I was in a store trying some kind of product from one of those people who hands out samples and I couldn't help notice her district South African accent. I asked how long she'd been here and she said roughly about 15 years. We briefly discussed her country and she made a point of telling me how much she admired Nelson Mandela the country's first black president then politely told me how backward and racist her country is NOW to the white minority but did so in measured tones. I've met OTHER white people from South Africa and I've noticed something: NONE of them apparently LIKED the Apartheid system which ruled it for nearly half a century. I believe that as much as I believe that the grotto in Hugh Hefner's Playboy mansion was actually used for co-ed bible study.
To preface, the nation of South Africa is mineral rich. It has gold, diamonds, platinum and emeralds. The British knew this when they started a war against the Boer (Dutch Farmers) who had occupied SouthAfrica before they arrived.
From 1948 until 1994 South Africa had a system of government called Apartheid. Apartheid created a racial hierarchy in which the white minority which comprised 18% of the population was on top. Below them were Asians/Indians, the third rung was colored "people or those of mixed race" and at the very bottom blacks. It was modeled on the racist system the Nazis had created in Germany and looked like the American "Jim Crow" system on steroids.
If you were anything but white, Apartheid rationed out what rights to which you were entitled. It determined where you could live, where you could go to school, what kind of job you could hold and even what parts of certain areas you could frequent. If you were a black African you couldn't get an education beyond 8th grade, couldn't study advanced math and science, move about your own country without documentation and couldn't hold a passport.
During the 1980s there was a global protest movement against the government of South Africa to abolish Apartheid. There were international protest and in keeping with them, most of the world's governments with the exceptions of The United States and Great Britain imposed sanctions against South Africa. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher (the leaders of the U.S and U.K respectively) were both supporters of colonialism and both had expressed negative opinions of Africans and their capacity to either rule themselves or to participate in government. South Africans too protested their government and there exists photos and infinite film footage of large, entirely black crowds holding signs, singing and chanting being tear-gassed and beaten with clubs and whips by uniformed white officers. The protests were always called "riots" by the South African government and they made the evening news around the world and Reuters & Associated Press' photographers made sure that Time, Newsweek, The London Times & Der Spiegel always had photographic evidence thereof.
I've seen those photos, but amazingly the one thing I never saw in them were white protesters. I'm not saying white South African protesters didn't exist, but much I've never seen one. During the American civil rights movement there were white clergy, and concerned citizens who marched along side American blacks and they paid a heavy price. Some lost their jobs. They were arrested, violently assaulted and in some cases murdered. I do NOT mean to imply that Nobel Peace prize winners Bishop Desmond TuTu & Nelson Mandela did NOT have white allies. I'm saying I didn't see mixed crowds in Soweto and the other townships being beaten with whips, gassed and shot with rubber bullets. They were all black. IF I'm wrong I'd happily welcome photographic evidence with proves it.
I'm wondering: WHERE are the South Africans who openly admit that they benefited GREATLY from racist system of government which openly stole from an indigenous population which it brutally suppressed? Are there NO actual white supremacists who think that the Apartheid system and the system of segregation which came into existence in the 1790s which wouldn't allow Africans to travel in their own country without written documentation was a good thing? THERE MUST BE, but where the hell are they?
Scores of South African expatriates swear they supported Mandela and Tutu and NEVER supported Apartheid, but can produce nary photos of themselves with EITHER man. They claim to have HATED the system which made them superior to 82% of their country's population but there are no photos or video of them screaming at Smith, Botha and DeKlerk in mass protests in Johannesburg or Petoria. Those photos and video are probably in some far away place in a vault where Bigfoot and Yeti are reign and have a stable government. Their lakes are home to the descendants of the Loc Ness Monster and heards of unicorn frolic in their lush fields.
I shook hands with the South African woman politely, but presumed she was the worst kind of bigot. People not on the receiving end of racism don't distinguish the TYPES of bigots and racists. There is the "fervent racist" who openly tells those different from themselves that the color of his/her skin or nationality makes him/her their superior. I respect those bigots because at least they're HONEST in their ignorance.
There is the "racist crowd". He or she isn't a zealot, but will go along with whatever is popular. These are the people who didn't take part in lynchings, but would show up to watch and occasionally would bring someone with them. They're the look-loos who would be at a lynching with a camera or picnic lunch and who might cut a piece of the rope used to hang a victim or purchase a "Greetings from Mississippi" postcard with a lynching victim captured for posterity.
Then there is the "indifferent racist." He or she can ignore racism because they're not the target of it. They utilize the benefits of racist systems but won't do anything to either preserve or abolish it. If it continues...fine. If it's gone...whatever. These people aren't suffering and simply see the benefits they reap as "rights" oblivious to the fact that not everyone has the same "rights" they enjoy. This person is part of the problem because they either don't SEE a problem or simply don't care because it doesn't hinder them.
For the record, not every person in the majority of a racist environment IS a racist. There are those who make small stands against unjust systems every day. They engage those different from themselves in conversation and have interpersonal relationships/friendships with them. They give employment opportunities to minorities which otherwise wouldn't have. They promote something OTHER than the system which declares them superior. AT the end of the day those are the people who abolished Apartheid, but I find it odd that EVERY white South African now claims to be part of that noble group when history clearly suggests otherwise.
