'Other people are left to live like normal': White victimhood on lockdown

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article considers narratives of white victimhood and entitlement that emerged on social media during South Africa's first 'hard' lockdown in April 2020, in the initial stages of the coronavirus pandemic. While some commenters and citizens were initially supportive of the lockdown, the tone among sectors of white society soon changed to one of anger and paranoia as media texts began to circulate suggesting that lockdown regulations and policing disproportionately targeted white people. White enterprise, sociality and leisure were seen to be unfairly constrained, in an iteration of familiar narratives of 'reverse racism'. The article examines instances of claimed white victimhood expressed in online videos and petitions, centred on the temporary banning of beach sports, surfing and dog-walking, leisure practices that manifest what Mark Hunter calls 'white tone'. It shows how white exceptionalism persisted within one of the most dramatic global health crises of the past century.