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Respect starts with self and continues with the rest. 

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Respect starts with self and continues with the rest. 

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What is, and what might be, the roll of internet and social networks in fight against systematic racism?

- the role of social media is enormous. White racist pay enormous amounts of money to put out words that confront our actions. They are trying to make us think that we cannot fight the power. We need to be using these platforms, even if we don't have the money to do it at the scale they are doing. We can use little messages about hope, about overcoming fear.

How can we "socialize" and go for a "cohesive society" if the production is socialized while its results are legally turned to profits and privatized?

- This needs to be constantly pointed out to socialize profit gains at our expense. During the pandemic, billionaires have been created out of our fears. In a post-covid world, we should create the basis for a more compassionate world.

The poor white narrative and how is influencing politics
- people are consumed with their sense of own- survival. When they see a saviour, they follow it. We need to unpack all these dynamics. It requires changing our education system, teaching that external representations mean nothing, we all have the same ingredients. Respect starts with self and continues with the rest.

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"can we rise above the marks of our origins and specific objective conditions, to engage meaningfully in realities beyond our usual experience base?"

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"can we rise above the marks of our origins and specific objective conditions, to engage meaningfully in realities beyond our usual experience base?"

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The 'poor white' dogma set the apartheid apparatus in place, putting the problems of the white minority before the problems of black people. These recommendations became the cornerstones of apartheid towards segregation and the total exclusion of the black majority in South Africa.

In today's talk, I will review some of the recommendations made by the 1998 Truth and Reconciliation table. This report stated that the apartheid system could only have continued if white people had continued their privileges even though they were the vast minority. "Apartheid could only have happened if large numbers of enfranchised, relatively privileged South Africans either condoned or simply allowed it to continue".

Today, we observe processes in which perpetrators act as victims of racism, as exemplified in the George Floyd case. Official sources state that in the USA today there is a perception of reduced racism, which does not correspond to reality. This is also the case in South Africa, where denialist narratives are erasing the memory of the apartheid years and the early years of democracy. How to overcome this? It depends on our ability to examine the role we have played in the past, and, more importantly, to examine the role we as institutions can play in the future.  We must ensure that what happens in the present does not continue into the future. In the global north, we take human rights for granted, which sometimes leads to denying and covering up exclusion and inequality.  "Many of us have taken human rights for granted - often paying lip service to them - thus becoming inured to oppression, exclusion, inequity."

Apartheid ensured that blacks would not aspire beyond the prescribed framework determined by white interests. The black majority tended to know its place - terribly conforming to the limitations imposed - and the white minority quickly accepted a false, contrived sense of superiority and arrogated power.

I have never come across a racist who did not try to hide his patented insecurity and uncertainty. Inside his pigmented veneer lies an inferior being, bereft of self-respect and sense of self, of actualization, being in the world.

In a period in which Academia was shite and segregated, we decided to get together and confront our institutions segregated as they were. What you have seen in movies about the Gestapo and WWII, was what was experienced in South Africa. The quest for humanity through the ideas of black consciousness kept moving and permeated the future.

A subjective identification with a greater objective reality, where commonality of purpose and vision rise above narrow constructs of biology - specifically amount of melanin and hair texture - and other aspects of ascribed culture, such as language and ethnicity.
The quest for true humanity through the seminal ideas of Biko's Black Consciousness (BC) continues to inspire generations. Rise above the narrow artificial externally ascribed marks of our origin, which almost daily we unnecessarily - often rudely - reminded of.

Despite abject conditions prevailing, especially for the African majority during the height of apartheid oppression. Delving into the black psyche trapped within a virulently racist and hostile environment, confronting constant assault, diminution, and reification - objectification, treating of the other as a thing or commodity, BC was "not a matter of pigmentation" but a "reflection of a mental attitude", and that authentic blacks "are those who can manage to hold their heads high in defiance rather than willingly surrender their souls to the white man."

Importantly, being truly black was a process on the "road to emancipation", and "the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed".

Enabled black people to emancipate themselves from any constriction of historic or other determinism that in any manner or form, subtly or otherwise, construed them to be appendages of anybody else but themselves, freeing them to live meaningful lives complete in themselves.

We Recognised that many of the psychological and physical health, social and economic problems in black people's lives were produced by colonialism, apartheid and white racism.

Black Consciousness placed black lives at the centre of its field of vision, without in any way diminishing the other, even if the other were the source of their erstwhile psychological or physical interiorization and diminution. Black Consciousness positively reframed the misnomer that black is an aberration from normalcy, where white tends to be the accepted standard.

If you have no self-respect, no sense of oneself as a part of the human family you will have no respect. Everyone who is dehumanized becomes an object, a thing. This is: the resurgence of racism, negative ethnicity, sexism, bigotry, chauvinism, xenophobia, demonizing the Other, reification.

The colossal failure of leadership, self/party interest, corruption, governance failure, bankruptcy in vision, prevent acting decisively for common good.

The term "non-white" puts the white as an example. If you remove the "white" from that construction, you get a no. Are we not entities? This epistemic deliberate usage of language is intended to keep people in an inferior situation, to not go beyond the classification of the race.

It would be a very dull world indeed if all of us look the same, though the same and felt the same.

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How we treat the worst amongst us, underpins our own claim to being human

Can we rise above the marks of our origins and specific objective conditions, to engage meaningfully in realities beyond our usual experiential base? Engender Compassion

Contribute meaningfully in the quest for a cohesive society that goes beyond language, tribe, ethnicity, belief; celebrating our diversity and common humanity

Protect our fragile world to change

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Restore our agency, sense of self and integrity

We must go beyond reactive legislation and deal with the demons of our past

Education for liberating our minds and ensuring a fuller understanding of our common condition and humanity, changing mindsets and acquired behavior over generations

Escape entrapment in sociopolitical prisons of the mind, mediating ease of physical existence

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"Many of us in the North and richer countries have taken human rights for granted - often paying lip service to them - thus becoming inured to oppression, exclusion, inequity."

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"Many of us in the North and richer countries have taken human rights for granted - often paying lip service to them - thus becoming inured to oppression, exclusion, inequity."

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Dr Saths Cooper

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from Bokand: Racism and ethnic discrimination are not new. These processes have been present for a long time and have been the backbone of what has been considered culture and education in our countries.  Today's first session will provide a historical overview of the Black Conscious Movement and the black resistance movement in South Africa.

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Bokang Pooe, Senior Program Manager, Steve Biko Foundation – South Africa

Bokang is currently the senior Programme Manager at the Steve Biko Foundation and is based in Johannesburg, Gauteng and Qonce in the Eastern Cape Province.

Prior to joining the Steve Biko Foundation, she worked at the British Council as a Project Manager in the areas of Community Development; Basic Education; Further Education and Training; Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy.  Her roles have equipped her with training in Financial Management, Impact Assessment and Strategic Communication.

She volunteered at the Steve Biko Centre and developed monitoring and evaluation systems for the Arts and Culture; Dialogue; and Education Programmes.  Bokang became a full time staff member supporting the Resource Mobilisation department and would later lead the Programmes Department. She is most proud of her contribution to streamlining administrative processes and building the necessary strategic partnerships for the Foundation’s success.

In 2019, Bokang was selected to participate in the US Embassy’s International Visitors Leadership Programme for emerging leaders in the Non Profit Sector.  The experience further solidified her interest in developing sustainable communities through various interventions.

Bokang studied towards an Accounting degree at the University of Johannesburg.  She has completed courses in Project Management, Monitoring and Evaluation and Strategic Communication.  She is currently studying towards a Digital Communication Strategy certificate.

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Dr. Saths Cooper, Member of the Black Consciousness Movement, Activist, Psychologist, Vice Chancellor and Principal of the University of Durban-Westville – South Africa.

Saths Cooper is immediate Past President of the International Union of Psychological Science (IUPsyS), President of the Pan-African Psychology Union (PAPU), Governing Board Member of the International Science Council (ISC), Deputy Chair of the ISC’s Committee for Freedom and Responsibility in Science, and serves on the Board of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), chairing its Public Broadcasting Committee.

A close colleague of the late Steve Biko, he was banned and house-arrested when he was 22 years of age, and jailed for nine years.  He was the first accused in the seminal SASO/BPC trial in Pretoria (Jan 1975-Dec 1976), spending over five years in Robben Island in the same cell-block as former President Mandela, and in 1998 was declared a ‘victim of gross human rights violations’ by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chaired by Nobel Laureate Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu.

Obtaining his PhD in Clinical/Community Psychology from Boston University as a Fulbright scholar in 1989, he has been the recipient of many citations and awards, such as the IUPsyS Inaugural Achievement Against the Odds Award (2012), the APA Award for Distinguished Contributions to the International Advancement of Psychology (2014) and the Inaugural Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) Presidential Merit Award Honoring Outstanding Achievement in Psychology. He is a Fellow of the South African, Indian, British and Irish psychological societies.

A Clinical Psychologist for over 30 years, Cooper was Vice Chancellor and Principal of the University of Durban-Westville (merged in the University of KwaZulu/Natal), and is Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria and Honorary Professor at the University of Johannesburg.  He is in the leadership of the 70s Group of activists from the seminal 1970s period, which is anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-sectarian.

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Gegê Leme Joseph, Senior Program Manager Africa, Latin America & the Caribbean, International Coalition of Sites of Conscience

Gegê Leme Joseph is an architect and urbanist (FAUUSP–Brazil), set and production designer (AFDA, South Africa) and museologist (University of Leicester, UK). As Senior Program Manager, she oversees the Coalition’s activities in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. Gegê also leads much of the Coalition’s global thematic work, including the Migration Network.

She started her career in culture as a member of J.C. Serroni’s creative atelier, a renowned Brazilian theatre design practice. She moved to South Africa in 2003, where she collaborated on several flagship museum planning and implementation projects, as well as exhibitions and other media experiences for heritage and culture, especially those re-signifying difficult pasts. She developed several projects beyond museums walls such as heritage routes, television shows and publications, for both public and private sectors.

In 2013 she started Much | Media and Culture, a consultancy specializing in museums, culture and heritage related to contested histories and legacies, focusing on social impact and change. She is involved in flagship museum projects in Brazil, such as the upcoming Museu da Escravidão e da Liberdade (Museum of Slavery and Freedom) in Rio de Janeiro, and grassroots initiatives such as Museu do Samba.

She was a Board Member of ICOM-Brazil until July 2018, and is a Board Member of the Committee for the Collections and Activities of Museums of City of ICOM (CAMOC), where she co-created and runs Migration:Cities – a project aimed at fostering exchange and collaboration between museums dealing with city-making processes involving migrants and refugees in arrival cities.

She also develops independent research and writes for international publications in the museum field.