I have many less than fabulous traits. I'm impatient with people who are less intelligent. I sometimes lack tact. I have strong opinions, and I never fear sharing those opinions and defending them vehemently.
I suffer from insomnia sporadically, and I have bad eyesight.
But for all my problems, I don't suffer any apartheid angst.
Don't get me wrong - I know the system was wrong. It's just that I had no hand in it, and no way to stop it. Why should I beat myself up for it, or allow other people to?
The way I see it, if I am required to feel guilty for apartheid, then I should also feel guilty for what the Nazi's did. Or what the catholics who burned heretics in the middle ages did.
My involvement with either of those groups is, after all, as close as my direct involvement with apartheid, so why should that be any different?
The fact is that apartheid started a lot of the crap that we are seeing in SA today. No denying that.
But for the past 20 years, the dismal failure to create a fair, equal and non racist society in South Africa has been brought to you courtesy of the ANC (who, I should add for the record, I ALSO don't support.)
When I see the articles on here by white South Africans trying to palm the guilt of the people who created and supported apartheid off on me, I have to wonder what they are smoking.
Here's the thing: if I stole your car, then by all means, hold me accountable. If my brother / uncle / third cousin twice removed stole your car, then go after them, and leave me the hell alone. Otherwise, it's harrassment, and you, NOT me, are guilty of the crime.
I won't stop anyone from going after anyone that they can prove directly wronged them. But blaming all white people for apartheid is one thing, and one thing only: racist.
Until people realise that - and I mean both the racist black people looking to punish innocent people for a racist regime they had no part in, AND the white people who seem to think that just because they look like Hitler... ooops, I mean PW, they have to take responsibility for it, we're going in circles.
So whether you're trying to blame me because I look like people who harmed your family in some way, or because you've been guilted into it, don't bother. I won't accept the blame, any more than I will accept blame for Jeffrey Dahmer because he was white, or Daisy De Melker, because she was a woman.
People are individuals. There are good ones, and there are bad ones. Blanket classifications have a name. Racism.
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