“It is tragic what people can do to each other: all the violent disapproval about something that is none of their business” observed Martie about the Real Love page (18) by Fatima Asmal-Motala in the Mail & Guardian of 17 to 23 February 2012; which contain three articles:
We talk earlier in the day about societal dissent about mix-marriages or mix-racial couples and relationships; the prejudice historically advocated by main-stream religion; and the unfounded aversion. I felt I wanted to do a blog post and while busy composing Martie looked at the newspaper that has been open next to me. I translated her comment above made in Afrikaans, because I felt it is so apt, and translated dreadful disapproval. Martie differed and insisted on violent disapproval. The meanings involved are indicative of how we perceive the injustice:
Dreadful — appalling; extremely disagreeable, shocking, unpleasant or bad; causing dread, fear, or terror; terrible
Violent — undue forceful; in order to injure or intimidate others; displaying strong or undue mental or emotional pressure; tending to distort the meaning or intent
Asmal-Motala refers to the doctoral thesis of Emily Mapula Mojapelo-Batka (2008: 18) in which she cites Johnson and Warren (1994) concluding “that biologically speaking there is no such category as race” yet, “different societies have constructed different race classifications”. I felt Mojapelo-Batka’s next sentence is very apt and used it as topic for this post.
Fatima Asmal-Motala is a freelance journalist and director of the Institute for Learning and Motivation – South Africa (ILM-SA) in Durban, South Africa.
Mojapelo-Batka, E.M. 2008. Interracial couples within the South African context: experiences, perceptions and challenges. DPhil in Psychology thesis. Pretoria: University of South Africa (Unisa). Electronically accessed 18 February 2012 from: http://uir.unisa.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10500/2153/thesis.pdf?sequence=1
Johnson, W.J. & Warren, D.M. 1994. Inside the mixed marriage: accounts of changing attitudes, patterns, and perspectives of cross-cultural and interracial marriages. London: University Press of America.