Apartheid in S.A. officially "ended" in 1994; that is, just 17 years ago. While Nelson Mandela is quite an extraordinary individual, I do not recall him having worked any "miracles" of the sort one encounters in, say, the Torah. That is to say: the systemic oppression of blacks in S.A. did not abruptly come to an "end" 17 years ago, and neither did their socio-economic circumstances become VASTLY improved of 17 years ago. Does anyone believe otherwise?
In the region of infancy of the industrial revolution, whites were the cheap labor force. A middle-class emerged. As it expanded out from that region, so the need for a renewed cheap labor component. Each "corporate techno-enclave situation" was different. Just as the "white situation" is different in modern California, as compared to modern Alabama, modern South Africa, or to modern Saudi Arabia.
Thats three generations and it includes free education for girls in the generation I was born in. I paid approximately $20 a semester for a post graduate degree. How do you think this was possible? It was not available to the generations before me. And though I personally never used it, it also includes the system which provided a quota for all castes, tribes and classes which were backward in 1947. Its called the reservation system in India [not to be confused with Indian reservations] which provides a number of seats in all public educational institutions and public institutions for the purpose of educating and employing people from the disadvantaged castes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India
Granted, the caste-related pride can be an obstacle when another country invades a country with a caste system. "If the invading Brits go after the untouchables, that is none of our upper-caste brahminical business." Pride goeth before the fall! And for each person like yourself, proportionally how many more people are living in the slums?
Ok...qualifier here...this is based on my opinion of race relations in the states, so it may not apply. If you have one race that, regardless of native ability, is sent to inferior schools throughout their academic career, grows up poorer and in a more stressful environment...is it fair to force them to compete on an equal footing as students who grew up in wealth, with great schools, a secure environment, and plenty of opportunities? I'm not inclined to think so... I'd like to point out in the US, because black people are more likely to be poor, their children are more likely to go to an impoverished school district, where they do not get as good an education. For those outside this country, this is because we fund schools locally through property taxes. You'd think our schools would be funded in a relatively uniform fashion...but no. So poor people go to poor schools, get a poorer education, and are therefore likelier to stay poor. Nonwhites are more likely to be poor because job discrimination still happens. So it's a self-reinforcing cycle. From what I learned in college history, African-Americans were basically excluded from making much use of the GI bill after WW2 They were not able to purchase homes in many cases due to segregation; a house in a black neighborhood was not eligible for a Federal Housing Administration Mortgage, and they were sneakily excluded from benefiting from America's postwar boom. Edited to add: The Federal Highway Act was a huge portion of the federal budget in the 50's and much of the jobs went to white males, so black people were excluded from the biggest public works project in our history. So the poverty was set up back then...and although the racism has gotten a lot better, the social forces in play are still affecting people today. That was 60 years ago here... Extrapolating from that...why would you think 15 years is anywhere near an adequate amount of time to fix South African society? And in South Africa, I expect the wounds are deeper, the trauma fresher, and the gulf of inequality way wider. I don't see it being fixed in my lifetime, no. I think those that advocate ignoring circumstance really want to ignore social influences somehow as not germane to how well a person performs. You can transcend your environment, yeah. But at what cost? And if you had not had to transcend that difficult environment, how much better could you have done?
And that's the kind of positive changes that I'm advocating. Had you continued in your quote: Because that's exactly what it does, is perpetuate the class distinctions.
And no one said it would get fixed in 15 years. And no one said to ignore circumstance or the effects of past descrimination. Programs like I mentioned though attack the actual issues caused by descrimination. AA just lowers the bar for entrance. Programs like I mentioned help people to transcend that difficult environment. The DIFFERENCE is nothing I suggest is based on the color of one's skin. It's not as if there aren't poor people of ALL colors even if almost all of them in a country are one color. Arthur
But it has not. There is no compulsion to avail of it if you don't want to, so those who feel it disadvantages them are free to do it the hard way by simply not submitting a class or caste certificate that puts them in the quota. The fact that even with the amount of poverty and lack of education, even with the humungous population - if we can implement a reservation system that has made caste all but vanish in most parts of the country, after thousands of years of the caste system, then yes I definitely think it will be useful in any system of social equity. People have no idea what the caste system was like 50 years ago and what a tremendous change there has been with the reservation system. People who argue about class distinctions make me laugh. Class distinctions! The unbelievable phenomenon of a Brahmin and a low caste sitting and eating at the same table when 50 years ago, the same untouchable would hide if he saw the Brahmin approaching so as not to contaminate him with his presence. Thats progress
Not sure if I should post anything as I don't have the time to do it justice ... what the heck. Living under an ultra conservative dictatorship was not my idea of privilege but I suppose everyone is entitled to their own brand of essentialism when defining the white South African. Lets not forget that when given the chance 66% of white voters where in favour of ending apartheid in the referendum. You have to think that at least some of us were at breaking point. Do you know what it's like to have policemen shining lights through your car window to check if you were not kissing a "kaffer", to live under a constant barrage of fundamentalist propaganda, where corporal punishment was dished out in schools for offences like having a fringe that touched your eyebrows or looking your teacher in the eye. When we talk about privilege what in reality this means is you had a right to own your property (more than any black person had) and you have the right to attend a job for 12hs a day that pays next to nothing because the economy is so crap and the government is using your cash to fund it's oppression tactics. My father had a fairly good job as a bank manager. I still remember him changing the newspaper innersoles of his shoes every time it rained. Privileged meant that you have cheese in the fridge three days of the week. For many white South Africans, post apartheid means having your family pulled apart as we seek jobs in any country that will have us. And living under a crime wave that has destroyed many lives. This is a very complicated issue and I know that it's no good crying over spilt milk but I have always thought that when you group a whole lot of people together based on something like skin colour and then actively discriminate against them then you better have a damn good reason for doing it and you better make sure that you use a surgeons blade to carry out the operation. At the moment the people preforming this equaladectomy are wielding a club, with spikes in it, and salt to rub in the wounds. Worst of all the really oppressed masses are still in the same boat they crossed the threshold on. In this environment,it's better to have one set of rules for everyone so you at least have some recourse. Fortunately there is actually a rising middle black class despite the corruption that takes place every day in government. Lets just hope this will end some day and the liberal minded can just live in peace. If you want to get a sense you the mindset in those days read Acid Alex by Al Lovejoy. Perhaps this may breakdown the essentialist mindset people have of white South Africans.
Very good Post. I am afraid for the fate of South Africa after Mandela dies. He was a miracle worker. It was a country set for a bloodbath. If I was a white South African, I would also be looking for an exit.
oh puhlease ---------- australia rather than the us thanks hahaha do you know what it is like to live in a ...."shanty towns with open-ditch latrines, no running water, and no electricity"? (quad) of course a brutal exploitation of peoples and resources is a tenet of conquest and colonialism. take that away and one has no reason to be there
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Sandton magazine hailed as just what rich whites need JOHANNESBURG. The residents of Sandton have hailed the launch of lifestyle magazine Sandton, saying it will boost morale in a suburb long dogged by ennui, afluenza, and a non-specific loathing for the poor. The cover of the first issue features two wealthy young white people “to help frightened Sandtonians forget about Alexandra township next door”. The magazine’s tagline is ‘The good life in the great north’, but the magazine’s lavish launch last night was briefly interrupted by a fracas, when four Mozambicans wandered into the ballroom apparently in search of the good life in the great north, and had to be tazered before being shipped to a refugee internment camp. According to publisher Adolph Oppenheimer, Sandton’s editorial policy is built around using the word ‘Africa’ as often as is realistically possible. “We felt it was important to foreground Africa in the magazine,” he said, “because if you keep saying it enough people might not notice that we’re glorifying an obscene temple to conspicuous consumption on the planet’s poorest continent.” While the first issue is largely about branding, styling, and why lip gloss is more important than reading a book, future issues promise more in-depth features. Oppenheimer said his team was already researching articles such as ‘The Blacks: can we live without them?’, ‘Ten Zuma-proof offshore investments you can hide from the taxman’ and ‘Botox your Botox: why your face can never be paralyzed enough’. He said there would also be strong reader interactivity, with a team of experts dedicated to answering readers’ questions. “A lot of people in Sandton want to know: are Malawians more trustworthy than Xhosas, or should you get a Zulu garden boy? “Likewise, should we be looking at Perth or London post-2010? However, he said, the magazine would ultimately send out a positive message. “We want to remind people that there is no problem this country can throw at you that you can’t solve with electric fencing and a pedicure.”
i see no relevance if you need to get a sense of your "obligations" (/snort), read vice So, allow me to rehearse Vice's reflections and to engage them. Vice argues that the moral selves of whites are deeply stained by the unjust system from which they have benefited. Whiteness, for her, is implicated in the injustices that the black majority continue to experience 17 years later. Whites should feel shame and regret, and make amends for being unjust beneficiaries of whiteness. They should also withdraw from the political space and live "in humility and silence", embarking on personal journeys, inwardly focused, aimed at repairing their damaged moral selves. By "whiteness" Vice is referring to the fact that a white skin has resulted in benefits for the person who is white. This just is a historical fact. The entire system of anti-black racism and apartheid benefited those who were white. Whiteness became the norm of society. Being white in all sectors of society was as advantageous as being male or being masculine in the corporate sector. It was the "norm" and anything that deviated from the norm was non-white, a negative description capturing the judgment that non-whites are defective. Being non-white is as defective as being gay or bisexual in a world in which heterosexuality is the norm. Vice acknowledges that many whites resent the fact that they did not choose to be white or to benefit from being white. Indeed, some whites opposed apartheid. But shame and regret are not moral emotions that you should feel only when you did something wrong yourself. You should also be ashamed of benefiting unjustly. Feeling shame as a white person is a way of acknowledging that you have been living in a world filled with an injustice rooted in your whiteness. Shame is an acknowledgement that the world you live in is not as it should be -- just and nonracial. Regret, too, is appropriate. Vice regrets her own whiteness, not because she chose it (which she could not have) but because her whiteness is what keeps the unjust system, in which blacks are still socially and economically worse off than whites, going. (Eusebius McKaiser)
I totally disagree with Vice's idea that Whites should remain silent in South Africa. Her continual treatment of people based on just their skin color is abhorrent. http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politi...n/page71619?oid=256436&sn=Marketingweb detail And finally while quoting Vice on this topic you left out this important caveat in Vice's work: The girl we are talking about is 18 and so was indeed too young to particpate in Apartheid.
And to think, all I expected was the usual "boohoo". There are different prisons one can live in. I have lived under those conditions and it was probably the happiest time of my life but for reasons i would not discuss here. Let's just say it involved a girl. What you don't seem to realise is that we are not living on the pages of a text book; if only we show the appropriate humility then all of africa's problems will disappear. Things are getting better though,perhaps. Maybe I'll move to Sandton soon.
You see, I doubt anyone here thinks those racist things were acceptable, black or white there should not be such discrimination, but the vast majority of what you speak of here talks of economic difficulties affecting a large number of a race - but these are not exclusive divisions based on skin colour such as in the OP; but based on economic factors. Regardless of how these came about, the counter-argument presented in this thread has been about ignoring racial boundaries, not the economic ones. It's quite obvious that poor people have a disadvantage, and with affirmative action you now have the emergence in some places of a situation where if you are a poor, white, male, you become the most disadvantaged of them all, through no fault of your own. That is why people are suggesting it is racist. All thats happened is the target is different, but people seem happy to have white people as a target, even as a minority. To me this isn't really solving any racial issues at all, it's just an exercise in fudging the figures.
Her ideas seem to be similar as the expectations and sanctions placed on Germans and Austrians after WWII - denazification and the "guilt movement" ("German guilt"). There has been a lot of debate in Europe on this, and many taboos. It might be a general trend that such a movement for imposed guilt surfaces after one nation/race has abused another. But how is such imposed guilt supposed to help, if the original problem is essentially an economic one?
So then, what if reverse discrimination/affirmative action puts the next generation of whites at a disadvantage- do we balance it out once more by adding in a couple more drops of the old Apartheid sauce? How about this instead: your skin colour and cultural background are entirely irrelevant, and there should be no quotas whatsoever to this effect. Instead, how about giving extra assistance to people from impoverished backgrounds who had extra struggles to overcome in order to qualify for post-secondary education, regardless of the reason why their family was poor in the first place? I am not guilty for what my ancestors did before me and had no say or control over the matter, so I will never accept even the slightest discrimination predicated on the grounds that I'm white. I have plenty of relatives from South Africa; some supported the Apartheid, some fled it as soon as they could get out (getting out wasn't as easy as packing up and buying a plane ticket, BTW). Lumping them all into the same group based on skin colour is unacceptable racism regardless of how mild the effects of the reverse-discrimination might seem at this point. If South Africa can't bring itself to learn the lessons of the past and judge people on their individual circumstances and merits, then it doesn't deserve the substantial international support and cooperation it receives from the West, and should be boycotted in the same way we did with the Apartheid. If it gets violent and there's an attempt at ethnically cleansing the whites, I will have no personal objection to sending Western peacekeepers to occupy them and protect any potential victims, and possibly partition the entire country if necessary.
