Sarah Tahir

Professor Talton

Black Lives Matter in Global Context

9 November 2017

Steve Bikos Black Consciousness

We tell people to follow their dreams, but you can only dream of what you can imagine,

and, depending on where you come from, your imagination can be quite limited. This statement

was made by comedian and writer Trevor Noah in his autobiographical book, Born a Crime:

Stories From a South African Childhood. With the aforementioned quote, Noah refers to how

racism at institutional and societal levels affects young people in particular in such a way that it

even impedes on their abilities to imagine, because they are both symbolically and physically

separated and outcasted in societythey have their own confined spaces to practice their

cultures, their bodies are constantly under militarized police threats, they are taught that they are

racially inferior, and so on. These were the circumstances of South African apartheid Noah wrote

about, and which Steve Biko countervailed with his activism. At the heart of Bikos definition of

Black consciousness is a method of resisting apartheid which lies in unity.

To be politically Black or consciously Black, in Bikos view, is to be politically,

economically, and socially discriminated against as a group which identifies itself as a unit in

the struggle towards the realization of their aspirations (48). Like Trevor Noah, Biko believes

that discrimination is a powerful obstacle to something as whimsical and human as dreaming or

aspiring. Hence, what Blackness signifies is not a specific color but rather an attitude formed by

experiencing the oppressive and lasting effects of segregation and white supremacy, and the

readiness to fight such oppression which has deemed you inferior. According to Biko, If ones
aspiration is whiteness but his [or her] pigmentation makes attainment of this impossible, then

that person is non-white (48). The system of whiteness thrives on the fact that race is a social

construct, that merely the amount of melanin in ones skin is an accurate indicator of positive or

negative characteristics although it is not, and that simply being born with fair skin entitles you

to a lifetime of privileges which have been historically and socially reserved for you and denied

to the rest. Although non-whites have varying amounts of privilege almost in alignment with

varying amounts of melanin or darkness or lightness, and the different ethnic groups which make

up the broad category experience different struggles as a result of having differently historically

and socially composed stereotypes, Biko purposely groups them all into one category as means

of responding to the separation brought on by apartheid with the opposite: unityto hold [your]

heads high in defiance rather than willingly surrender [your] souls to the white man (49). With

this statement and those following, Biko compels his audience to band together to fight

discrimination for a maximized effect, rather than fight disjointedly and instead suffer the

repercussions of police brutality in vain.

To try to emulate whites is to insult Who made you Black, or consciously Black. Black

Consciousness therefore, takes cognizance of the deliberateness of Gods plan in creating people

black. It seeks to infuse the black community with a new-found pride in themselves (49). In a

society where Black people were made to feel like intruders in their own country, Biko attempted

to assure them that they were not mistakes, that they were as human as anyone else. The

landmark event of resistance that was the Soweto Uprising would happen about five years after I

Write What I Like was written, but it challenged the same concepts that Biko encouraged his

audience to challenge: white supremacy, separation, and the dominant notion that Blacks were

inherently inferior as human beings. Like Trevor Noah said in his own book, Language, even
more than color, defines who you are to people. By imposing Afrikaans, the language of the

colonizers, as the main language and method of teaching in Black schools, the South African

government hit the students where it hurt them most by forcing them to gradually forget their

native languages, presenting an immense obstacle to social and economic mobility because their

success depended on the understanding of a language they did not know, and relaying the

message that their original languages which held their cultural and personal identities were not

acceptable. Biko was arrested at the height of the uprising and placed into solitary confinement

for over 100 days, during which he was continuously beaten by state-sanctioned officers and

eventually during his transfer to a facility in Pretoria, he was already dying in the van before a

surgeon had the chance to save him, and he died a little while later, alone in his cell1. His words

on the matter of feeling inferior, however, are saved in South African historical memory, and can

still relate to the uprising although Biko himself could not be fully present for it. What Black

Consciousness seeks to do is to produce at the output end of the process real black people who

do not regard themselves as appendages to white society. This truth cannot be reversed (51). All

people who suffer from the same white racism and oppression must assert their humanity, that

they are not there to accessorize white society but that society should make room for all of them

with all of their diverse cultural values, languages, and identities because they too are humans.

Steve Biko resisted South African apartheid and the dehumanization and violence that

defined it by emphasizing the power of unified people rallying together in fighting separation

brought on by white superiority. In the context of apartheid, Bikos definition of Black

consciousness being that which anyone who is denied humanity on the basis of their skin color,

Black or not, as a result of white superiority and state racism, has, makes sense because what

1
According to South African History Online: http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/stephen-bantu-
biko.
better way to countervail a system of separating people than with unifying people? We are all

oppressed by the same system. That we are oppressed to varying degrees is a deliberate design to

stratify us not only socially but also in terms of aspirations (52). Bikos take on Blackness

leaves one reassessing all that they have ever learned about race and privilege. Varying amounts

of privileges among non-whites may have been a factor written into white superiority during

apartheid in order to aid separation, with the fear that the oppressed people of varying languages

and skin colors and cultures will realize their common enemy.