Bias #3 - Based on Jacqueline Aird's Investigation of the Nature of Bias, p.2

Ideology of White Supremacy in Textbooks: Racism Disguised as Fact

Bias #3 - Based on Jacqueline Aird's Investigation of the Nature of Bias, p.2

What the Textbooks Taught
Textbooks embedded white supremacist ideology so deeply into the historical narrative that it appeared as objective fact rather than political opinion. The racial hierarchy was not stated explicitly - it was woven into the language, the framing, and the very structure of the history being taught.

The Evidence from the Original Document
The original document identifies how the ideology of white supremacy was fostered through the use of omission, misrepresentation, inaccuracies, and the creation of stereotypes. Textbooks referred particularly to a Std. VIII textbook used in coloured schools in South Africa.

This textbook opened with the arrival of the Europeans at the Cape. The history of the people living in the area before the arrival of the Europeans was completely omitted. Pupils were then likely to assume that these people were of little consequence in the formation of South African history, which is totally inaccurate.

The Bias Exposed
The Eurocentric approach implies that South African history only began when Europeans arrived. This is a deliberate erasure of the Khoi and other indigenous peoples who had lived on the land for millennia. By opening the textbook with European arrival, the authors sent a clear message: nothing that happened before Europeans arrived matters.

The textbooks also fostered stereotypes through selective omission. When the Khoi were mentioned, they were described with derogatory language. When they were omitted, the silence itself was a statement about their unimportance. Either way, the message was the same: white people built South Africa, and Black people were merely background.

Why It Matters
This bias prepared young white South Africans for their role as a privileged minority and taught young Black South Africans their place in a predetermined social order. History was weaponised. By presenting white dominance as natural and inevitable, the textbooks provided moral cover for apartheid long before the policy was formally named.

About This Post

This is the third 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.