-walks in and picks up the mic-
I live in South Africa
Apartheid
-drops the mic and walks out-
Edit: Apologies for the wall of text. Feel free to skip to the last paragraph if you want to skip the history lesson about apartheid.
Okay in all seriousness, racism never really died in South Africa. One of the most racist things you could call a black person is a Kaffir. It originates from the Arabic word, Kafir, but it's terribly demeaning. When you've heard that spewed out of a few mouths, or when white people tell me "I'm not racist but" or "just between you and I black people etc", then you know you're in the company of racists.
For clarity, I am not white. I look white but I come from a family of mixed race. So when white people tell me stuff, they think I am "one of them." See, in South Africa, apartheid collapsed in 1994 with the first democratic elections. The African National Congress won the vote and the late Nelson Mandela became president. When he died, everyone had a story to tell about the day they met him...but I digress...
The most racist thing I see is how people have internalised racism. Racism never died in 1994. The social myths are still perpetuated. For example, the apartheid government set things up here rather neatly for themselves. White people at the top, mixed race or coloured people in the middle, and black people at the bottom of their hierarchy. Indian and Chinese people were a conundrum, but they were definitely not white, so they didn't enjoy the benefits white people did.
So while the "whites only" beaches, bathrooms and bus seats stopped, there's still this myth hanging around that white is right. For example. Coloured people still hold the belief that it is better to marry a woman or man with fair skin and straight hair - why? During apartheid, you could get classified as white if you were light of complexion and you passed the pencil test. The pencil test is when they would put a pencil in your hair and if it slid out and fell on the floor, you were white. If it got stuck because your hair was not straight, you were not white. As a result, families got torn apart.
Coloured folk reckoned there was a way out: if you could get your kids to be reclassified, they could get you out of the poverty and into a better life. But, because the government provided inferior education to coloured and black folk, and because people perpetuated the myth that white is right, it became a cultural norm for coloured men and women to admire light skinned, straight haired people. Our parents and grandparents would not accept any of us dating a black man or woman - that's considered going "backwards" not forwards. Sadly, you would have thought this mindset would change considering there is a growing, educated middle to upper class of black people in the country. Nope, no matter how uneducated or poor some coloured folk are, they still believe they're better than black people and not as good as white people.
The racist white folk I spoke to live in a bubble. Some don't even believe they're being racist, but they have inherently racist views when, for example, an old white man once drove over a black woman. He saw her and just kept driving despite her having right of way. It was in a parking area and she was on a pedestrian crossing. He admitted he hit her and he was of the view she shouldn't have gotten in his way. She survived, but could not have children again because of the damage his car did and he was never arrested despite there being witnesses. No one cared about her.
Here's another example: In South Africa, the rising crime and car thefts gave a boost to security services. Poor people took advantage and began offering their services to watch your car at a parking area, for a few bucks. One time while I was at the beach, a middle aged coloured woman - who looked like she was homeless - was swearing at a black man and called him a kaffir, in full view of everyone. She was a car guard earning less than $2 a day on a good day. She still believed that despite her circumstances, she was better off than that black man, who was also poor (the legacy of apartheid, I guess).
You wana know what racism is? Ask a white person in South Africa if they've ever asked a coloured or a black person in a township what life is like for them. Keep in mind, many of the people living in poverty may have been born in a township, but their parents and grandparents were forcibly removed by the apartheid government decades ago from their homes in a decent neighbourhood. Their homes were bought for cheap, sold to white folk and many people were forced to live in the worst conditions possible, usually crammed into a small area with little to no services. 20 years after democracy, people living in townships are still battling for things like flushing toilets, decent education and adequate healthcare.
They were screwed before because they were black. Today they're screwed because they're black and poor. The ANC government today seems to be more corrupt than ever (the president used more than $24 million of the state's money to build a homestead for his family) and we have terribly low levels of education. It's almost like nothing has changed.
I used to be a community journalist and had to travel from rich areas to poor ones all the time. One time middle to upper class residents complained about a cultural practise they disagreed with - a man was going to slaughter a bull to announce to his ancestors he would be settling at a new home. The black African man was surrounded by white neighbours. He got permission from the City of Cape Town municipal government to conduct his ritual. The white neighbours complained that if someone moves into the area they should abide by the customs and behaviour of the area. They sent in letters and complained to no end. Some even complained it was cruel to the animal. I then wrote a story about a nearby African township that would be celebrating its new services it was getting from the municipality. Among those would be the slaughtering of sheep and cattle. It went into the same paper. Wana guess how many letters and correspondence we got regarding that?
Zero. Not a single person wrote in.
I live in South Africa
Apartheid
-drops the mic and walks out-
Edit: Apologies for the wall of text. Feel free to skip to the last paragraph if you want to skip the history lesson about apartheid.
Okay in all seriousness, racism never really died in South Africa. One of the most racist things you could call a black person is a Kaffir. It originates from the Arabic word, Kafir, but it's terribly demeaning. When you've heard that spewed out of a few mouths, or when white people tell me "I'm not racist but" or "just between you and I black people etc", then you know you're in the company of racists.
For clarity, I am not white. I look white but I come from a family of mixed race. So when white people tell me stuff, they think I am "one of them." See, in South Africa, apartheid collapsed in 1994 with the first democratic elections. The African National Congress won the vote and the late Nelson Mandela became president. When he died, everyone had a story to tell about the day they met him...but I digress...
The most racist thing I see is how people have internalised racism. Racism never died in 1994. The social myths are still perpetuated. For example, the apartheid government set things up here rather neatly for themselves. White people at the top, mixed race or coloured people in the middle, and black people at the bottom of their hierarchy. Indian and Chinese people were a conundrum, but they were definitely not white, so they didn't enjoy the benefits white people did.
So while the "whites only" beaches, bathrooms and bus seats stopped, there's still this myth hanging around that white is right. For example. Coloured people still hold the belief that it is better to marry a woman or man with fair skin and straight hair - why? During apartheid, you could get classified as white if you were light of complexion and you passed the pencil test. The pencil test is when they would put a pencil in your hair and if it slid out and fell on the floor, you were white. If it got stuck because your hair was not straight, you were not white. As a result, families got torn apart.
Coloured folk reckoned there was a way out: if you could get your kids to be reclassified, they could get you out of the poverty and into a better life. But, because the government provided inferior education to coloured and black folk, and because people perpetuated the myth that white is right, it became a cultural norm for coloured men and women to admire light skinned, straight haired people. Our parents and grandparents would not accept any of us dating a black man or woman - that's considered going "backwards" not forwards. Sadly, you would have thought this mindset would change considering there is a growing, educated middle to upper class of black people in the country. Nope, no matter how uneducated or poor some coloured folk are, they still believe they're better than black people and not as good as white people.
The racist white folk I spoke to live in a bubble. Some don't even believe they're being racist, but they have inherently racist views when, for example, an old white man once drove over a black woman. He saw her and just kept driving despite her having right of way. It was in a parking area and she was on a pedestrian crossing. He admitted he hit her and he was of the view she shouldn't have gotten in his way. She survived, but could not have children again because of the damage his car did and he was never arrested despite there being witnesses. No one cared about her.
Here's another example: In South Africa, the rising crime and car thefts gave a boost to security services. Poor people took advantage and began offering their services to watch your car at a parking area, for a few bucks. One time while I was at the beach, a middle aged coloured woman - who looked like she was homeless - was swearing at a black man and called him a kaffir, in full view of everyone. She was a car guard earning less than $2 a day on a good day. She still believed that despite her circumstances, she was better off than that black man, who was also poor (the legacy of apartheid, I guess).
You wana know what racism is? Ask a white person in South Africa if they've ever asked a coloured or a black person in a township what life is like for them. Keep in mind, many of the people living in poverty may have been born in a township, but their parents and grandparents were forcibly removed by the apartheid government decades ago from their homes in a decent neighbourhood. Their homes were bought for cheap, sold to white folk and many people were forced to live in the worst conditions possible, usually crammed into a small area with little to no services. 20 years after democracy, people living in townships are still battling for things like flushing toilets, decent education and adequate healthcare.
They were screwed before because they were black. Today they're screwed because they're black and poor. The ANC government today seems to be more corrupt than ever (the president used more than $24 million of the state's money to build a homestead for his family) and we have terribly low levels of education. It's almost like nothing has changed.
I used to be a community journalist and had to travel from rich areas to poor ones all the time. One time middle to upper class residents complained about a cultural practise they disagreed with - a man was going to slaughter a bull to announce to his ancestors he would be settling at a new home. The black African man was surrounded by white neighbours. He got permission from the City of Cape Town municipal government to conduct his ritual. The white neighbours complained that if someone moves into the area they should abide by the customs and behaviour of the area. They sent in letters and complained to no end. Some even complained it was cruel to the animal. I then wrote a story about a nearby African township that would be celebrating its new services it was getting from the municipality. Among those would be the slaughtering of sheep and cattle. It went into the same paper. Wana guess how many letters and correspondence we got regarding that?
Zero. Not a single person wrote in.
