Why do 'born-frees' commit racist atrocities?

Can you blame parents for their kids' racism? Particularly when those kids are from just pre, or in the 'born free' (of Apartheid) era? Answer: Emphatically, yes! They rear the children on the mother's milk of racial hatred. Yet, there's a new and pathetic excuse of a refrain in town, and it goes: 'My son is not a racist.'

It's used when boys go into black townships and shoot only black people - and not for the first time, either. Go read here. As a psychologist, interviewed on the topic said, 'If someone took a weapon and went into any urban area, and randomly killed people of different groups, you could say it was an action free of racial bias. But when you intentionally go into an exclusively black area (Skierlik) and start shooting - that's racially underpinned.

Forget about post-traumatic stress and all sorts of other excuses. Most, if not all of we South Africans suffer from high stress levels, and many from post-traumatic stress. But do we all go out and behave like this? No. And these activities by a minority are fanning racial tensions.

At the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, a different, yet equally racist occurrence. Go read and see. University students supposedly protesting hostel integration. If you're not a racist, or at least ethno-centric, why is 'integration' a problem, fourteen years into supposed democracy in South Africa?

Protest integration if you must, but then have the cahunas to nail your colours to the mast and declare yourself to be what you are - an incorrigible racist. But why take middle-aged to elderly black women (supposedly your 'friends'), con them and utterly humiliate them? To the point where they conduct interviews with journalists away from their homes so they're not identified as the women made to do ludicrous things. Including consuming food, possibly contaminated by urine. Even if the rotten-minded dolt concerned did 'pretend' to pee in the food, it's indicative of a mind in need of serious re-education. Like many, many hours of community service in an informal settlement hospice for example....

Bad enough that this happens, but then a black journalist from Drum Magazine, in the Free State (oxymoron of note) to investigate and write on the matter, gets head-butted and beaten up in the men's room of a restaurant after being asked if he 'has a problem'. The perp asks fellow-urinators if they 'like kaffirs'. Do these people have any concept how this stuff is playing out internationally I wonder?

It's time for the individuals, or the parents of kids who do such things to understand the gross hypocrisy of which they're guilty. These are people who will largely be found taking Holy Communion in their churches. They may well be deacons or elders. They will proclaim Christ as their saviour. Yet they're dyed-in-the-wool racists - potentially beyond rehabilitation and with little or no intention of changing.
And that's why their children do what they do. If you watched the South African equivalent of the BBC 'Child of our Time' TV series, you'd have seen how little racists are reared. It was there for all to see and hear. They echoed mama and papa's bigotry and ethnic hatred, word for shocking word.

If you're reared in a home with decent values, a respect for diversity and a sense that all is a manifestation in some or other way of the one consciousness - including your Christ, good people - then you don't behave like this. Remember Jesus' statement: 'Inasmuch as ye do unto the least of these mine, ye do it unto me.' [Translation: You do it to them, you're doing it to me.]

Even if your opinion of the intellectual prowess, cultural norms, mores, habits and practices of other cultures is not the same that you accord your own culture or ethnic group, the key lies in respect for that diversity. You can learn from the differences. It will make you a bigger and better person. But only if you're willing to do so.

I hope the authorities bring down the hammer on these South African reputation-damaging people in the harshest possible way. Maybe it's time to enact special and draconian legislation for race-hate actions? Only when there are enormous penalties, will it impact upon the limited brains of some people. But then I guess they'll just become martyrs within their own community.

We've become a laughing-stock internationally as a result of parents who, as Kofi Annan famously said when speaking of the Rwandan genocide: 'Have the means (to change or intervene), but not the will'. Think about it.

Below are the "Stars" of the show as featured in the Star newspaper of Thursday 28th Feb '08. Oh, and hey....if you still haven't got the plot, a simple question: Do you think they would have done these things to their mother's friends? Not on your life. Therefore, racist thesis proven. The black women were 'unequal' enough to be the victims. Jesus must be real happy.

Comments

[George Annandale]

I was wondering if you ever posted a comment regarding racism in among people of color? Reason Im asking is the fact that your argument about racism seems to centre around whites commiting these atrocities. I would like to remind you of the worse atrocities being commited by blacks attacking whites on farms, a woman being raped and the getting her throat slit after the guilty party stole her cellphone or hijacked her car. Is it possible for you to perhaps enlighten us with your oppinion regarding these "roberies gone bad". Becuase at this stage some of the crimes being commited by black civilians seem borderline genocide.

Then I must also say as young male in South Africa racism is not something parent teaches a child, but in the current state in our country it is developing without being tought by parents or any adult from a older generation. Its is problem wich is in turn fault of the current political climate in our country because as white Afrikaner you are a exile in your own country and that happens when you have a government that consists of a black majority that discriminates agianst you racial group.

[Clive Simpkins]

Hi George! My instinct tells me that we won't agree on the topic. My posting is about racism - by post-independence young people.

Way more black people are victims of crime by black hoodlums, than are white. That's a fact of demographics.

I somehow don't believe the average young black thug is driven by racism. But rather by wanting to 'be' someone, money, greed, and possibly a bit of poverty thrown in.

Despite my views, I empathise with your concerns and disappointment. Genuinely so.