https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7019-7943
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Abstract
Haji Mohamed Dawjee’s essay collection Sorry, Not Sorry: Experiences of Brown Woman in a White South Africa draws on personal experiences in its representation of inequality and racism in South Africa. This paper argues that the essay collection participates in the reshaping of discourses of race that have gained new urgency from texts such as Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge and White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo. Sorry, Not Sorry introduces an urgently needed South African perspective, particularly through representations of white fragility in essays that are both personal and provocative. Dawjee’s essays embody the need to claim center stage and voice racial(ized) experiences, challenges, and concerns. In order to accomplish this, whiteness and white fragility are pushed to the margins.
Disclosure statement
The author declares that there are no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Notes
1 Dawjee, Sorry, Not Sorry, 79.
2 Cf. Adam, “Affirmative action and popular perceptions;” Archibong and Adejumo, “Affirmative action in South Africa;” Chatterjee, “Measuring wealth inequality;” “Inequality Trends in South Africa.”
3 Dawjee, Interview by Alet Janse van Rensburg, 2:04-2:32.
4 For a more detailed discussion of the two texts, see Englund, “Against Color-Blindness.”
5 Jennifer Patrice Sims and Chinelo L. Njaka observe in Mixed-Race in the US and UK that the two nations have a shared history of race, relating to slavery and immigration, and their study also asserts that people of mixed race in both countries “have similar day-to-day experiences,” 118. Robyn Autry notes in Desegregating the Past that American and South African histories of segregation and racism are “contentious and uneven” in both nations, 4.
6 Swartz et al, “The ‘Fuck White People’ Phenomenon in South Africa,” 141.
7 Ibid., 151.
8 Chauke, Born in Chains; Wa Azania, Memoirs of a Born Free. For a discussion of these texts, see Englund, South African Autobiography.
9 Kuzwayo, Call Me Woman; Malepe, Reclaiming Home.
10 Haffajee, What If, 16.
11 Ibid., 34.
12 Autry, Desegregating the Past, 8.
13 Dawjee, Here’s the Thing, 22.
14 Ibid., 26.
15 Lalu, “Incomplete Histories,” 107.
16 Haresnape, “Biko, Shakespeare,” 99.
17 Statistics South Africa reports that in 2022, there was a total of 60,6 million inhabitants of whom 81% were Black African, 8.8% Colored, 2.6% Indian/Asian, and 7.7% were White. “Mid-year Population Estimates,” viii. The British census from 2021 reports that 81.7% of residents in England Wales categorized themselves as White, with Asian being the second largest group of 9.3%. 31.6% saw themselves as belonging to the category “Other ethnic group,” and 2.5% to “Black, Black British, Black Welsh, Caribbean or African.” An American report by the Census Bureau indicates that in 2021, 75.8% of the US population was White, 13.8% Black or African American, and 6.1% Asian. 18.9% identify as Hispanic or Latino.
18 Autry, Desegregating the Past, 6.
19 Ibid., 7.
20 Doane, “Post-Color Blindness?,” 29.
21 Newlove and Bitz, “White Rage,” 123.
22 Isom, Williams, and Goldenberg, “White Fragility,” 1301.
23 Steyn, “Whiteness in the Rainbow,” 85.
24 Steyn, “Whiteness: Post-apartheid, Decolonial,” 10.
25 Dawjee, Interview by Alet Janse van Rensburg, 0:30-0:48.
26 Ibid., 1:00-1:25.
27 Steyn, “Whiteness in the Rainbow,” 87.
28 Dawjee, Sorry, Not Sorry, 106.
29 Ibid., 33.
30 Ibid., 29.
31 Ibid., 30–1.
32 Ibid., 122.
33 Adhikari, Not White Enough, 2.
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid., 10.
36 Rassool, “The Politics,” 345–6.
37 Ibid., 346.
38 Ibid. See also Erasmus, Race Otherwise, 42.
39 Rassool, “The Politics,” 365.
40 Rastogi, Afrindian Fictions, 27.
41 Dawjee, Here’s the Thing, 158–60.
42 Dawjee, Sorry, Not Sorry, 44–5.
43 DiAngelo, White Fragility, 27.
44 Ibid., 28.
45 Ibid., 71–3.
46 Whitehead, “The Problem of Context,” 297.
47 Williams, “The Unblackening,” 44.
48 Dawjee, Sorry, Not Sorry, 61.
49 Ibid., 63,64.
50 Ibid., 65.
51 Dawjee, Sorry, Not Sorry, 65.
52 Garman, “Troubling White Englishness,” 216.
53 Ibid., 215.
54 Steyn, “Whiteness in the Rainbow,” 99.
55 DiAngelo, White Fragility, 112.
56 Ibid., 112,113.
57 Dawjee, Interview by Alet Janse van Rensburg, 1:36-1:40.
58 Ibid., 5:08-5:17.
59 Eddo-Lodge, Why I’m No Longer Talking, 92.
60 Dawjee, Sorry, Not Sorry, 144.
61 Le Roux and Oyedemi, “Indelible Apartheid,” 152.
62 Ibid., 153.
63 Dawjee, Sorry, Not Sorry, 76.
64 Ibid., 37.
65 Ibid., p. 75.
66 Eddo-Lodge, Why I’m No Longer Talking, 93.
67 Dawjee, Sorry, 75.
68 Alter, “White Celebrities Take Responsibility.”
69 Coley, “‘I Take Responsibility’.”
70 Singh, “People are calling out.”
71 Díaz, “Performative Wokeness/White Victimhood,” 366.
72 Dawjee, Sorry, Not Sorry, 189.
73 Jinnah, “Negotiated Precarity,” 212.
74 Shefer, “‘Troubling’ Stories,” 368.
75 Dawjee, Sorry, Not Sorry, 190.
76 Ibid., 190,191.
77 Dawjee, Sorry, Not Sorry, 143.
78 Holmes and Lang, “One Year Later,” 308.
79 Jacobs, “Wokeness and Myth,” 35.
80 Boyce, “Racist Compared to What?,” 116.
81 Hayes, “To Be Woke,” 2.
82 Dawjee, Sorry, Not Sorry, 193.
83 Ibid., 102–3.
84 DiAngelo, White Fragility, 134.
85 Dawjee, Sorry, Not Sorry, 74–5.
86 Ibid., 193.
87 Garman, “Troubling White Englishness,” 211.
88 Steyn, Whiteness: Post-apartheid, Decolonial, 14.
89 Dawjee, Sorry, Not Sorry, 191.
90 Ibid., 198.
91 Ibid., 78,79.
92 Liebow and Glazer, “White Tears,” 2.
93 Dawjee, Sorry, Not Sorry, 79,143.
94 Brooks, “The problem with wokeness.”
95 Dawjee, Sorry, Not Sorry, 197–8.
96 Ibid., 78; 76.
97 Ashley, “The Angry Black Woman,” 28.
98 Dawjee, Sorry, Not Sorry, 46–7.
99 Ibid., 123–5.
100 Eddo-Lodge, Why I’m No Longer, 92.
101 Dawjee, Sorry, Not Sorry, 62–65.
102 Ashley, “The Angry Black Woman,” 28.
103 Dawjee, Sorry, Not Sorry, 47.
104 Doharty, “The ‘Angry Black Woman’,” 554.
105 Jones and Norwood, “Aggressive Encounters,” 2037.
106 Eddo-Lodge, Why I’m No Longer, 93.
107 Dawjee, Sorry, Not Sorry, 75.
108 Doharty, “The ‘Angry Black Woman’,” 554.
109 Cf. Nash and Warin, “Squeezed Between Identity Politics.”
110 Dawjee, Interview by Alet Janse van Rensburg, 00:52-00:55.
111 DiAngelo, White Fragility, 95; Razack, Looking White People in the Eye.
112 Dawjee, Sorry, Not Sorry, 198.
113 Ibid., 196.