas (EAs). The second stage involved the sampling of housing units within clusters selected within each EA. The third stage involved the random selection of one adult respondent in each sampled housing unit. SASH interviewers were trained in centralized group sessions lasting one week. The interviews were conducted face to face in six different languages: English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa, Northern Sotho, and Tswana. Interviews lasted an average of three and a half hours, with many requiring more than one visit to complete. Data were collected between January 2002 and June 2004. The overall response rate was 86%. All recruitment, consent and field procedures were approved by the Human Subjects Committees of the University of Michigan, Harvard Medical School, and by a single project assurance of compliance from the Medical University of South Africa (MEDUNSA) that was approved by the National Institute of Mental Health.

All measures were coded such that a high score reflects a high level of that variable. Like other stressful experiences, discrimination is multidimensional and acute experiences (discrete, observable) are distinguished from chronic (ongoing) ones ( Cohen, Kessler & Gordon 1995 ). Acute discrimination is a count of the number of nine major experiences of unfair treatment in domains such as employment, education, housing and interactions with the police that respondents had experienced over their lifetime ( Kessler et al., 1999 ; Williams, et al., 1997 ). Experiences attributed to race/ethnicity (racial discrimination) were distinguished from those attributed to other social status categories (non-racial discrimination). In the multivariate analyses, those reporting zero experiences of acute discrimination were compared to those reporting one, and more than one such experience. Chronic discrimination was assessed by an expanded version of the everyday discrimination scale ( Williams, et al., 1997 ). The original scale contained nine items that assessed the frequency (on a 5-point scale from ‘almost every day’ to ‘never’) of exposure to chronic discrimination, such as being treated with less courtesy and respect or receiving poorer service than others in restaurants and stores. A tenth item, being followed around in stores, was added and the ten items were summed to create a racial and non-racial everyday discrimination scale. The alpha for the everyday racial discrimination scale was .84 overall, and .84 for Africans, .82 for Coloureds, .81 for Indians and .78 for Whites. The alpha for the everyday non-racial discrimination scale was .91 overall, and .91 for Africans .91 for Coloureds, .88 for Indians and .88 for Whites

Life events, relationship stress and domestic violence were three types of commonly occurring stressors that were with the WHO’s World Mental Health Initiative’s Survey ( Kessler & Ustun, 2004 .) assessed. Life events are a count of how many of 12 experiences (such as the death of a loved one, criminal victimization and unemployment) that respondents experienced during the twelve months before being interviewed. Relationship stress is a count of the number of respondents’ reports of serious, ongoing disagreements or problems getting along with any family members, any close friend, or anyone at work in the past year. Domestic violence perpetration was assessed by the frequency with which the respondent had slapped or hit, thrown something at, or pushed, grabbed or shoved her/his current or former spouse or partner. Domestic violence victimizations was assessed by the frequency with which the respondent had been a recipient of the aforementioned actions from her/his current or former spouse or partner. Domestic violence is an important contributor to health problems in South Africa ( Jewkes, Levin & Penn-Kekane, 2002 ).

Three psychological factors were assessed. Social desirability was a 10-item scale that captured a respondent’s tendency to select a socially acceptable response, even though it may not be true ( Zuckerman, Kuhlman, Joireman, Teta, & Kraft, 1993 ). Respondents indicated whether questions such as the following were true or false for them: ‘I have always told the truth’, ‘I have never been bored’, ‘I always win at games’, I have never lost anything.’ The scale is constructed by counting the number of responses reported as true. The alpha for the scale was .72 and it was comparable for the four racial groups. Mastery, a measure of self-efficacy, was assessed by a 4-item version of Pearlin’s mastery scale ( Pearlin, Lieberman, Menaghan, & Mullan, 1981 ) in which respondents indicated how strongly they agreed or disagreed with the following: that there is no way they can solve some of the problems they have, that they have little control over what happens to them, that they often feel helpless in dealing with the problems of life, and that there is little they can do to change many of the important things in their lives. The alpha for this scale was .82 and it was comparable across the four racial groups. Self-esteem was assessed by a 4-item version of Rosenberg’s (1979) self-esteem scale allowed respondents to report their agreement with the following: taking a positive attitude toward themselves, feeling satisfied with themselves, feeling useless at times, and thinking that they are no good at all. The alpha for this scale was .56 overall (.54 for Africans, .58 for Coloureds, .50 for Indians and .66 for Whites).

Racial categories assessed were Africans, Coloureds, Indians and Whites. Education, measured in years of schooling, employment status and total household income (in Rands) were three traditional indicators of SES utilized. Two additional SES measures, material resources and wealth were included in an attempt to capture at least some of the institutional aspects of racism in South Africa ( Turton & Chalmers, 1990 ). The policies and procedures of Apartheid created marked racial differences in access to economic resources and the material conditions of life. Material resources was a count of the total number of seven household appliances (refrigerator, vacuum cleaner, television, HI-FI or music center, microwave oven, washing machine and VCR), seven household resources (running water, domestic servant, automobile, flush toilet, built-in kitchen sink, electric stove or hotplate, and working telephone) that respondents owned and three financial activities that they engaged in (shopping at supermarkets, using financial services such as a bank account, automatic teller machine card or credit card and having an account or credit card at a retail store. The alpha for this scale was .92 overall (.89 for Africans, .89 for Coloureds, .74 for Indians and .70 for Whites). Second, wealth was assessed by having respondents report if there would be any money left over if all of their assets were sold and all of their debts paid off. Respondents reporting some wealth, were contrasted with those reporting no or negative wealth and those who refused to provide an answer or indicated that they did not know the answer to the question. Demographic controls used were sex, age, urban (versus rural) residence and marital status.

We used two measures of health status: self-rated ill health and psychological distress. Self-rated ill health is one of the most widely used subjective indicators of general health status in health research. It is based on a single question in which respondents rate their health on a 5-point scale, with 1=excellent and 5=poor. Prior research indicates that this global indicator of health status is a strong predictor of mortality and changes in physical functioning ( Idler & Benyamini, 1997 ). Psychological distress was assessed by a 10-item scale that captured how often respondents felt symptoms of distress (e.g., nervous, hopeless, and depressed) in the past 30 days ( Kessler et al., 2002 ). The alpha for this scale was .90 and was comparable across the racial groups.

Data Analyses

In order to account for the stratified multistage sample design, the data were weighted to adjust for differential probability of selection within households as a function of household size and clustering of the data, and for differential non-response. A post-stratification weight was also used to make the sample distribution comparable to the population distribution in the 2001 South African Census for age, sex, and province. The weighting and geographic clustering of the data were taken into account in data analyses by using the Taylor series linearization method in the SUDAAN statistical package. The analyses begin by comparing levels of perceived racial and non-racial discrimination by race. Statistical tests for these descriptive analyses only contrast all other groups with Africans because we were unable to use Whites as the contrast groups because of zero cells on several of the individual indicators of discrimination for Whites. In the multivariate models, all of the Black groups are contrasted to Whites. The basic multivariate analytic tool was ordinary least squares regression. We estimated the following models: Model 1 assessed the association between race and health status adjusted for socio-demographic factors. Model 2 adds three traditional indicators of SES (income, education, employment). Model 3 added acute and chronic racial and non-racial discrimination. We evaluated the mediating effects of perceived discrimination on racial differences in health by using Baron and Kenny’s (1986) criteria for mediation. These criteria require (1) a significant association between the independent variable (race) and the dependent variable (health), (2) a significant association between race and the presumed mediator variables (discrimination), (3) a significant association between the mediator (discrimination) and health, and (4) after controlling the mediator, the association between race and health is decreased. The fourth model added other stressors to model 3. This model also allows for evaluating the role of other stress in mediating the association between discrimination and health, and the extent to which discrimination makes an independent contribution to health in the presence of other stressors. A fifth model assessed the extent to which the observed associations are independent of psychological factors (self-esteem, mastery and of social desirability) and a final model added a measure of material resources and wealth.

Table 1 presents descriptive analyses of acute racial and non-racial discrimination by race. For each of the nine indicators it reports the percent of persons who reported ever having that experience, with a summary measure indicating the percent of persons ever having at least one discriminatory experience. Three percent of Whites report having at least one acute experience of racial discrimination overall with Africans and Coloureds being twice as likely and Indians three times as likely as Whites to report an experience of racial discrimination. There were no racial differences in the overall level of non-racial discrimination with 14% of Africans, 11% of Coloureds, 20% of Indians and 17% of Whites reporting at least one experience of non-racial discrimination. For each racial group, the levels of non-racial discrimination were at least twice as high as racial discrimination. In terms of specific incidents, the highest levels of both racial and non-racial discrimination were in the employment domain and in encounters with the police.

Lifetime Prevalence of Perceived Acute Discrimination by Race in the South African Stress and Health Study (SASH) (Estimates are Weighted)

Table 2 presents data on everyday discrimination. Overall 8% of Africans, 6% of Coloureds, 6% of Indians and 2% of Whites report that at least one experience of everyday racial discrimination occurred monthly or more often. As with acute discrimination, levels of non-racial discrimination were much higher than racial discrimination for each racial group, with Africans (23%) and Indians (21%) reporting twice the level of non-racial discrimination as Coloureds (11%) and Whites (9%). Thus, although most of the chronic discrimination was not attributed to race, there were relatively high levels of chronic exposure to minor character assaults.

Monthly Prevalence of Everyday Discrimination, by Race, in the South African Stress and Health Study (SASH) (Estimates are Weighted)

Discrimination and Self-Rated Ill Health

Table 3 presents the relationship between perceived discrimination, race and self-rated ill health. In the demographics adjusted model, Africans and Coloureds reported higher levels of ill health than Whites. In Model 2 when SES variables were added, the coefficients for both Coloureds and Africans are reduced by about 43%. The higher level of ill-health for Coloureds was no longer significant while that of for Africans remained significant. In Model 3, both acute and everyday racial discrimination were not significantly related with self-rated ill health. However, those reporting more than one experience of acute non-racial discrimination had significantly higher levels of ill health than those who reported none. Everyday non-racial discrimination was also positively related to ill health. The addition of the discrimination measures in Model 3 made only a negligible contribution to the explained variance and had virtually no effect on race. When other stressors were considered in Model 4, only life events were positively related to ill health and the addition of stress mediated a small part of the relationship between race and ill health. In addition, when general stressors were adjusted for, the coefficient for acute non-racial discrimination was reduced to non-significance but chronic non-racial bias was reduced slightly but remained significant. Social desirability was unrelated to ill-health but both self-esteem and mastery were significantly and inversely related to ill health. The consideration of the psychological factors reduced the coefficients for non-racial discrimination and life events only slightly, but reduced the effect of race to non-significance. In the final model material resources and wealth were unrelated to ill health, but the coefficients for everyday non-racial discrimination and life events remained significant.

Unstandardized and [standardized] Regression Coefficients Predicting Self-Rated Ill Health, South Africa

Table 4 presents the relationship between perceived discrimination and psychological distress. In Model 1, adjusted for demographics, Africans, Coloureds and Indians had higher levels of distress than Whites. Adjustment for SES variables reduced the association between race and distress by 32% for Africans and by 43% for Coloureds, but both groups continued to have significantly higher levels of distress than Whites. Adding discrimination Model 3 increased the explained variance by 11%. Acute non-racial discrimination and both racial and non-racial everyday discrimination were positively related to distress. The coefficients for both race and education were reduced (each by about 25% from the previous model) but remained significant when discrimination was considered. Model 4 also shows that both stressful life events and relationships were positively related to psychological distress. The addition of stress increased the explained variance by 4% and the consideration of stress produced an additional reduction in the coefficients for race. However, Africans continue to report higher levels of distress even after a broad range of stressors are considered. Social desirability was unrelated to distress but both self-esteem and mastery were inversely related to distress. When these psychological factors were considered in Model 5, race was unrelated to distress and acute non-racial discrimination was reduced to non-significance, while acute racial discrimination remained inversely related to distress. However, the inclusion of psychological factors had only minimal effects on the coefficients for chronic racial and non-racial discrimination. Similar to the findings for self-rated ill health, the addition of material resources and wealth in the final model did little to change the previously observed patterns. Instructively, the standardized coefficients for the stress variables – chronic racial and non-racial discrimination, life events and relationship stress are among the largest in the final model.

Unstandardized and [standardized] Regression Coefficients Predicting Psychological Distress, South Africa

In a nationally representative sample of South Africans we found that the historically racially stigmatized groups, Africans, Coloureds and Indians, reported higher levels of perceived racial discrimination than Whites. For non-racial discrimination, there was not a clear pattern of variation by race. Levels of discrimination were also consequential for health. Perceived racial and non-racial chronic discrimination were inversely related to psychological distress and partially accounted for racial differences in distress. The association was weaker for self-rated health with only chronic non-racial discrimination being predictive of ill-health. Moreover, perceived discrimination did not play a role in accounting for racial differences in self-rated ill health. Our findings for discrimination suggest that irrespective of attribution, the persistent enduring aspects of discrimination (captured by chronic everyday discrimination) are more consequential than acute discrimination for health and that the adverse effects of perceived chronic discrimination are independent of conventional measures of stress, psychological factors and SES. In addition, the consistent positive relationship between other stressors, especially life events and our indicators of morbidity suggests that the pathogenic effects of perceived chronic discrimination are likely similar to but independent of standard indicators of stress. These data are consistent with a growing body of research from multiple societies suggesting that perceived discrimination is a risk factor for health.

It is instructive that racial differences in health and the association between perceived discrimination and health were stronger for psychological distress than for self-rated ill health. Psychological distress may be an especially important indicator of personal and collective suffering in low and middle income countries ( Kirmayer, 1991 ; Kleinman & Benson 2006 ). As opposed to a measure of clinical disorders, which represents only the most severe cases and can recast human suffering and affliction into medical pathology ( Kleinman & Benson, 2006 ), psychological distress can capture psychosocial distress on a continuum and can more clearly reveal the mental health burden of stigma. It also makes sense that more consistent and robust associations were evident for chronic everyday discrimination than for acute discrimination. In the larger literature on stress, chronic stressors tend to be more strongly related to health than acute stressors ( Cohen, Kessler & Gordon, 1995 ).. Our measure of acute discrimination assessed lifetime exposure to bias, with some of the reported experiences occurring many years ago. In contrast, the chronic measure of discrimination not only reflected recent experiences that were more contemporaneous with the assessment of mental health status, but captured experiences that are likely to include potentially stigmatizing assaults on one’s sense of personhood (treated with less courtesy and respect than others, treated as if inferior, unintelligent and dishonest) ( Essed 1991 ). At the same time with cross-sectional, observational data, chronic discrimination is especially vulnerable to multiple sources of confounding with self-reported measures of health. Accordingly, it is noteworthy that the association between chronic discrimination and health remained robust after adjustment for other stressors, SES and multiple psychological factors.

The overall levels of racial discrimination reported in South Africa were low. Ten percent or fewer Africans, Coloureds and Indians reported at least one major experience of racial discrimination or an experience of everyday discrimination once per month or more frequently. In comparison, a study in Australia found the 70% of a sample of 312 indigenous Australians reported one experience of racial discrimination ( Paradies 2006b ). Similarly, in a national study of New Zealand, 34% of the Maori, 28% of Asians and 25% of Pacific peoples reported experiencing at least one form of racial discrimination in their lifetime ( Harris, et al 2006 ). National data for the U.S. finds that 31% of Whites and 48% of Blacks report lifetime exposure to at least one experience of acute racial or non-racial discrimination ( Kessler et al. 1999 ). Several factors may account for the relatively low levels in South Africa. First, there is considerable ambiguity inherent in both the perception of discrimination and in identifying the motivation behind it ( Williams, Neighbors, & Jackson, 2003 ). Our measurement approach attempted to capture the full range of exposure to unfair treatment experiences recognizing that there may be some classification error in attribution. In contrast to the U.S. where disadvantaged racial groups report higher levels of racial than non-racial discrimination ( Kessler at al. 1999 ), levels of non-racial discrimination, across all racial groups, were much higher than for racial discrimination in South Africa, suggesting the possibility of at least some South Africans under attributing experiences of perceived discrimination to race.

Second, some limited evidence suggests that in times of hope and optimism stigmatized racial groups report lower levels of discrimination than at other times. A national panel study that followed African Americans between 1979 and 1992, found that the lowest level of racial discrimination and the highest level of optimism about race relations was during 1988 -- the year that Jesse Jackson, an African American male was running the most successful presidential campaign ever by a Black person ( Jackson, et al., 1996 ). It is possible that the rise of Nelson Mandela and his government to power, combined with the national reconciliation efforts of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa ( Stein, 1998 ) could have lead some South Africans to be optimistic about race relations and create normative pressures against interpreting ambiguous experiences through a racial lens. There is evidence of post-election euphoria in South Africa in 1994, but it appeared to have lasted for only 18 months (Miller 1998). Accordingly, the low levels of discrimination by Blacks in South Africa may be driven less by declines in the perception of discrimination and more by discomfort in making overt references to race (Subreendath, 2003; Moller 1998 ; Carrim 2000 ; Franchi & Swart 2003 ). Third, levels of discrimination are in part a function of the opportunities for inter-racial interaction, especially as equals ( Jackman, 1994 ). Given the continuing high levels of residential segregation in South Africa, and the marked racial differences in SES, most Blacks in South Africa may have relatively few opportunities to interact with Whites as equals. Importantly, the low levels of reported discrimination in South Africa should not be interpreted as evidence of the absence of racism. A study in the early 1990s in a racially diverse neighborhood in South Africa found that although there were high levels of racial tolerance and few overt acts of racism, many residents, especially Whites expressed racist sentiments ( Morris 1999 ). Fourth, it is also possible that the low levels of discrimination are related to the measurement strategy utilized. We used an approach that attempted to be sensitive to the current tendency to downplay race in South Africa. However, we are not aware of the optimal approaches to assess discrimination in South Africa or elsewhere ( Paradies, 2006 ). Given that alternative approaches to measuring discrimination could have yielded different results, our findings must be viewed with caution and in need of replication.

Our findings also point to important areas of future research. First, in our analyses, all non-racial types of discrimination were collapsed into a residual non-racial category. We need to understand the extent to which the psychological consequences of perceived discrimination vary by the domain in which stigmatization occurs and by the psychological centrality of that social identity to the individual. Discrimination based on gender, age and physical appearance were other categories to which respondents frequently attributed experiences of unfair treatment. Future research by ourselves and others could profitably disaggregate the non-racial discrimination category to shed more light on how the association between racial discrimination and health compares to those of other forms of discrimination. Second, our analyses have not attended to factors that might buffer the negative effects of discrimination on health. Research is needed to identify the social and psychological resources that stigmatized groups mobilize to cope with discrimination. Third, we need to better understand the reported levels of racial and non-racial discrimination reported by Whites in South Africa. The observed levels are consistent with those reported by Whites in the U.S.( Kessler et al. 1999 ) and with South African research that suggests that Whites’ opposition to affirmative action leads to unrealistic fears regarding their future economic opportunities ( Franchi & Swart, 2003 ). Nevertheless, given the marked racial disparities in wealth and privileges, the relatively high level of non-racial discrimination reported by South African Whites is striking. We found that Whites reported significantly higher non-racial discrimination than Africans on two items: having been unfairly denied a promotion and receiving poorer service from someone such as a plumber or car mechanic than was worse than what others get.

Fourth, our findings highlight the need for future research that would shed light on the complex ways in which social factors contribute to different indicators of health status. The demographic, SES, discrimination, stress and psychological variables considered completely explained racial variations in both self rated health and psychological distress but the relative contribution of specific variables were very different across the health outcomes. Age gender, self-esteem, mastery, life events and education were the strong predictors for self-rated health, while chronic racial and non-racial discrimination, life events, relationship stress, self-esteem and mastery were the strong predictors for psychological distress.

Fifth, we need to better understand the phenomena of discrimination in all of its complexity. This paper focused on perceptions of individual discrimination – an important consequence of stigma. However, individual discrimination is only one form of discrimination that is produced by stigma ( Link & Phelan, 2001 ). A particularly pathogenic form of discrimination can occur when stigmatized groups recognize that others respond to them based on their acceptance of negative societal stereotypes ( Link & Phelan, 2006 ). Research on stereotype threat suggests that the internalization of negative stereotypes adversely affects academic performance among Blacks in the U.S. ( Steele, 1997 ). Other research with U.S. Blacks indicates that internalized racism (the acceptance of negative racial stereotypes of Blacks as true), is associated with higher levels of psychological symptoms and substance use ( Williams & Williams-Morris, 2000 ;Jones, 2000). Research suggesting that at least some South African Blacks may have internalized racist ideology that was pervasive during apartheid (Subreendath, 2003; Finchilescu & de la Rey, 1991 ) indicates that this may be an area deserving of research attention in South Africa. Relatedly, structural discrimination, in which policies and procedures deny rewards and resources to stigmatized groups, can also adversely impact SES and physical and mental health ( Williams & Collins, 2001 ). Low levels of interpersonal discrimination would not be expected to shield Blacks from the daily stress of living in economically deprived conditions. Recent research from South Africa suggests that institutional discrimination is indeed a critical determinant of health ( Charasse-Pouele and Fournier 2006 ). We included indicators of material resources and wealth to capture at least some of these aspects of institutional racism but, did not find that they made an incremental contribution over the traditional indicators of SES. Future research needs to attend to how to best capture the role of socioeconomic conditions and the continuing legacy of the institutional dimensions of racism in South Africa.

Research that seeks to capture the full burden of institutionalized and interpersonal racism in South Africa should also requires assessing politically motivated violence over the life course and the potential intergenerational effects of racism. Research on historical trauma and its effects on the health of American Indians highlight the importance of assessing these dimension of racism ( Brave Heart & DeBruyn, 1998 ). The term historical trauma is used to describe the cumulative psychological wounding that American Indians and other indigenous people experienced from European colonizers due to the history of genocide, systemic political oppression and other atrocities that these groups experienced. Assessment instruments with good psychometric properties have been developed to assess historical trauma and research is finding that historical trauma is related to multiple health outcomes ( Whitbeck, Adams, Hoyt, & Chen, 2004 ). This research is similar to studies of other generational group traumas, including studies of the health consequences of the Jewish Holocaust on survivors and their descendants ( Brave Heart & DeBruyn, 1998 ). Given South Africa’s history of racial-political violence, and mass residential relocations, assessing the potential effects of historical trauma seems especially appropriate.

There are several limitations of our analyses. First, our data are cross-sectional and shed no light on the temporal ordering of the association between perceived discrimination and health. Second, the assessment of discrimination is based on self report and vulnerable in cross-sectional analyses to confounding with the dependent variable. Third, although our questionnaire in South Africa was carefully translated and back-translated with the assistance of local language experts, we cannot be certain that all our constructs were equivalent across language or cultural subgroups. Reassuringly, our measures of the reliability of multi-item scales were generally comparable for our four racial groups. However, it is not clear, for example, that reports of episodic, occasional experiences of discrimination by Whites are conceptually, qualitatively and experientially equivalent to perceptions of discrimination by racially stigmatized African, Coloureds and Indians for whom these experiences of bias may reinforce their historic status of marked social inequality and oppression. In spite of these limitations, our exploration of the nature, levels and health correlates of discrimination in South Africa suggests that stigma as reflected in perceived discrimination, may be consequential for mental health and deserves further study in South Africa, as well as in stigmatized populations in other contexts.

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Contributor Information

Dr David R. Williams, Harvard School of Public Health Boston, MA UNITED STATES [Proxy]

Hector M Gonzalez, Wayne State University, ude.enyaw.dem@zelaznogmh .

Stacey Williams, East Tennessee State University, ude.utse.liam@lsailliw .

Selina A Mohammed, University of Washington, Bothell, ude.notgnihsaw.u@maniles .

Hashim Moomal, Univerity of Witwatersrand, az.ca.stiw.hps@lamoom .

Dan J Stein, University of Cape Town, [email protected] .

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Racism is still rife in South Africa’s schools. What can be done about it

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It’s 2019, almost 25 years into South Africa’s democratic dispensation, and racism is still playing out in the country’s schools.

Most recently, a primary school teacher was accused of separating children according to race . Elsewhere, a high school was accused of progressing white pupils who failed while holding back black pupils who’d failed. There have been numerous other stories of racist behaviour, separatist language policies and instances of schools turning away largely black pupils , claiming their classrooms are full.

This is happening despite legislative changes since the end of apartheid, along with a noticeable change in the demographics of former white and private schools.

The problem is that general assimilatory practices persist. These don’t deal with each learner as an individual. Instead, they expect black students to think, look and speak like their white peers so that they don’t somehow stand out. The attitude of “this is our school, our culture, our language; if you want to be here, you will have to accept and adapt to it” is rife.

Many formerly whites only schools also show little flexibility in accommodating the identities and worldviews of students from other race groups.

There are several ways to deal with these issues, from initiating national dialogues to training teachers to identify their own biases.

Definitions

First, it’s necessary to establish some parameters. What is racism? Is it the same as prejudice, discrimination and stereotyping? These issues have been widely studied , and useful definitions have emerged.

Prejudice is a rigid and unfair generalisation about an entire category of people with little or no evidence. It often takes the form of stereotypes. These are exaggerated and simplified descriptions applied to every person in a minority group.

Unfair discrimination is any unequal treatment of different groups of people. It can take different forms. An example of fair discrimination in a school would be allocating the front seats in the classroom to learners who are visually impaired. Unfair discrimination could involve allowing the blue-eyed learners to have a longer break than those with green eyes – or grouping white and black kids separately.

Racism , meanwhile, includes beliefs, thoughts and actions based on the idea that one race is innately superior to another. Many of the events that play out in South African schools can be classified as implicit racism. That’s because racism in schools very often emanates from broader structural and institutional racism. This is less easy to recognise from the outside than instances of racist language or behaviour.

Teachers often don’t realise what they’re doing or that they are being guided by bias. For example, a teacher may tell a black pupil, “you speak good English”. This is a derogatory remark masked as a compliment – it implies that black people aren’t expected to speak English well. The teacher in question may be shocked to be accused of racism; such statements become normalised and are not recognised as racist by those who make them.

Racism is also closely linked to structures of power. Teachers, for example, often hold more power – either directly inscribed in policies or codes or indirectly exercised through education practices – than learners in a classroom setting. The way the teacher uses that power can determine the extent to which a learner, especially one who is of a different race group to the teachers, can speak back to that power.

Possible solutions

Legislation alone is not going to ease the edgy co-existence between different race groups that persists in many schools. A mind shift is needed at a national level.

To address the problem of racism in South African schools, the country must first understand its origins. Today’s school racism is the product of a long history of many kinds of inclusion and exclusionary practices that favoured one group at the expense of others.

Exploring this history will provide South Africans with an understanding how the racism seen in schools today forms part of a broader structural discourse of separation based on race. It will also help people to identify how racism shows up in covert and overt ways.

A national indaba (discussion or conference) on racism in South African schools which addresses the concerns of white and black teachers, school managers, governors and learners could also be valuable. This might culminate in a national memorandum of understanding of how schools are to operate in a non-racist way, including dealing with notions like “white people are inherently racist” and “black people cannot be racist”. Accountability and appropriate consequences should be laid out in this document.

Racism is learned and can therefore be unlearned. Teachers can play a significant role in mediating the negative effect of racism in classrooms, schools and society. They are well placed to start conversations in learners’ early lives and to use creative teaching strategies to disrupt the rigid narratives of race.

They can also be trained to interrogate their own implicit biases and consciously work against these, as well as to combat racism . This has been done elsewhere in the world , through various programmes .

• Social cohesion
• Racism in schools
• South African history
• Peacebuilding
• Assimilation

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Resurgent Racism in Post-Apartheid South Africa and the Need to Promote Healthy Human Relationships

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In 1994, Nelson Mandela, who had been incarcerated for 27 years by the apartheid regime, became South Africa’s first black president. Instead of being bitter, Mandela, who had suffered grave injustices, at the hands of the apartheid system, preached reconciliation and racial tolerance and used them as keystones for nation-building. In the same vein, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu popularised the notion of the ‘Rainbow Nation’ with many South Africans subscribing to this idea. Due to such bold efforts that were aimed at reconciliation, by Mandela and others, the transition from apartheid to democracy was mostly peaceful. This led to many people around the world to describe it as a ‘miracle’ transition. However, after 26 years of democracy, there is an upsurge in racism across the country, with some incidences resulting in the maiming and deaths of mainly Africans by whites. This chapter examines rising racism in the country and argues that this trend can be reduced through social work interventions that foster and strengthen healthy human relationships.

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Noyoo, N. (2021). Resurgent Racism in Post-Apartheid South Africa and the Need to Promote Healthy Human Relationships. In: Noyoo, N. (eds) Promoting Healthy Human Relationships in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50139-6_2

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Race, discrimination and diversity in South Africa

The end of apartheid has brought a resurgence of research into racial identities, attitudes and behaviour in South Africa.  The legacy of systematic racial ordering and discrimination under apartheid is that South Africa remains deeply racialised, in cultural and social terms, as well as deeply unequal, in terms of the distribution of income and opportunities.  South Africans continue to see themselves in the racial categories of the apartheid era, in part because these categories have become the basis for post-apartheid 'redress', in part because they retain cultural meaning in everyday life.  South Africans continue to inhabit social worlds that are largely defined by race, and many express negative views of other racial groups.  There has been little racial integration in residential areas, although schools provide an important opportunity for inter-racial interaction for middle-class children.  Experimental and survey research provide little evidence of racism, however.  Few people complain about racial discrimination, although many report everyday experiences that might be understood as discriminatory.  Racial discrimination per se seems to be of minor importance in shaping opportunities in post-apartheid South Africa.  Far more important are the disadvantages of class, exacerbated by neighbourhood effects: poor schooling, a lack of footholds in the labour market, a lack of financial capital.  The relationship between race and class is now very much weaker than in the past.  Overall, race remains very important in cultural and social terms, but no longer structures economic advantage and disadvantage.  Post-apartheid South Africa is thus the precise opposite of Brazil.

May 26, 1948 to May 9, 1994

Martin Luther King believed South Africa was home to “the world’s worst racism” and drew parallels between struggles against apartheid in South Africa and struggles against “local and state governments committed to ‘white supremacy’” in the southern United States ( Papers  5:401 ). In a statement delivered at the 1962 American Negro Leadership Conference King declared: “Colonialism and segregation are nearly synonymous … because their common end is economic exploitation, political domination, and the debasing of human personality” (Press release, 28 November 1962).

Apartheid (meaning “apartness” in Afrikaans) was the legal system for racial separation in South Africa from 1948 until 1994. The Popular Registration Act of 1950 classified all South Africans into three categories: bantu (blacks), coloureds (those of mixed race), and white. Later, a fourth category, “Asians,” was added. Throughout the 1950s regulations created separate residency areas, job categories, public facilities, transportation, education, and health systems, with social contact between the races strictly prohibited.

The nonviolent resistance of anti-apartheid demonstrators was often met with government brutality, including the massacre of 72 demonstrators in Sharpeville in 1960. King called the massacre “a tragic and shameful expression of man’s inhumanity to man” and argued that it “should also serve as a warning signal to the United States where peaceful demonstrations are also being conducted by student groups. As long as segregation continues to exist; as long as Gestapo-like tactics are used by officials of southern communities; and as long as there are governors and United States senators [who] arrogantly defy the law of the land, the United States is faced with a potential reign of terror more barbaric than anything we see in South Africa” ( Papers  5:399–400 ).

Shortly after the Sharpeville massacre, the African National Congress (ANC) abandoned its adherence to  nonviolence  and created an armed wing, conducting acts of sabotage against the apartheid regime. Despite his commitment to nonviolence, King recognized that “in South Africa even the mildest form of nonviolent resistance [was met] with years of imprisonment” or worse (King, 7 December 1964). He believed that the only nonviolent solution to apartheid was an international economic and political boycott of South Africa, and called on governments to demonstrate the “international potential of nonviolence” through economic sanctions (King, “Let My People Go,” December 1965).

Although the struggle against apartheid lasted for more than four decades, the United States and Great Britain did approve economic sanctions against South Africa in 1985. The dismantling of apartheid began in the early 1990s, when South African President F. W. de Klerk legalized formerly banned political parties and released political prisoners. In 1994 a new constitution was written, and ANC leader Nelson Mandela became president in the country’s first fair and open elections.

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