Bias #2 - Based on Jacqueline Aird's Investigation of the Nature of Bias, p.2

Khoikhoi Judged by European Standards: The Deficit Model

Bias #2 - Based on Jacqueline Aird's Investigation of the Nature of Bias, p.2

What the Textbooks Taught
Textbooks described the Khoi as 'badly organised, owning few possessions and having a lazy disposition.' They claimed the Khoi slowly became absorbed into other nations and became their servants because of these inherent flaws.

The Evidence from the Original Document
Lategan (1961: 40) wrote about the Khoi: 'Because they were badly organised, owned few possessions and had a lazy disposition, they slowly but surely became absorbed into other nations and became their servants.'

This is a highly derogatory and one-sided point of view. The Khoi lifestyle is being judged according to a European value system. Within their own culture, their lifestyle suited their needs. They were neither lazy nor did they need many possessions.

The Bias Exposed
The Khoi only became servants of the colonists once the Europeans had destroyed their natural way of life. It was not laziness or disorganisation that made them servants - it was colonial violence. The Europeans took their land, destroyed their herds, and forced them into dependency. Then they blamed the Khoi for the situation the Europeans had created.

The textbooks measured the Khoi against European standards: permanent houses, private property, centralised government. Because the Khoi did not have these things, they were called primitive. But the Khoi had sophisticated systems perfectly adapted to their environment — communal land ownership, consensus-based governance, and seasonal migration patterns that preserved the land.

Why It Matters
When we judge a culture by foreign standards, we always find it wanting. This deficit model - focusing on what a culture lacks rather than what it possesses - is the intellectual foundation of racism. It transforms difference into deficiency, and deficiency into justification for domination.

About This Post

This is the second in a five-part series on biases against the Khoi in South African history textbooks, based on Jacqueline Aird's Investigation of the Nature of Bias.