Racism In South Africa: A White Perspective

A week does not go by in South Africa without at least one article in the Media or social platforms about racism in South Africa. Which may be good, but the manner in which it is done, gives me the creeps – it is usually a mumble-jumble of how this phenomenon is eating away the South African society like cancer but no facts are provided no solutions, and it is subtly suggested that it is Whites only who are the racists and it just stay there with the usual rhetoric week after week.

I am White and I will be the first one to admit that there are Whites who are racists and I despise it. But just to suggest that all Whites are racists is ludicrous. And to deny the fact or to keep quiet that Blacks, Coloreds and Asians are racists is also just as ludicrous and before I shoot myself in the foot, not all Blacks, Coloreds and Asians are racists. Just like with the Whites, they are in the minority.

It is also my opinion that Whites are the victims of racism in South Africa and before I am accused of generalization, here are my facts:

-       Street names and names of cities and towns were/are changed for the sake of hurting and spiting the Whites –what does names like Nylstroom, Pietersburg, Beit Bridge, Church Street, Vermeulen Street, etc. have to do with Apartheid? Nothing!  Even now, in 2015, the EFF declared war on ‘white town names’ in the Western Cape! Racism at its best, EFF!

-         The Kholer Barnard issue: by the mere fact that the ANC explicitly branded it a racial issue and even branded her as a racist because she is White and also branded the DA as racist because of the many Whites supporting the DA, the ANC was racist!

-          Zuma used/uses any opportunity to gun the Whites – example, his remarks on Jan van Riebeeck were according to me racist. And what about him singing “Kill the Boer?”

-          Vandalizing monuments and statues relating to the cultural heritage of the Whites because ‘it reminds Blacks of Apartheid’ is nothing less than racism against whites.

-          It is racism to have exclusive White institutions and bodies like schools and universities but it is not racism to have exclusive Black institutions and bodies like the Black Lawyers Association or the Black primary school in Devon where the language is Zulu and requests to introduce English also to allow Whites were rejected “in order to keep it Black’.

-       ANC politicians branding Whites as disloyal to South Africa because they do not attend cultural and public holiday events (because it is high jacked for political gain) is also racism.

-   The so-called campaigns against Afrikaans in the National Anthem, in schools and now also universities are also racism because it ‘is the Mother tongue of Whites’.

-   My perception is that the Black rhetoric that “this or that reminds us (21 years into the democracy?) of Apartheid” is nothing more than a reflection on Whites that “there is indeed no place for you in South Africa” which is racism.

There you are; my perceptions that that racism against Whites are alive and well in South Africa. Remember, it is a White person’s perceptions!

So, the Blacks, Coloureds, Indians and Whites all have their perceptions that they are the victims of racism.

What are the solutions? Easy, let us set perceptions aside and focus on individual cases and facts and address and solve those and those alone. And let us refrain from generalization. Only then we could move forward and avoid creating unnecessary racial tension and subsequent division of races into camps, because then the EFF’s wish will come true for a South African revolution where nobody will be winners!