Is Cape Town a racist city?

[CelticViking]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/26/is-cape-town-racist-city?newsfeed=true

[Kazimiera]

I think before a question like that can be answered one needs to look at who the population in the Cape consists of. I'll go through it all and it will probably explain itself as I go along.

White: White European of any descent

Coloured: Coloureds are descendants of the Khoisan tribes which were taken into captivity by Jan van Riebeeck, and also mixed with slaves from Malaysia and Indonesia. The range of facial features is very large. It goes from the typical yellowy wrinkly skin and peppercorn-type hair right up to long straight black hair and mongoloid eyes from Asia. Their religion is either Christian (taken over from the slave master) or Muslim (for those who came from Malaysia). They are NOT Black. They are a ethnic group by themselves and are very proud of it too.

Black: They are from the Niger-Congo region and migrated down to Southern Africa over a few thousand years, the lowest settlement being that of the Xhosa in the Eastern Cape.

Right, let the story begin:

The Cape was technically Khoisan (especially Strandloper) area as none of the Blacks had made it down there yet by the time JvR arrived. They were taken as slaves and worked on the farms as labourers. When Apartheid arrived the Coloured was given "grace". He was given better education and better jobs. They had their own neighbourhoods and schools. He was too dark to be white, but too light to be Black, so he became a class on his own, with own language and culture.

The Coloured always sided politically with the White man. Even if he grumbled a little but when it came to the vote, the Coloured always voted with the White. This is the reason why the Western Cape is run by the White Democratic Alliance and not by the Black ANC. The Coloured is a tiny minority which could never stand up on its own. So it has a choice whether to side with the White man or be eaten alive by the Black man. The White man treats the Coloureds with care because he knows if it came down to the vote, without the Coloured the Cape is doomed. So one can almost say that there is an interdependence between the two. And there is none so racist as a Coloured. They do not suffer from the "White Guilt" complex and are not afraid to say exactly what they think of the Black man. I have heard worse racist comments from a Coloured than from any White. But they are also clever enough not to say it too loudly.

Everyone knows where they fit in and goes about their daily business without too much fuss. Then arrives the ANC. The ANC promises all blacks that if they vote for the ANC in 1994 they will be houses, jobs and education for all. But how does the ANC get a majority vote in the Cape if there are only Whites and Coloureds who will vote for the opposition? They bring in the Blacks by the busload from the Eastern Cape. Suddenly there are squatter camps springing up everywhere and the Coloured is not happy to have a black man soiling his doorstep now.

Friction begins.

The Coloured has been working and living here for a couple hundred years. Now suddenly come busloads of Blacks from the Eastern Cape who will take away chances of education and jobs. The ANC won the 1994 vote but they did not (and have not ever) won over the Cape. And this has been a very sharp thorn in the side of the ANC since they came to power. Over the years they have increased the influx of Blacks into Western Cape to make for a stronger ANC vote, and with each election have been outvoted.

The White and Coloured feels that the Cape is theirs. There were no black people here in 1652 when JvR landed here. So when this man in the article says that blacks feel like a minority in their own country, I say BULLSHIT! They hadn't even ventured as far as the Cape yet and it belonged to the Khoisan! So if there is ever going to be a poster child for Cape Town, it's sure as hell going to be Gatiep with his missing front teeth and NOT a Black person.

Is Cape Town a racist place? I would say no. But it will fight to preserve what is it's own. They will always spin it as the big bad White man being horrible to the poor little Black man. It is very difficult to explain the Coloured to a non-South African and it's very much a hands-off area as far as the media is concerned, but I would say that much of the "discomfort" Blacks are feeling is coming from Coloureds and not from Whites. Although the media likes to take that spin on it. Chances of a Black man getting lynched in a Coloured neighbourhood are better than any white place in town.

As for the education. The Eastern Cape system is a huge fuck-up. Which is why they are all coming in their droves to the Western cape for a better education. And the only reason why Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki were from the Eastern Cape is because the Xhosa there and the ANC is Xhosa.

Besides, Thabo Mbeki has a degree in economics from the University of London.

I might still add on this a little tomorrow. The brain needs to rest after writing all that.