Perhaps this is what is wrong with us as South Africans...
Die appels val nooit ver van die boom nie en die boom bly staan.
We've all watched one woman's bizarre perspective being most likely the only part of the #ScienceMustFall discussion we were exposed to.
It seems that many of us have made up our minds thinking we now have "informed opinions" on #decolonisation, when in fact there is a full video containing another 40 minutes of intelligent people sharing many ideas that actually made quite a lot of sense.
We have left out an important part of the scientific method when we made up our minds about the woman's statement.
Let me be clear. I have no qualms saying that her statement was outright bizarre. It really was... Click here to watch that video.
That said... In #Science, using a small selective sample of a complex phenomenon to prove a particular point aimed at describing the entire phenomenon is absolute tomfoolery.
The fanfare around the four minute video that has gone viral is called Sample Bias.
Sample Bias is an unscientific method used to come to preconceived conclusions.
Sample Bias is what Scientists, Psychologist & Sociologists used over centuries to justify systemic violence on the black body and is still used as a basis for racism.
Her statement is now not only used to try and completely discredit the ideas of #Decolonisation & #FeesMustFall but is now used by racists on social media and on internet forums and comment boards to justify their racist remarks.
It is one person's opinion in a panel discussion which makes racists say things like "That's what you get for having quotas that allow them into our universities"
Them? Our universities? ...and some of us still don't seem to understand why there are protests?
Yes, what she has said may be bizarre and... No, I can't for the life of me contemplate 'starting science from scratch' because ‘we need to figure out how one can wilfully direct lightning to strike a particular person’.
However, when you are having knee-jerk reactions to the issue and use her utterances as a justification for wanting to discredit the whole movement to #decolonise education, then you are a part of the problem.
When you oppose the #FeesMustFall movement in its entirety because there are rotten apples who make bizarre statements or who commit senseless acts of violence...
When you cannot bring yourself to equate the brutality of police and security guards to the tactics of the Apartheid regime and comprehend that the police and security in their actions incite violence...
When you can agree that the woman making the bizarre statement in the video is a rotten apple but you cannot see the bigger picture then you suffer as much from a lack of critical thinking as she does.
There is one thing her statement has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt and that can be seen in any comments section of any online article relating to the viral video; Racist whites immediately gravitated towards the opportunity they were handed to ridicule the intellects of all black people.
So yeah... Newton was right about #Gravity and yes, #ApplesMustFall.
The problem we continue to face as South Africans is that the apples of racism seem to keep falling from the racist trees they grow on...
A tree is after all known by the fruits it bears.
Daai appels val nooit ver van die bome af nie… Die bome staan sterk.
Daai bome moet ontwortel word.
Those apples never fall far from the trees... The trees stand strong.
Those trees need to be uprooted.
#AppleTreesMustFall
#RacistsMustFall only then #RacismWillFall
WATCH: The Full UCT #ScienceMustFall Discussion