At the centre of the texts by Paul and Mzi, as I have argued, as of Bo’nkosi’s below, lies a kink, in two senses of the word: (1) a twist in a rope that causes an obstruction, a tight curl in human hair, a bend in a course or line, and (2) a mental quirk but now, chiefly, taken to mean a bizarre sexual quirk, taste, or practice. The kinks that can be read in the three essays reflect, or are reflected, in the histories of local and global politics of whiteness and blackness, as well as those of sex and gender (see e. g. Biko 1996; Epstein 1998; Frankenberg 1993; Mandela 1994; Morrison and Lacour 1997). The history of South Africa is full of kinks. South African institutions, policies and programmes have for the most part reproduced, redeployed and replayed these twists and quirky practices.
These reproductions and replays are, for instance, identifiable in a particular variety of debate, specific lines of argumentation and the regularity, if not fetish — isation, of certain subjects. One area where the shape of debate, where one can trace the usual line of argument and observe the fetish in play is of course in government structures. For example, the government vehicle tasked with redressing gender inequality has tended to unrace its purview, largely steering clear of the racial troubles in its focus. On the other hand, the structure that is intended to pro-
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mote a human rights culture, is known for its almost obsessive focus on race, to the near exclusion of gender issues. There are exceptions to this. Individual members of the Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) and the Human Rights Commission (HRC) have spoken for pursuing a transformation politics that includes both race and gender (e. g. Lowe-Morna 1998; Pityana 2000). However, the CGE, as its name implies, was established to focus on the latter. The point is enlarged by considering the fact that even though its mission is human rights, the HRC, in particular in the person of its outgoing chairman, Barney Pityana, figures prominently in the public consciousness on its work around race and racism (e. g. Beresford 2000; Mahlangu 1999; Ka’Nkosi 2000; SAPA 2000). The HRC has investigated racism in the media, the investigation and the report turning into subjects of intense public argument; and recently, the commission hosted a national conference on race in Sandton, Gauteng Province. The two separate statutory organs, the HRC and the CGE, are among several moves aimed at transforming power relations in the country. This structural segregation might appear to some observers an inconsequential quirk at worst. But it actually has deep implications for how we account for ourselves, the routes of our identifying stories, day-to-day cultural practice, and our relationships to one another as citizens. Thus, in continuing to operate as separate entities the two commissions, rather than effecting change in the material discursive orders of race and gender/sex, might further entrench historical divisions and create new divisions in political society and cultural life.
The kink though that is most difficult to negotiate or undo is not that between black and coloured or white, or even that between men and women. Neither is it the widening gap between rich and poor. And it is not that existing among black people. The kink that is hardest is that re-produced in each of us, shown by Paul’s and Mzi’s accounts. On the other hand, this is nothing new: these are the curls, tears, twists, convolutions in identities and practices that black women activists and feminists have spoken so long about. What they have shown is that race politics are limiting and limited since they generally tend to be separated from feminist struggles, sex wars and other struggles, but also that colour-blind sex/gender activism is always likely to produce serious problems in the everyday lives of women who are not middle-class, heterosexual and white.
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I am being mindful of this kind of thinking around these matters in South Africa and its taken-for-grantedness when I offer what might be seen as merely provocative advice: young men and women should be encouraged to have good, ‘normal’, sexual intercourse at the earliest opportunity with another person of another race or ethnic group before they reach a certain age. This is not only in the interest of a much more comprehensive sexual education. It may be one way of attaining liberated masculinities. Most crucial, though, good interracial sex could have deep significance for reconstructing our national politics. Perhaps, rather than remain unsaid, for once recommendations such as this should be stated in a book like this in explicit terms. But, as I suggested, this is supposed to be the terrain of pop culture, even pornography, and for anyone who does not want to be
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Kinky Politics
thought of as lacking in seriousness, out of bounds. Besides the glare of academic scholarship, there are a number of other reasons why no one has explicitly advised sex to combat some of our social and political ills. At best, any such advice might be regarded as just trying to be provocative. Educationally it might be criticised as having no pedagogical grounding. It may be thought to be politically naive, regressive, immodest, suicidal even. And sex, wrongly, is still widely taken to be private and having very little to do with political affairs.
However, beginning with Fanon’s treatment of sexuality and race, one already has a glimpse of what many intellectuals and activists would take up, in one guise or another, quietly or loudly, which is the fact that “the sexualisation of race is an artifact of white racism” (Zack 1997a:153). Racism produces or encourages kinky racial positions. Desire in racist cultures is misrecognised, that is to say ‘perverted’, and this can be seen in how race relations transmogrify into sexual relations. Speaking heterosexually, Fanon would argue that “the women among whites view the Negro as the keeper of the impalpable gate that opens into the realm of orgies, of bacchanals, of delirious sexual sensation” (1986:177). Even more hetero-masculine is Hernton (1988) who would take up the same point and contend that the taboo of the “other” woman eats into the psyche of the black man. The taboo of the other woman, he said, erodes portions of the black man’s sexual development, creating in him an unconscious ambivalence towards women of the other races but also to those of his own race. I think the larger point is that while African people’s relations to whiteness do not have to be sexual they tend to be sex — ualised: that is to say, they always imply the production of desire and pleasure in a race defined culture.
Perhaps I should take one step backwards and note that if one makes an argument that unsexed or genderless raee politics produces kinky relations, others might wish to know, what, to start with, is meant by race. And if that is answered satisfactorily, the next question may be whether there is ever a possibility of ‘normal’ good sex between raced people. Shouldn’t we rather stop this sex business and speak instead about love, friendship, working together in an antiracist, antisexist environment, it may be asked? How, anyway, would encouraging sex with other races and ethnic groups liberate men or women, or any other group of people? How is it of interest to projects of national reconciliation, African Renaissance, or the New Partnership for African’s Development?