Are white South Africans inherently racist?
Really? I wouldn't even say that most of us are, and the younger generation less so than the older because they had real exposure to other races from childhood.Even some of the people who believed in apartheid weren't actually racist. Before you attack me, let me clarify: a lot of things that look good on paper really suck in practice. Apartheid was also called separate development, and the theory was that each culture should determine its own future, have its own land, etc. That doesn't sound too bad. Of course, when it came to carving up the resources and the land, things got really unfair, and the whole thing turned into a complete mess.It was then that racism really came to the fore in an attempt to pursuade white people that blacks wouldn't be able to run the country and needed to be cared for and controlled.Look, I'm not saying there weren't rabid racists, or even that most white people didn't support racist policies. The progs were always a minority back in the day. You had to keep your mouth shut at school if you had liberal ideas when I was a kid in the seventies. But you also have to remember that a powerful propaganda machine was at work.The press was censored, so we didn't even know what was going on in our country, and the fear factor was played on. “THEY will take everything you have and probably kill you into the bargain,” was the message. The fact that there were bombs going off in our city centers didn't help. We were terrified of terrorists, and there's no use in denying that there was terrorist activity, or that that the ANC was happy to claim responsibility.Today, white kids get exposure to peers of all races from an early age. We have free press, and are well-informed. It's harder to sell racist lies to people with first-hand knowledge.Generalizations are always odious (with the exception of this one). Even back in the worst times, not all whites were racist, and today, the racist white is a dinosaur who keeps his views to himself except when he thinks he is in like-minded company. That's because most of white society would openly object to racism.I hope you are now better informed.