Agreeing to disagree in the very best of ways…

‘Howzit buddy, just got to Bootleggers.’ [Whatsapp from Lukhanyo Neer]

What a great message to receive. i had been looking forward to connecting with Lukhanyo for a while, since i had met him at The Justice Conference in March and again after interacting on some #MenAreTrash vibes on Facebook.

This week tbV [the beautiful Val] has been away at a retreat and i have filled a lot of my time with meetings and connections and had a really great time. Last night i was up late with my mate Mahlatse having the most depth-filled conversations that will surely influence another post. But also the whole of yesterday i had this feeling that i had a meeting with someone on Friday but for the life of me could not remember who. i almost almost posted a Facebook message of ‘If you’re meant to be meeting with me tomorrow morning please remind me who you are’ but decided not to. Also i had tried to set up a meeting with my friend Ed Ramsami which had not happened so convinced myself that that was what i had been thinking about.

So back to Lukhanyo’s message – great one to receive – awful one to be woken up to… with Bootleggers about a twenty minute drive away if traffic played nice which it typically didn’t at 8am…

‘Ah flip. Running a little behind sorry. On the way.’ i send to him as i make it out of the house withing three minutes and am on the road.

First traffic light i hit i realise how disingenuous my message is and that the amount of time i take to get there is going to give him a huge clue, i send him another quick one: ‘And by a little i mean a lot. Grab a drink so long.’

He is super gracious and tells me he has some emails to keep him busy and i manage to make it safely there a lot quicker than expected. Thank you school holidays.

So close and yet so Neer

Spoiler alert: i leave two and half hours or so later [sheesh just looked at the time now – it flew by] with my soul just so full and overflowing. An evening with Mahlatse Mashua and a morning with Lukhanyo Neer will do that to you.

And probably the best part was that we had this big disagreement on something that remained unresolved.

But firstly, one of the highlights was this quote he alerted me to which i absolutely loved:

Lukhanyo was sharing a story about someone who asked his opinion on the country and who was wanting to hear all the typical Zuma and Guptas stuff and yet Lukhanyo spoke into some more basic personal stuff that was going in the company they were talking to. The idea that the Zuma and Gupta stuff is easy stuff to have an opinion on and easy to scapegoat or blame or get caught up in as a distraction. But are you paying the person who works in your house a living wage? When you expect your workers to arrive on time, are you asking how they got there and what it took for them to physically get from where they live to where they work?

Be careful of focusing at the wolves at the door when termites are eating out the floor underneath you. Also you have the means to deal with the termites a lot more effectively than the wolves so make sure you start there. Sho, i love that.

The Big Debate

It feels incredible to be able to walk away from a conversation where you wrestled back and forth for quite a while on one point, leave thinking differently, and yet still continue to value the other person’s commitment and commit internally to continue to wrestle and think through their view point.

Maybe what made it a lot easier with Lukhanyo was that we agreed that we probably agreed on 90% of the point that we were both making and then right at the end there was this tiny divergence which was both super significant and also maybe not too much so. Our end point felt the same in terms of consequence and responsibility, but how we got there was different.

It started with Lukhanyo saying that he doesn’t believe that ignorance was a viable factor of racism. That there is always intentional decision-making taking place. The one thing i really liked that he said was that the presence of the person [that you are looking down on, treating badly] should be enough as an external factor to bring the change.

What i was arguing, and largely from my experience and from the experience i have had of dealing with other people, is that until the external thing that has happened that has helped someone see the light in terms of their own racism/prejudice has happened, it is not necessarily intentional but brought about by experience/context/upbringing etc. 

Lukhanyo suggested that if what i said was true, then it meant that the responsibility was on someone else to bring that moment of wokeness of Aha of I-Get-It-Know and i agreed with him on that. Which is where he was saying the external person is the person in the scenario who is receiving the consequences of the racist attitude/behaviour. i was saying that while i believe it has to come from someone else, it is crucial that in issues of race it is the white person who is educating the white person [and not being left to the black person] and in matters of gender it is the male who is educating fellow males and not leaving the work of educating to the women.

In a nutshell, Lukhanyo is saying it is always intentional. There is a decision you have made not to see the person as human or equal. The evidence [of that person and their personhood for example] is too compelling for it not to be.

i am saying that the evidence is there and it should be obvious – there is no justification or excuse for you not seeing it… but until that light comes on, however it does [through the presence of the person or through someone shining the light for you] it hasn’t come on and so there is ignorance or the lack of awareness and as obvious as it should be it is not intentional.

What do you think? i would love to see some engagement on this. As i said we agreed on pretty much most of the journey of getting to that point and the ramifications and responsibility and all of that so this seems small but significant.

You can follow Lukhanyo on the Twitterer at @LukhanyoNeer