1. the belief that races have distinctive cultural characteristics determined by hereditary factors and that this endows some races with an intrinsic superiority over others
2. abusive or aggressive behaviour towards members of another race on the basis of such a belief
I have just had the misfortune of reading the most unmitigated piece of drivel on why blacks cannot be racist and, while it was educated and referenced, it remains drivel. The writer says, quite correctly, that there cannot be reverse discrimination. He’s right; discrimination remains discrimination, regardless of the source.
So, let’s take this wonderful country of ours. I am fifty-nine years old, have worked all my life, started a business, bought my own house and educated both my sons to Master's (ooh, bad word that! Racist!) level, without any help from the Apartheid government, or this pathetic excuse for a government.
Now, as you’ll see from the definition above, taken from Collins Dictionary, blacks can be racist and, in fact, very often are. The ANC has its own form of institutionalised racism. It’s called BEE or BBBEE or whatever the hell they want to call it. What it means is that my oldest son is living in Canada, because he cannot get a job in South Africa. He loves it here, and would rather live here than anywhere else, but he can’t. Because he’s white.
In the so-called bad old days, jobs were advertised for ‘army leavers’, i.e. white. Nowadays, things have changed. Now it’s AA. The difference? None, except for the group being marginalised.
I have a view which is not very popular, but I’m going to voice it anyway: the difference between the National Party and the ANC, is the difference between the Nazis and the Soviets. Both were equally evil, but the one was super-efficient. I’ll leave it to you to guess which one the ANC is.
BBBEE was supposed to have put more power in black hands and it has, but it’s a black minority, and a small one at that. People like Kenny Kunene, who flaunt their ill-gotten gains, as if it’s praiseworthy. Zuma and his brood, who have become billionaires since he ascended to the president’s chair. I won’t say power, because he has none; all power is vested in the ANC. What he has is money and lots of wives, in addition to a population becoming poorer and more ill-educated by the day. When someone like Desmond Tutu says Bantu Education was better than what they’re serving up now, it’s time to listen.
Steve Tshwete was pilloried in the mid-nineties for allowing Mornantau Hayward to be selected for South Africa. He responded that Hayward was born and raised in a poor part of Despatch, in the Eastern Cape and, in his view that made him previously disadvantaged. He was correct in this, of course, but in the view of the ANC, only blacks qualify for that title, and by that they meant indigenous, African-language blacks, because Indians and Coloureds did not qualify.
There’s a Black Lawyer’s Association, a Black Business Chamber and so on, ad nauseum, but they say they’re not racist. Read the definition at the beginning of this article and see what you think. Freedom of Association is guaranteed by our constitution, but try pull that stunt if it’s for whites. They’ll have the HRC down around your ears before the paint dries on the sign.
I have a client who is a coloured businessman, and a highly successful one at that. He employs three whites in his organisation; everyone else is black or coloured. He recently lost his BEE certification. And that’s not racist?
Zuma, at the ANC conference, complained that the majority of the money is still in white hands. How is that not racist? Put the shoe in the other mouth, as it were, and say, the majority of the power is still in black hands. HRC, alright, and with not too much delay.
A few years ago, a survey was done, and it was discovered that, if you spread all the money in the world out evenly over the entire global population, each person on earth would land up with a million Dollars. And they further went on to say that, within five years, most of that money would be back in the same hands, with the obvious exceptions like pop stars and footballers, et al. But in a very short while later, they too would have the money.
And that is what has happened in South Africa. In my line of business, if I don’t work, I don’t get paid, which is a fair system. It would be good if they could do that to the politicians. Nevertheless, the majority of entrepreneurs in South Africa, are from the White, Indian and Coloured minorities.
The blacks are in charge, they control the government and the machinery of law, they are in a clear majority, yet they make laws to protect themselves from the minority.
It speaks of fear, or an inferiority complex , or just plain racism.