Zone1 US has never been a racist country

[AZrailwhale]

Are you scared to discuss apartheid in South Africa? You have badgered others who didn't answer your questions or respond tto your challenge. But now you can't respond because you really can't face the truth. It's easier to call me a raciistt and run away.

Gee it’s odd, when everyone else brings up the fact that slavery was a world wide condition when it existed here, you say that doesn’t count, we are only talking about the US, now you demand we consider something bad that happened to blacks on the far side of the world.

 

[IM2]

The thorny issue of ‘race’ in South African politics: why it endures almost 30 years after apartheid ended​

Published: October 24, 2023
“Race” continues to have much political salience in South Africa, a country where, in the past, perceived differences of skin colour were used to construct a hierarchy of “races”, with whites at the top, to justify their political economic domination.

The question is why. Two answers stand out.

The first argument says that “race”, as an explanatory feature of the continuing inequalities in South Africa, is hard-wired into the country’s politics by the long history of racial oppression. Moeletsi Mbeki, a provocative commentator, writes that the country’s conquest by the Dutch and the British, and the reaction of its native peoples to their conquest, is the only context in which the issues of “race” and “race relations” are understandable.

Having decimated a prosperous African peasantry to produce a massive supply of cheap labour to the mines, the British enlisted a class of Afrikaner collaborators who managed the country between 1910 and 1994.

The implication is that even if South Africa’s politics officially subscribe to non-racialism, the physical and psychological violence inflicted upon the African majority cannot be wished away. It is easily exploited as a resource by unscrupulous politicians.

The second argument about “race” is that the foundation of the 1994 settlement was built on the premise of a non-racial South Africa. But this has failed to significantly improve the conditions of the mass of South Africans.

In its most conspiratorial form, this presents “white monopoly capital” as having concocted a deal with an incoming black political elite. This helps white people to maintain their economic dominance over the black African majority.

More convincing are suggestions that the social democracy constructed in 1994 produced only a few winners.
Not least the fact that whites continue to be disproportionately advantaged in terms of income, wealth, housing, and opportunity relative to other South Africans. Yet, there is an unwillingness among white people to recognise that to be white in South Africa continues to be a primary marker of socio-economic advantage.

The thorny issue of ‘race’ in South African politics: why it endures almost 30 years after apartheid ended

Critics of the 1994 political settlement largely hail from the black middle class, even though it has been one the principal beneficiaries of South Africa’s social democracy.

theconversation.com

 

[IM2]

How South Africa’s white liberals dodge honest debates about race​

The ideological position of the Democratic Alliance, South Africa’s main opposition party, on how to achieve racial justice and equality in post-apartheid South Africa is morally confused.

John Steenhuisen, its new interim national leader, says that the party does not believe in the use of race categories to address racialised inequality. As far as he is concerned, affirmative action and black economic empowerment policies indicate that post-apartheid South Africa is “obsessed with race”.

He is convinced that to bring about transformation in post-apartheid South Africa,

we don’t need to resort to crude racial classification.

But in my view it is morally and intellectually dishonest to disavow a race discourse as identity politics gone awry in a country that is divided along racial lines, socially and economically.

White South Africans make up 7.8% of the country’s population. But they own more than 90% of the country’s wealth. And a government land audit in 2017 showed that white people own 72% of the land, followed by coloureds at 15%, Indians at 5% and Africans at 4%. (The racial delineations used here were adopted under apartheid, which distinguished between various race groups. Broadly, Indians referred to South Africans descended from people who came to the country from the Indian subcontinent, many as indentured labour, while coloureds referred to people of mixed race.)

And according to Stats SA, in addition to having worse employment outcomes, Africans also earn the lowest wages.

To imply, as the Democratic Alliance does, that there is a moral equivalence between apartheid’s use of race categories and their continued use by the democratic government is a deliberate distortion of reality.

How South Africa's white liberals dodge honest debates about race

There is no moral equivalence between apartheid’s use of race categories and their continued use by the democratic government.

theconversation.com

 

[IM2]

Racism in South Africa: why the ANC has failed to dismantle patterns of white privilege​

Published: August 4, 2022
One of the sources of social discontent in post-apartheid South Africa is the legacy of white racism. This toxic legacy is evident in racialised poverty and inequality.

It is a historical fact that the economic prosperity of whites in South Africa is based on the racist exploitation and impoverishment of blacks.

The long history of racism enabled white South Africans to enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world by the 1970s. In his new book, titled Can We Unlearn Racism?, Jacob R Boersema, a New York University academic, shows that by the 21st century white South Africans’ “lifetime work-related earnings on average are four times higher than for Africans”.

Add to this corruption, rampant crime, frightening levels of gender based violence and failing political institutions: the outcome is a social horror show that produces misery for millions of black people. This is what former president Thabo Mbeki was referring to in his recent scathing critique of the governing African National Congress (ANC).
The ANC, since its formation, has been ideologically trapped in the 19th century black Cape politics of Victorian liberalism – which advocated for loyalty to the British Crown. This resulted in blacks making moral appeals to white benevolence for justice and freedom, instead of making political demands. The ANC has never fully understood how white racism functions.
Mbeki is one of the few ANC politicians to admit publicly that non-racialism has failed to unite South Africans. The black intellectual ecosystem has yet to develop a compelling analysis of the relationship between white wealth and black poverty.

The white narrative that blames the black elite for the persistence of racialised inequality erases white racism from post-apartheid South Africa.

According to Statistics South Africa:

The labour market experiences of different population groups in South Africa continue to diverge substantially, and still reflect the strongly persistent legacies of apartheid policies … Thus, black African unemployment rates are between four and five times as high as they are amongst whites.

The black middle class remains largely an academic construct. It consists of a mere 4.2 million people whereas blacks make up 80% of the population of 60 million. Research shows no sign of a decrease in racialised wealth inequality since apartheid.

Racism in South Africa: why the ANC has failed to dismantle patterns of white privilege

Non-racialism is one of the unexamined dogmas of the governing ANC, which has never fully understood how white racism functions.

theconversation.com

This is what people whiite racists don''t want to discuss.

 

[IM2]

White people in South Africa still hold the lion’s share of all forms of capital
The role of “white monopoly capital” in post-apartheid South Africa has been in the news lately. In the South African context, it can be understood as the white population’s extensive control over the country’s economy.

The debate reflects a recanting view against the rainbow nation dream sold when the country gained political freedom 22 years ago. The idea is that white monopoly capital is the source of the problem of multiple failures of the South African political economy.

The response has been a rising chorus of white monopoly capitalism deniers who argue that the governing African National Congress (ANC) is using the concept as a shield against criticism. Instead of addressing its failings such as a faltering economy, widening inequality, unemployment, corruption and incompetence, the argument goes, the ANC is deflecting attention for the country’s difficulties by blaming white monopoly capital.

Some in this camp add that South Africa has recorded significant progress in redistributing the country’s wealth, mainly via the allocation of equity in formerly white companies to black economic empowerment groups. They quote figures that they say reflects rising levels of black ownership on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

But by relying on a single indicator, they ignore other key pointers which are critical to understanding the stranglehold that white capital has over the South African economy. The exclusive focus on the JSE ignores the fact that the stock market is just one of many forms of capital. Others include land – probably one of the most contentious of all forms of capital in South Africa’s history – home ownership and human capital, in the forms of knowledge, skills and education.

Legacies of white privilege still persist. High levels of poverty and rampant unemployment still haunt black communities.

This inequity is also evident in patterns of ownership.

Despite claims to the contrary, a study of black ownership on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange shows clearly that black South Africans remain small time players. According to a recent study, only 23% of the shares traded on the exchange are held – directly and indirectly – by black South Africans.

On top of this, capital, in its varied forms such as the land, property and human capital, remains heavily skewed to white ownership.

The land is particularly important in the South African context as it carries most colonial scars. The country’s colonial and apartheid regime (both white minority) used expropriation to remove people from their land. They then used this stolen land to accumulate capital in the forms of mining and agriculture.

At the time of apartheid in 1994, more than 80% of the land was in the hands of white minority. Data from the Institute of Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies suggest that just under 60,000 white-owned farms accounted for about 70% of the total area of the country in early 1990s. Land reforms programme has been slow. Some suggest that less than 10 % of the total land has been redistributed from white to black ownership since 1994.

Another cornerstone of the colonial as well as apartheid designers was to deny all black people access to economic opportunities as well as to limit their scope in both education and jobs.

These developments have had sequential implications and generational effects. The result is that racial inequalities continue to be reproduced.

White people in South Africa still hold the lion’s share of all forms of capital

Despite a growing chorus of deniers, white monopoly capital continues to be a South African reality that shapes the country’s political, economic and social life.

theconversation.com

White victimhood and grievance mongering is apparently a global industry.

 

[el midgetron]

The people who live in the “last outpost of Aparthid” “insist they are not racist” -



Welcome to “Freedom Georgia” (unless you are white) -

 

[GLASNOST]

Show me a state when the law said or says lynching is legal. Put up or shut up.

If the law allows it what does it matter what is in black and white? What do you people think is being discussed here? Papper?

 

[IM2]

 

[AZrailwhale]

If the law allows it what does it matter what is in black and white? What do you people think is being discussed here? Papper?

The law never allowed it. Corrupt people on juries did.

 

[el midgetron]

Democrats are the only people who care about what Nikki Haley says. The same is mostly true for Desantis too.

There is something disconnected about the state of the world today and the Democrats top priority seems to be smearing Republicans as racists.

When Trump wanted to secure the southern boarder, the democrats accused him of racism. Now the Democrats are claiming it’s the republicans who are preventing sleepy joe from securing the boarder. How do those two positions contrasted against each other even make sense? Why would Republican want to keep the boarder open? And why isn’t Biden a racist for (claiming) he want to secure the boarder? It’s all a big political side-show.

 

[sparky]

Got to side w/ IM2 for the sentiment here.....we're the most racial country, because we're all about different races living together.....~S~

 

[IM2]

Got to side w/ IM2 for the sentiment here.....we're the most racial country, because we're all about different races living together.....~S~

Haley said American has never been racist. That's untrue. Otherr countries do better than we do relative to races living together.

 

[sparky]

Haley said American has never been racist. That's untrue. Otherr countries do better than we do relative to races living together.

Well why would you image that is IM2?

seriously, we have either invited , imported, or otherwise assumes the most racial diversity on this rock

dunno 'bout you, but i grew up where there were distinct racial divides in their own alcoves, doing their best to get along with the neighbors

Can we say that about other countries?

~S~

 

[IM2]

Well why would you image that is IM2?

seriously, we have either invited , imported, or otherwise assumes the most racial diversity on this rock

dunno 'bout you, but i grew up where there were distinct racial divides in their own alcoves, doing their best to get along with the neighbors

Can we say that about other countries?

~S~

I grew up in the ssame America you did and whites and blacks just see thingss diifferentlly.

 

[GLASNOST]

If the law allows it what does it matter what is in black and white? What do you people think is being discussed here? Papper?

The law never allowed it. Corrupt people on juries did.

I repeat: If the law allows it that's the law.

 

[AZrailwhale]

I repeat: If the law allows it that's the law.

The law never allowed lynching.

 

[GLASNOST]

The law never allowed lynching.

The law allowed lynching so that's the law.

 

[Kruska]

So, you think America is just as hostile towards whites today as South Africa?

If 92% of the US population would be Negros, as in SA - you bet it would be the exact same.

 

[GLASNOST]

If 92% of the US population would be Negros, as in SA - you bet it would be the exact same.

Good point.

 

[Kruska]

What did Mandela do to get put in prison for 30 years?

He opposed a government that slaughtered blacks, took land from blacks and moved them to bantustans, passed laws so blacks could not vote, own property, and basically ran a fascist regime. Seem that whites like yourself forget what South Africans endured, and want to only use what YOU think these men would say. I am no racist for saying that whites in South Africa bought the animosity blacks have towards them on themselves. However, it is racist for whites to believe everybody else should just passively accept their aggression. I probably know more about King and Mandela than you and you seem to forget Mandelas opposition to Apartheid before he was put in prison. All you want to remember is his seeking reconciliation.

The question you need to ask instead of asking me what King and Mandela would say, even as King spoke reverently about the revolutions going on in Africa during his lfe, is this: Do you think any white nation would peacefully surrender to an inavding nation that stole the land from it's citizens, formed a government without giving those citizens the right to vote, remove people from their homes to reservation, forced people to work for companies extracting valuable minerals that were sent out of the country making people rich while paying the workers in those countries a pittance, made people carry ID cards they are forced to show on command and if they did not, a person could be jailed or worse, and basically ruled the streets by martial law? These are just a few things whites did to black South Africans and there are black south Africans living now who lived through all that. You ask me about Mandela and King, but you forgot Madelas wife Minnie. Then there is Steven Biko, Sharpeville and many other atrocities by whites against the blacks in that nation.

I think you need to remember what actually happened there before you call sombody a racist just because that person does't believe that blacks have to take abuse from whites with a smile.

What a load of never ending racist bull.

The government of RSA, that Mandela opposed - NEVER slaughtered Negros, neither did they murder thousands of Negro farmers, nor did they kill tens of thousands of their own people nor Negros every year, due to an exorbitant crime rate.

The RSA NEVER stole Negro lands (they factually created Negro-lands) - again you are bringing in a distortion of history, via referencing a British colony and e.g. Dutch/European colonialism (aka the two Boer Republics) that took place hundreds of years before the nation of South-Africa (aka the Union of South-Africa) was formed in 1910. And the Republic of South-Africa (RSA) was formed in 1962.

All WE did (we in reference to me being a former RSA citizen) was to oppose the ANC that was founded in 1912 and turned into a plain communist tool from the 50'ies onward. The same goes for communist supported terrorists and insurgents in regards to our neighboring countries and ANC terrorism conducted within the RSA. (Which BTW killed almost exclusively Negros, rather then Europeans). Since it was nothing less then a hidden tribal warfare and murdering amongst Negros (foremost illegal immigrants), themselves.

Neither me nor my family were ever in favor of Apartheid, neither were around 40% of the European population. But it is true to say that the vast majority of those Europeans who were against it, did not make use of violence to oppose it.

It was e.g. the ANC that "inspired" Negros to refuse from learning Afrikaans and attending schools that beheld Afrikaans as a first language. (Totally idiotic - since the language was essential in order to get a better education and thus obtaining a job - especially a higher paid job).
And rioters who use violent means and "weapons" to enforce their "political-agenda" - face and suffer the usual consequence when being faced with police and security forces. Not just in the RSA, but anywhere in the world until today.

To state that the murdering of approx. 30-45,000 Europeans since 1994, is a "valid" - "retribution" in regards to the former Apartheid policy only once again, shows your inherent RACIST conviction and distorted mindset.

And since you got no idea, as to what really happened in the RSA (see your bull story of you having played rugby against an RSA team, during Apartheid) - you refer to every non-Negro as being a supposed racist.