We Can Fix Ourselves

Scholarship on Black Consciousness in the so-called post-apartheid South Africa is not as prominent as its counterpart within the Congress tradition. The fundamental reason for this is the hegemony and pervasiveness of whiteness and its aversion to the Black Radical Tradition. Another reason is the “success” of the Congress tradition as epitomized by the ANC through its so-called negotiations to usher in an era that is compatible with its political vision of a non-racial constitutional new South Africa. It is in this sense that the intellectual and ideological marginalization of the Azanian tradition which Black Consciousness is a part of, is intimately linked to the “failure” of its political vision.Why this political and historical backdrop? This is because the book We Can Fix Ourselves: Building a better South Africa through Black Consciousness (2021) by Mosibudi Mangena under review locates itself within the philosophy of Black Consciousness in discussing the fundamental problem of the so-called new democratic South Africa.