Realising the dream: unlearning the logic of race in the South African school

Abstract

Realising the dream can be read in many ways. As its subtitle indicates, it is about the ‘logic of race’ and it is about ‘the South African school’. As also indicated in the subtitle it is also about ‘unlearning the logic of race in the South African school’. As such, Realising the dream can be read as being about ‘race’ and racism, South Africa, South Africans, South African schooling and about ‘un/learning’. Whilst I think it is appropriate to want to read Realising the dream in these ways, I want to suggest in this review of the book that Realising the dream is about more – much, much more. Realising the dream is not just about ‘realising the dream’ of a non-racial South Africa. Neither is it only about schooling ‘new’ South Africans into a ‘new logic’ that transcends ‘race’ and racism. Nor is it only about understanding the ‘logic’ of discrimination and how it may be acquired, and subsequently, ‘unlearnt’. Realising the dream is about all of these but it is about much more. Realising the dream is about the complexities, contradictions, dynamism and forces that construct all of us as human beings. Realising the dream is about the struggles of being, becoming and living as human beings, in all its multifaceted layers of complexity and enigmatic dynamism – as we live, become, be, know and move through time while