I was born in 1968 and grew up in South Africa. For 42 years preceding 1990, obscene men took control of government and enacted and violently enforced morally repugnant racist laws collectively known as apartheid. In the late ’80s and into the ’90s, when I was starting to get a sense of the politics of the country, I used to watch the news night after night and see these leaders defending their actions, spewing lie after disgusting lie as easily as they took breath.
A key component of apartheid was reserving certain jobs for white people only. Using much the same arguments as those offered by slave owners over a century earlier, the menial, unskilled and poorly paid jobs were seen as appropriate for “lower people,” like Blacks, colored and Indians. Black jobs!
After 1994, I never thought I would ever have to hear this kind of racist nonsense again … and yet … and yet in America in 2024(!) we are being told that undocumented immigrants are coming across the border (“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you.”) and that these “not the best people” are taking the only jobs they can … you know, Black jobs. Ugh!
Many people voted for the apartheid government in election after election after election. We didn’t know who they were, but we knew what they were.
Frans Bicker Caarten
Park City