feature: university of cape town students protest university housing crisis leaving thousands of students displaced

UCT student organizers of Rhodes Must Fall kicked off the Shackville Occupation by installing a shack on the university’s main campus to demonstrate black displacement and alleged anti-blackness which they believe allows the prioritization of white international students when allocating residence assignments. “At residences throughout UCT, the privilege of white students, who are not subject to the large-scale eviction or space shortages which Black students face on a systematic basis, is further entrenched. This despite them being generally better equipped to find and afford accommodation outside of the residence system,” the group says on Facebook.

The university denies allegations of racism and white prioritization claiming that only two percent of residential resources are given to international students. UCT student Lelethu Dantyi told LIVE Magazine SA that the university put him on the housing waiting list three years in a row. “Since I got here, I never got residence. But as a black person, I’m used to surviving. But that doesn’t mean someone else is able to survive just like me,” he said. “What we are saying here is we are refusing the university to exclude black students. So this shack is symbolism.” The shack, which has been dismantled by security and police only to be re-erected by students, is installed near the UCT Jammie steps, which until last year, led to a statue Cecil Rhodes. 

By Erin White*, AFROPUNK contributor