Reckoning

The bare day-to-day existence of the mass of poor African people speaks to the continuing reality of an unequal and unjust society—to the fact that South Africa is a society in which humanity is lost. It is argued that it is in these terms that the ruling African National Congress (ANC) is failing South Africa. The post-1994 attempts by the ANC to articulate a broad social justice agenda, as through the Reconstruction and Development Programme and the National Development Plan, have been inadequate responses to tackle what needs to be done to confront systemic racism. All told, the ANC seems to govern over a society it barely understands—and all because, like other South Africans, it has not at any point grasped the need to develop a fully reasoned sociological understanding of racism and the system oppressing African people. It is concluded that there is a great need to develop systemic racism theory as a theory with deeper critical intent—to enable all South Africans to develop a self-reflective capacity to understand how their lives are both trapped within and implicated in what remains a racist society.