A reflection by Idelette McVicker
“Go to Orania,” she said.
Siki Dlanga, a South African poet and journalist, and I were recently chatting about my book, Recovering Racists: Dismantling White Supremacy and Reclaiming Our Humanity. I had asked her–a Black South African woman–where she needed me to lean in on my journey.
Siki didn’t hesitate.
“I want you to go to Orania.”
Orania is a town in South Africa where only white people live. It was established in 1991 by the son-in-law of H. F. Verwoerd, the original “Architect of Apartheid.” It is a place that wants to preserve that old apartheid state–a kind of “Make South Africa White Again” place.
It is a place that makes you shudder.
And yet, Siki is asking me to go there–to the heart of whiteness. As long as there are places like Orania in our world, and people who immerse themselves in this kind of whiteness, the world is not yet safe for someone like Siki. The world is not yet a safe place for Black people, Indigenous people and People of Color. And when the population of Orania–a small town in the most arid region of South Africa—is growing, I need to pay attention.
I am a white, Afrikaner woman, born and raised in South Africa during Apartheid. I am from a kind of Orania existence.
For the first 16 years of my life, I lived and moved and had my being in an all-white bubble. We went to an all-white church, all of our neighbors were white and all my friends were white. Apartheid, the system of segregation in South Africa from 1948 through 1994, had entrenched this separation into every aspect of life.
The United Nations called apartheid “a crime against humanity.” It was exactly that and I was a part of that crime against my fellow human beings. I was formed and shaped by that system of whiteness. I benefited from it. Millions of people suffered at the hand of apartheid’s violence–and still do. I have been privileged by it and still am.
I have spent the past 30+ years in recovery from racism–awakening to its violence, interrogating the roots in my own soul, leaving and unlearning those old white ways, learning new ways of being human, repenting and also becoming part of repair. It will be a lifelong journey. Ironically–and in the beautiful, upside-down way that the Kin-dom of God works–it has also been a journey of my liberation.
When I began my journey of leaving whiteness, I thought I was a good person. I voted in that first democratic election in South Africa. I championed progress in South Africa and the integration of all of society. I didn’t think I was like “those white people.”
But then, years later, as my journey of recovery from my internalized racism unfolded, I listened to a talk by Theologian Miroslav Volf in Portland. He invited us to “Honor everyone.”
Volf challenged me when he said, If Christ calls us to honor everyone, who would you have a hard time honoring?
In that giant conference room in Portland, my heart sank. I knew immediately.
A picture of someone from a place like Orania came to my mind. Someone entrenched in whiteness. Someone who wanted to remain in their small, white world.
As I walked with that question, grappling with honoring the humanity of people I would rather despise and reject, I realized they represented the most heinous parts of myself. They were holding up a mirror to my own racist, small, white inner parts. They were holding up a mirror to the Orania within me.
Let’s be clear: honoring someone’s humanity does not mean endorsing any racist policies, dehumanizing practices or any of the racist systems people create, participate in or perpetuate. Absolutely not.
But as long as I don’t want to move toward my other, I perpetuate our separation–our apart-ness. I am not moving toward my “other” in humility. I am still held by pride.
When Siki compelled me to “go to Orania” she meant the physical place on the map, yes. But she also meant, for me, to go to any place where whiteness is centered, whether in our world or in my own heart.
Orania represents the places in my world and in my heart where old ideas and old ways of being human are still upheld.
Orania represents the places where I have vacated the conversation and moved away from the discomfort of seeing the humanity of my “other.”
Where is that for you? Where is that in the United States?
“Going to Orania,” for me, is holding up a mirror to whiteness, to my perceptions of power, of worth, of dignity and who is worthy and who not.
It is a humble inquiry, so I may establish truth in my innermost parts.
It is an invitation to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly.
It is an invitation to make peace between any ideas that still perpetuate mindsets of “us” and “them.”
“Going to Orania” is an invitation to repentance and an invitation to repair the divides between us as human beings.
So, dear friends:
Who is hardest for you to honor in this world?
Is there anyone you would rather not engage with?
Which conversations have you left?
Where have you set up a table away or built an enclave away from the hard conversations?
If you are white:
Where have you washed your hands of the racism in your world?
Where is there an Orania in your life or in your community?
Who in your world still flies a Confederate flag? How have you engaged with them recently?
Honoring everyone is a sacred invitation. As we honor the other, we also honor our own humanity. As we honor everyone, we are reminded that we, too, are honored. As we walk towards the humanity of our “other,” we walk deeper into our own Belovedness. I am right here with you in this work.
One of the chapters in Idelette’s book is called “Honor Everyone.” It is one of the 20 Stations of Liberation she has identified in her journey as a Recovering Racist. This article is a fresh expansion on that idea, especially with Siki’s recent invitation to Idelette to keep going deeper.
Idelette McVicker is the author of Recovering Racists: Dismantling White Supremacy and Reclaiming Our Humanity, She is also the founder of SheLoves Media Society and the Dangerous Women community. She was born as a white, Afrikaner woman in South Africa during the apartheid years, which profoundly shaped her quest for Love, justice, liberation and repair.