An application of conversational thinking to the problem of racial discrimination in South Africa

Abstract

The problem of racial discrimination in South Africa speaks to the question of who is to be included and excluded from South African society. South African society before the advent of democracy structurally and politically was built on exclusionary policies that are disadvantageous to those classified as blacks, colored (mixed raced individuals), and Indians (South Africans of Indian descent), respectively. To unpack the nature of this racial discrimination, I will start by showing how the historical workings of Apartheid policies contribute to the continued problem of racial discrimination in South Africa. I argue that the problem of racial discrimination in present-day South Africa can best be analyzed from new perspectives motivated by the legacies of Apartheid. One such perspective is the value of what I call racial complementarity. I tap into conversational thinking to show how we can rethink the problem of racial discrimination using a different framework other than ubuntu that has failed to adequately address racial discrimination despite its humanistic values. To go beyond ubuntu, one of the ways of addressing racial discrimination would be to cultivate the orientation of racial complementarity. I employed conversational thinking as my preferred methodology for managing the relationship of seemingly opposed variables like the racial lines in South Africa, making it possible for seemingly opposed variables to interact harmoniously and complement one another in ways that dispel unequal and discriminatory treatment of individuals within any society.