Double Standards on Racism in South Africa

The Reitzhuis incident of 2008 made the international press.

For many it apparently brought back the ghostly memories of apartheid in South Africa - white, Afrikaans students forcing black cleaning staff to kneel and eat with their hands behind their backs. the food in question had apparently been soaked in the boys' urine.

It turned out, of course, that the whole thing was a prank. The cleaners taking part were laughing and unharmed; the 'urine' turned out to be orange cordial. The video was actually satirising the ruling ANC's ongoing bid to remove white South Africans from every position of power and influence in the country.

Well, in 2009 something remarkably similar happened - only in reverse. At Parktown Boys High, a fee-taking boarding school in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, black students have been accused of subjecting white boys to barbaric initiation rites, including beatings with cricket bats.

Here is the full story from Anton Barnard writing in Praag:

At no stage were the cleaners physically harmed, in contrast to the brutal beatings with cricket bats that boys like Pene Kimber’s son suffered.

Ms Kimber said during a TV interview that her son’s buttocks were covered in black bruises after the incident. In stark contrast, none of the Reitzhuis “victims” even thought of complaining, simply because they hadn’t been harmed. It was a student who was not involved in the original incident who stumbled across the video and whose complaint started the storm of controversy.

Possibly because the students at Reitzhuis were Afrikaners and their unhurt (and I want to emphasize: UNHURT) “victims” black, however, there was an orgy of condemnation from all and sundry, including the international press. The left and their sycophantic media had a field day by hysterically and in unison screaming “racism.”

The ANC regime promptly instituted a commission of inquiry, which predictably concluded that all universities were infested by unrepentant white racists. Coloured academic Jonathan Jansen, an unapologetic critic and even hater of Afrikaners, was made rector of the university, possibly to teach those Afrikaner “racists” a lesson.

Fast forward from February 2008 to February 2009. During a similar incident, this time at an upper class English-speaking academic institution (Reitzhuis was Afrikaans-speaking), the black head boy, Kaizer Tabane, of Parktown Boys was one of the ring leaders of the attacks on Ms Kimber’s white son and other victims. He was admittedly later stripped of his responsibilities.

As far as I could ascertain, however, very few people viewed this as a racial incident. There were no headlines in the New York Times calling Tabane a racist and condemning his action. This is illogical in the light of the Reitzhuis outcry, given that the ringleader at Parktown Boys, the head boy, Kaizer Tabane, was black, and his victims included whites. On the other hand, bias against a group such as Afrikaners is almost always illogical.

The reaction and hypocrisy of the headmaster and some of the parents at Parktown Boys are also noteworthy. Whereas almost all callers to radio talk shows in the aftermath of the Reitzhuis video were unanimous in their shrill condemnation, many of the parents and old boys of Parktown Boys seem to want this incident kept silent. Many of them, in anonymous press interviews and calls to radio stations, want this incident to be handled “internally” (read: “swept under the carpet.”) The headmaster shows all the signs of somebody who desires a swift cover-up, accusing the press of bias against him.

Once again: when white, Afrikaans students play a prank in which nobody is physically harmed, it is “racism” and it reaches the front pages of the international press.

When a black is a ringleader of a brutal attack on white victims at an English-speaking school, the headmaster and parents want it covered up and handled internally. There is very little outcry in the liberal press.

Call me excessively Afrikaans, but this reeks of the utmost hypocrisy and bias against Afrikaners on the part of the local and international media.

I think this quite adequately displays the media's blatant and vile hypocrisy in such situations; I can still remember the condescending tone of the BBC reporter who covered the Reitzhuis story back in 2008.

'These vile racists will never learn', he seemed to be saying, whilst shaking his head sadly.

Of course, I am not surprised. The media manages to pretty much ignore the orgy of brutal violence which white South Africans are subjected to on a daily basis, as well as its blatant racial aspect - so why not ignore this, too?