Abstract
This work argues that the paradoxical and assumed presence of race for identity marking for a South African citizenry as led by successive states including the ANC majority party-led state, otherwise known as the democratic state, hitherto is not sufficiently interrogated, and that this under-theorisation in a democratic setting holds potential ramifications for meaningful life for more than a slice of social life. It contends that the problematising of racism in all its manifested forms is directly due to what it postulates as an uncritical appropriation of race as naturally assumed for a neutrally benign construct that in itself holds no explosive racist intention.
It further contends the current race labels for social identity framing directly borrowed from the predecessor states, came appropriated as necessarily hierarchical relational constructs. This work seeks to draw a golden thread on the part of successive South African regimes that used racialised identity marking for a means to entrench themselves in political power. Racialised identity marking as social construct is therefore, instrumentalised by the political elite for insular political and economic ends. Critical to this work is how the post-1994 ANC-led majority party state relies on its national question for a bedrock of state policies for redress. It contends the state in its articulation of identity marking divides a South African citizenry in qualifications and disqualifications of economic benefit, directly informed by degrees of apartheid past suffering.
This work furthermore locates the state as central for its appropriation of racial frames for its citizenry and thus places the responsibility on the majority party-led state to afford its citizenry the opportunity to engage its adoption of race labels for their identity marking. The significant role of the state in creating templates for identity markers informed by race equally translates to a postulated misidentification of its citizenry.
Key Words: ANC majority party-led state, South Africa, race, race-thinking, nation, national question, non-racial, racism, racial classification, coloured, African