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My apologies if this came across as tone deaf. I in no way mean to minimise the damage caused by apartheid, which was one of the great evils of the 20th century

My apologies if this came across as tone deaf. I in no way mean to minimise the damage caused by apartheid, which was one of the great evils of the 20th century. One of the challenges in writing is realising that no matter how hard you try, you will not be able to please every one. I spent a lot of time on this post, and it went through several revisions. In some versions I was harsher on the ruling party; in others I went into more detail about the brutality of colonialism and apartheid. As I acknowledged in the post, I have my own biases, and therefore encourage people to do their own research. I also provided a very short list of some of the terrible things associated with, or directly caused, by apartheid. I could certainly have expanded upon that, but then the post would have been about apartheid, and not the current state of the country. I could also have expressed more empathy for the suffering of the millions of people in the country who lack access to basic services, decent jobs, access to educational opportunities, etc. I have however become increasingly disillusioned by that type of writing, as it does not seem to have helped improve the situation. It is rather a style that I think helps to salve the conscience, at the expense of avoiding true self-reflection. A child comment to this points out that spatial apartheid is still very much a thing; I agree completely. I could have written about that; but that is not what I wanted to write about. I am more concerned by the fact that spatial apartheid still exists, and that little to no progress has been made in addressing it, than in the fact that a certain group of terrible people situated at a specific point in history were responsible for it. An unfortunate situation has arisen where any criticism of the current situation in the country is construed as 'minimising the damage of apartheid' or something similar, with the subtext that the critic is probably racist in some way (or just too privileged to understand). South Africans need to wake up to this - it is one of the primary ways that the ruling party has entrenched itself, and shuts down any criticism of itself.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
> An unfortunate situation has arisen where any criticism of the current situation in the country is construed as 'minimising the damage of apartheid' or something similar, with the subtext that the critic is probably racist in some way (or just too privileged to understand). I would suggest you meditate on an alternative reality where all the people who make the criticisms are in actual fact both racist and privileged. What would that look like? How could you tell? What if in other parallel worlds 25%, 50%, 75% of the people, or the things they say could be categorised as racist and/or privileged? In which of these worlds would complaining about how everyone complains about racism and privilege be a good look and a constructive contribution? In which of these worlds would the person saying it actually be saying something privileged and racist? I don't think 100% of white south Africans are privileged and racist 100% of the time when they have opinions on the running of their country, but 0% isn't my estimate either. I can see a range of answers that individuals have to that question being reasonable given their different life experiences.
- awanderingmind 4y ago
  I think I sort of agree with you?
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    Yeah, I got that from the post that's what prompted my original comment. It felt like you were falling into the common trap of seeming angrier about "people complaining about X" than "X" even as you mentioned that X was bad. The mentions of great crimes all seemed a bit remote and dry, whereas the accusations of people being overdefensive and deflecting using it as an excuse seemed a bit more heartfelt. I think from the inside it can be hard to judge that balance and put yourself in the position of someone who might weight things differently. A problem of "privilege" which you bring up, but don't seem to be swayed by, though I've never met anyone who thinks it doesn't apply to other people.
alienthrowaway 4y ago
> One of the challenges in writing is realising that no matter how hard you try, you will not be able to please every one. I spent a lot of time on this post, and it went through several revisions. Yours was one of the better takes, and I mostly agree with what you have to say - I especially appreciate your self-awareness around biases (I have my own). I should clarify that didn't take issue with the entire article, I was mostly reacting to the sentences that implied, as I read it, that the period of formal Apartheid was brief, and an improvement over the previous colonial period (as quoted by gp) - those ideas sound absolutely tone deaf to me. edit: > An unfortunate situation has arisen where any criticism of the current situation in the country is construed as 'minimising the damage of apartheid' or something similar You misunderstand me, I think, and possibly doing a great disservice to your article and the discussion it spawned if you're reducing my criticism to just that. I tried to clearly state why I thought you minimized specific aspects; and it's not because I wanted you to adopt a tone of atonement, or for something I wished you had written. I took issue with 2 specific ideas, which in all suggest that Apartheid wasn't a big deal. Perhaps we should discuss the specific criticism rather than be pulled into a generic race-relations meta-discussion? What I disagreed with, in point form: 1) The idea that Apartheid was brief. 50 years is a long time in politics; Apartheid spanned >90% of both my granddads' productive years, 100% of my dad's education (including college) as well as his early and mid-career, and a small part of my early education. I count 3 generations directly impacted. 2) The idea that Apartheid was a long time ago. As you can imagine based off what I said in (1), the effects are still very present to me, and I'd like to think I'm not that old. This doesn't absolve the government, but it is true nonetheless. Politicians deflect blame everywhere, but just because politicians like to ham-up Apartheid's effect doesn't mean we cannot have a nuanced, honest take. That said, South Africa was built on the foundation extractive industries and cheap labor. The end of Apartheid did not change that; the only thing that changed was the introduction of the black ruling elite, and a modest increase in the size of the non-white middle class. The levels of inequality are dangerously high, and people seem concerned about it, until you ask them how much they pay the help (this goes across all races, BTW). The TRC was fine and all, equal attention should have been given to national cohesion, people are unwilling to look out for each other, even for their own sake, in the long term.
- 4y ago

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

> An unfortunate situation has arisen where any criticism of the current situation in the country is construed as 'minimising the damage of apartheid' or something similar, with the subtext that the critic is probably racist in some way (or just too privileged to understand). I would suggest you meditate on an alternative reality where all the people who make the criticisms are in actual fact both racist and privileged. What would that look like? How could you tell? What if in other parallel worlds 25%, 50%, 75% of the people, or the things they say could be categorised as racist and/or privileged? In which of these worlds would complaining about how everyone complains about racism and privilege be a good look and a constructive contribution? In which of these worlds would the person saying it actually be saying something privileged and racist? I don't think 100% of white south Africans are privileged and racist 100% of the time when they have opinions on the running of their country, but 0% isn't my estimate either. I can see a range of answers that individuals have to that question being reasonable given their different life experiences.

awanderingmind 4y ago
I think I sort of agree with you?
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Yeah, I got that from the post that's what prompted my original comment. It felt like you were falling into the common trap of seeming angrier about "people complaining about X" than "X" even as you mentioned that X was bad. The mentions of great crimes all seemed a bit remote and dry, whereas the accusations of people being overdefensive and deflecting using it as an excuse seemed a bit more heartfelt. I think from the inside it can be hard to judge that balance and put yourself in the position of someone who might weight things differently. A problem of "privilege" which you bring up, but don't seem to be swayed by, though I've never met anyone who thinks it doesn't apply to other people.

alienthrowaway 4y ago

> One of the challenges in writing is realising that no matter how hard you try, you will not be able to please every one. I spent a lot of time on this post, and it went through several revisions. Yours was one of the better takes, and I mostly agree with what you have to say - I especially appreciate your self-awareness around biases (I have my own). I should clarify that didn't take issue with the entire article, I was mostly reacting to the sentences that implied, as I read it, that the period of formal Apartheid was brief, and an improvement over the previous colonial period (as quoted by gp) - those ideas sound absolutely tone deaf to me. edit: > An unfortunate situation has arisen where any criticism of the current situation in the country is construed as 'minimising the damage of apartheid' or something similar You misunderstand me, I think, and possibly doing a great disservice to your article and the discussion it spawned if you're reducing my criticism to just that. I tried to clearly state why I thought you minimized specific aspects; and it's not because I wanted you to adopt a tone of atonement, or for something I wished you had written. I took issue with 2 specific ideas, which in all suggest that Apartheid wasn't a big deal. Perhaps we should discuss the specific criticism rather than be pulled into a generic race-relations meta-discussion? What I disagreed with, in point form: 1) The idea that Apartheid was brief. 50 years is a long time in politics; Apartheid spanned >90% of both my granddads' productive years, 100% of my dad's education (including college) as well as his early and mid-career, and a small part of my early education. I count 3 generations directly impacted. 2) The idea that Apartheid was a long time ago. As you can imagine based off what I said in (1), the effects are still very present to me, and I'd like to think I'm not that old. This doesn't absolve the government, but it is true nonetheless. Politicians deflect blame everywhere, but just because politicians like to ham-up Apartheid's effect doesn't mean we cannot have a nuanced, honest take. That said, South Africa was built on the foundation extractive industries and cheap labor. The end of Apartheid did not change that; the only thing that changed was the introduction of the black ruling elite, and a modest increase in the size of the non-white middle class. The levels of inequality are dangerously high, and people seem concerned about it, until you ask them how much they pay the help (this goes across all races, BTW). The TRC was fine and all, equal attention should have been given to national cohesion, people are unwilling to look out for each other, even for their own sake, in the long term.

4y ago