Persistent Presence of ‘Race’ in Post-racial 21st Century SA

The paper makes a case for the conclusions that 1. Race as practice continues to define ‘post-race' 21st South Africa. This is because race acts like an organism more than a system (structures, institutions, constitutions) in being malleable to exploitation based on machinations of political/economic/social power; 2. The reality of material conditions arguably determines the reconstitutional potential of race and racism; 3. An inability to address objective conditions has potential to upset projects of social cohesion and nation-building. The conceptual ideas guiding this paper come from Neville Alexander and Ambilavaner Sivanandan in ‘Race, Caste and Class in South Africa'.