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My argument has never been that there isn't inequality. I know there is Based on the posts here, people just seem surprised that that is the case?
Maybe I'm just bad at explaining myself in my posts haha
What people are reacting to is based on averages. While white unemployment and poverty does exist the AVERAGE white person is much better off than the AVERAGE black person. There are still many legacies of apartheid that means that on average whites are more educated, more skilled, more experienced and are more likely to be embedded in social networks that allow them to leverage economic opportunity.
Does this mean that whites wake up each morning plotting to oppress blacks as a few commentators here imply? I suspect that their interactions with blacks will be more likely to aim at building alliances with the black political elites and the emerging black business/professional elites, in order to preserve the existing status quo. They know full well that blacks, numerically dominant, with a black political party (until recently) completely dominating the political environment, and even now not powerless, so they must be smart about their position in South Africa.
Are they wicked for wanting this? No more than humans are on the whole, because the emerging black elites are equally interested in improving their position by penetrating, integrating into, and eventually building a power position within this white dominated economic structure. The Mandelas aren't exactly struggling.
Now the tragedy of this is that the needs of the black majority are ignored and this has led to increasing levels of anger.
I am not sure that I will shed tears for the new white poor as many would have been very willing to be used as the club to beat back blacks during the apartheid years. So many didn't equip themselves to compete and now find themselves pushed aside by others who are more competitive.
I was just talking yesterday to a good friend who was born in South Africa (to missionary parents from the Netherlands) and is married to a man whose family has been in South Africa since the 1600s. They are both white. The question was why they decided to leave South Africa 15 years ago when she was pregnant with their first child, and relocate in the US.
She had nothing to say about danger or crime. In fact, their whole family of 5 just got back from a spending a month in South Africa visiting relatives. They go back every couple of years and do not seem to have any serious concerns about safety (although their son was bitten by a baboon while they were camping in Kruger).
The real issue was employment. Opportunities are not good for whites in South Africa. Affirmative action makes it very difficult for them to get a good job in South Africa, and, having gotten one, to keep it. White people are likely to be laid off because companies are required to have black employees. She said that often a position is "officially" held by a black person, but in their shadow is a white person doing most of the work and getting only a bit of the pay. Therefore, to support their family and to ensure a better future for them, they felt they had to leave.
I may have gotten some of this wrong but that is the gist of what she said.
I Affirmative action makes it very difficult for them to get a good job in South Africa, .
I may have gotten some of this wrong but that is the gist of what she said.
Well after generations of Apartheid what else does one expect? In fact the lack of open revenge for the abuse is to be admired. One can wonder if the shoe was on the other foot if such forgiveness would have happened.
Well after generations of Apartheid what else does one expect? In fact the lack of open revenge for the abuse is to be admired. One can wonder if the shoe was on the other foot if such forgiveness would have happened.
Well after generations of Apartheid what else does one expect? In fact the lack of open revenge for the abuse is to be admired. One can wonder if the shoe was on the other foot if such forgiveness would have happened.
We already know this so I'm curious why you keep hammering this point?
Because you always run away from this, except when you are blaming the ANC for this? Look at the various posts here by whites going on as if they suffer more than do blacks in SA.
SA will never solve the problem until there is honest discussion. I am amused that whites, who benefitted immensely from apartheid, whether they supported it or not, developing this victimhood mentality when a 1 second analysis of SA will show that whites still enjoy disproportionate advantages.
Imagine in an Africa nation a school run by whites so empowered that it forces black girls to chemically alter their hair (which costs money, time, and damages their hair in the long term). That is very bold I will suggest.
Why don't you add SA to the black genocide list too? Way more blacks are murdered.
In fact the most open bigotry by SA blacks is towards blacks from other parts of Africa. Yes, from nations which SUPPORTED them, at great cost at times, during the fight against apartheid.
I bet you more Somalis, Mozambicans, and Zimbabweans are attacked and killed than white South Africans.
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