Somebody has advised Black students to rent a few white students and have them in front when they are protesting. Why? The answer is obvious, isn't it?
The subconscious mind of the system is that the criminal is Black. And the life of this subconscious criminal is cheap. Some years ago, I saw a clip of police dogs at training. The "criminal" that the dog had to chase and maul was arranged such that he was "black". So, even the dogs were trained to keep in mind that the criminal is Black. Of course, there was an outcry about that clip.
If the dog could be trained that the criminal is Black, how much more about the Black police official? They need not be trained that the criminal is Black, white racism has ingrained it in their brutalised minds. In fact, racism has taught them that they are subhuman. Because racism has made them internalise that they are subhuman, they then deal with everyone that looks like them in a subhuman way.
When they talk about crowd control, they tacitly mean a black crowd because white people are by design seldom crowded. Because the "criminal" is Black, and the crowd is Black, crowd control methods involve taking along R5 rifles. Almost every Safety (Police) Minister has publicly directed the police to "shoot and kill". Who do you think the Ministers had in mind about who must be shot and killed? White people? You must be joking. When the army's General publicly ordered the soldiers to "skiet en donder" during the Covid-19 Level 5 Lockdown, whom do you think he had in mind to be shot and beaten up? White people? I give up on you.
So, it came as no surprise that when Wits’ Black students were fighting for the doors of learning to be open as the Freedom Charter promises, police responded with violence. Those are the "black crowd control" techniques they know. Nothing else. No negotiations when it comes to that crowd.
If you watch the CCTV footage of how the Black man, Mthokozisi Ntumba, who holds a Master's Degree, was shot and killed by the Black police, you will see that the man had nothing to do with the student protest. He was in fact hiding behind a car when the police shot him at short range without even thinking about arresting him so that he could face the law. The man died carrying his medication which was meant to prolong his life.
We cannot have forgotten what happened during the Fees Must Fall protests a few years ago. Black students at the various black campuses were met with brutal police force. The irony is that they were shot and killed by their own parents. The Ministers and police Commissioners were Black.
But when UCT white students got involved in the protests, sanity returned to the police because they realised that they were no longer dealing with a crowd or subhuman beings. The shooting and killing abruptly stopped.
Black police officers can be heard explaining on television why it is not safe to shoot at a white gathering (not crowd). Recently, the police ran away from a lawless and armed white mob that overturned a police van. The police were at pains to explain how it was wise to withdraw as guided by their training. Yet the same training guided them to ambush and slaughter the Marikana workers they accused of being armed.
Verily, verily I say unto thee that racism is alive and kicking if financial exclusions exclusively affect Black students; if the only students that protest at every beginning of the year are Black; if the Black police reserve violence only for Black students.
Were we not told a few years ago that President Zuma made education free? What happened to the freedom of that free education?
The state, the private sector and the people have to find a solution. It was bad enough that Black people were denied education under the apartheid regime. That cannot carry on even under a democratic government.
