YCAP - RACISM RESEARCH TEAM

It was the year 2000 when I encountered my first racist act at work. I was the only African lady working in the Front Office and had the benefit to liaison with other departments. Everything was going well until a new manager was recruited from another state. I remember that it didn't even take this "new manager" a week to get to know me, he had already judged me and began implementing harsh treatment towards me out of the five of us ladies mending the Front Area. He passionately did, by all means, every day trying to find a way to make my daily experience unpleasant by finding very little few mistakes to rip off my credibility. He went to the extent in his quest to sanction my hours, minimized my employee benefits, and removed me from working the morning and day shifts to prevent me from meeting guests. 

He scheduled me to work only during the night while the rest of the team alternated between day and afternoon shifts. One of my colleagues (a young white lady) partnered with the new manager by making false accusations about me that no one in the organization wanted me around....haahaa. I remember telling him: "Go to anyone in this company in any department and ask them about me, you will hear the respond with your own ears". Let me tell you, he went to ask everyone and all they said was beautiful things. A close friend of mine went a little bit extra to say..."mxaa Emily is such a darling, she is a sweetheart". When this friend of mine told me what the manager asked, I burst out into laughter because he knew everything that was happening. This treatment continued daily until it got to the point whereby, I had it and began to challenge this new manager's leadership and management skills. I intellectually challenged him to toe to toe till the last day of my contract and could not wait to leave the company. The surprising thing happened, a week before my departure he offered me a four-year contract with a study visa. It was everything I had wanted, everything I had dreamt of, but I remembered the way he treated me. I began to think that if I agreed, I will be making a deal with the devil. This new manager made each day a struggle and now he wants me to stay longer by making offers he believed I would not reject because he knew what I wanted. I am happy to say that I rejected that offer and to this day I have no regrets.

Today, I am a Mentor for a youth group who have done research about racism and how it impacts the world today. I am proud to have mentored this amazing group of hard-working young ladies who went all out in conducting their research. They have done a qualitative research that focuses on how racism was established from the slave trade that began between the early 7th and 15th centuries. Their research begins with West Africa, then continues to America, and ends with racism in South Africa. Below are their own summaries concluding with their own perspective on whether they think racism has ended. 

Please do enjoy.

Ms. Emily Modise

Group Mentor  

With the absence of racism, the concept of race, slavery, and segregation would have been non-existent and people would have seen each other as equals. Racism is both structural and systematic because the system cannot be applied without structure. The system is structured in a way that one race (whites) remains supremacy above all the races throughout the ages of time and the black race remains to be at a disadvantage. For example, as a youth in the 21^st century I still need to indicate my race when applying for a job, applications for schools, booking event venues, buying a house, asking for a loan, applications for insurance, etc. Within those bases, the system will automatically reject me to the privileges that other races are approved of.

Lehlasedi Mashao

Team Captain                                          

Grade 7 

Structural racism is not something that a few people choose to practice. Racism has been part of the social, economic, and political systems in the world. It has always been part of the present and past for example on 19 August 2020, a friend of mine named Rontondwa went to a restaurant where it was full of white kids and had playgrounds. A white child started to say she will not play with a black child and the other white kids did not play as they also refused.

Gracia Lumbayi 

Grade 6

I don’t believe racism has ended because about 2 years ago, according to the New York Times article published on May 31, 2022, by Evan Hills, Ainara Tiefenthale, Christiaan Triebert, Drew Jordan, Harley Willis, and Robert Stein. 

 

On May 25, 2020, Minneapolis police officers arrested a 46-year-old African- American named George Floyd, after a Convenience store employee called 911 and accused Floyd of using a counterfeit $20 bill to buy cigarettes. The officers forced Floyd out of his car and handcuffed him. The police officer Deven Chauvin pressed his knee on George Floyd’s neck as he was gasping for air to breathe. Then, when the rest of the police officers came to the scene, he was lying on the ground with no sign of life. All of this was captured on CCTV footage and those passing by who caught a short video about the incident. When all the videos were circulating on social media, they were merged into one video and it sparked protests across the United States with banners such as “I can’t breathe”. It also influenced the start of Black Lives Matter, a non-racist and non-profitable organization. Racism influences police brutality as well and I hope that things like this do not happen in the future.                                                                        

Tyra Mtombeni

Grade 7

I believe that racism has not ended because black people are still treated like minority groups, for example, some people are not allowed in some restaurants. My cousin once booked a restaurant, and they rejected her. But when her boyfriend booked at News Cafe with a white name “James du Toit” they immediately accepted him. When they went there to News Café, there were many white people. The waitresses were shocked to see black people and they chased them away.

 

 

Palesa Kgole

Grade 6

H&M an American clothing retail store made an advert for kids' wear, whereby it promoted an African child wearing a hoodie that was branded

“Coolest Monkey in the jungle”. The word “Monkey” is offensive to black people because history has shown us that it has been used to bring shame to Black people.

 

 

For queries on our research, please do contact me and I will be happy to assist.

Please click on the link below to see our research video reviews from Grade 5 learners:

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek". 

- Barack Obama 

Please do rate our services on Google so that we can continue to serve others.

Google review:

https://g.page/r/CZzoPUVE2lNGEBI/review

Gallery:

https://earticlespower.wixsite.com/earticles/copy-of-gallery

Video Reviews:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgk7rnO3EG683eTppXeUocw/videos

Thank you

E!