OPINION: No buts, this simple word reveals prejudice

The little word “but” can betray you as a racist. Listen carefully to South Africans speak – our very choice of words reveals deep prejudices, none as much as when we use the word “but”.

It was my activist uncle, the late Joey Marks, who first brought this use of language to my attention as a young boy. Their Orrel Laan home was around the corner from ours in Retreat, Cape Town, and I would often slip in there to admire his collection of racing pigeons and for my regular doses of political education.

Then I remembered that this connection once enjoyed dictionary status – “so dronk soos ‘n kleurling onderwyser” (as drunk as a coloured teacher) – and so the exception was a “but” my colleague could not accept.

These “buts” run through all our conversations revealing deep prejudices and bigotry that we simply cannot shake off; it is part of us as South Africans, ingrained in our culture and education over centuries.

What follows, therefore, are oxymorons – an honest Muslim, a pacifist Zulu, a generous Jew, a strong woman, a smart African, a sincere Englishman, a fully-dentured coloured.

It is so easy to target the social media offences of Matthew Theunissen or Penny Sparrow. No need for “buts” with these unvarnished racists; they get straight to the point.

But in polite conversation we actually think of ourselves as more enlightened by inserting this contrastive conjunction (but) into what we think is an affirming sentence. Yet we are as guilty as Matthew and Penny.

Maybe our over-anxious reaction to these offenders is, unwittingly, an attempt to deflect attention from our own complicity in everyday racism?

One of the challenges we face in post-apartheid South Africa is that our inherited language has not caught up with our transformation ideals.

There is no dictionary to help ordinary citizens navigate this treacherous road called democracy

And so “but” is often used innocently and the offending speaker would usually be surprised if you took offence.

The way to deal with the “but people” should therefore, be gracious rather than harsh, and treated as a teachable moment rather than spur a rush to condemnation.

But in our accusatory culture, there is little space for mercy.

The prejudicial origins of the word “but” comes from our need to generalise, to make the sins of a few the affliction of the many.

The moral infant Donald Trump is a noisy example of this behaviour. To the presumptive Republican nominee for the US president, Muslims are terrorists; Mexicans are rapists; women are, well, just about everything bad in his misogynistic world view.

Back home in South Africa, whites are racist and blacks incompetent; Indians are thieving and coloureds are drunks. On and on.

But, the bigot responds, I have a Muslim or black or gay friend. “Stop digging,” my children would respond.

On a positive note, a dear friend, a young doctor called Heinrich Volmink, recently joined parliament. But he is not corrupt.

• Professor Jonathan Jansen is vice-chancellor of the University of the Free State