i really loved this post i read from a friend of mine on Facebook today:

My friend just got kicked out a crime watch Whatsapp group in Morningside, Sandton for posting “Just spotted a white male walking up my street! Be careful everyone!”

Well, loved and hated, because it sadly just proved something i have heard on many occasions – that a lot of Neighbourhood Watch Whatsapp groups are hives for both subtle and quite overt racism. i wrote this once before on Facebook and got huge [and aggressive] push back from a number of people cos #NotAllWhatsappGroups or something. But i have heard examples from Cape Town and Durban and other places enough times to know that this smoke is leading us towards fire.

If you are part of a Neighbourhood Watch group on Whatsapp and don’t believe yours is like that at all [and also if you do] here is my challenge experiment for you. Cut and paste the message that was posted above – “Just spotted a white male walking up my street! Be careful everyone!” – and stick it in your Watsapp group with no other commentary or explanation and then come and report back how well your group responded to that, if at all.

Let’s put the responses in the comments section below. i imagine they might provide some interesting reading. If you are not prepared to do this little experiement, then try and figure out for yourself why that is, because that may be revealing something on its own.

i think that one way we can interrupt Whiteness is by refusing to let our Whatsapp Neighbourhood Watch groups become places where people are assumed suspicious or guilty because of the colour of their skin [cue a list of excuses defending racial profiling]. i don’t think that helps us to free our minds from bias at all.

Any takers?

[For more posts on Interrupting Whiteness, click here]