Racism still a feature of everyday life in SA - President Ramaphosa

• Published date: 23 May 2022
• Publication title: South African Official News

President Cyril Ramaphosa has used his weekly newsletter to the nation to speak against racism which is still part of the daily South African experience.

This comes after the Stellenbosch University urinating incident where a white student is seen in a video degrading and humiliating a fellow black student by urinating on his study material.

This incident caused widespread anger that such acts still take place in a country with a bitter past like South Africa, a past which the country fought so hard to overcome.

The President said it is more troubling that such incidents are happening at schools and places of higher learning, adding that a number of the people involved were born after the end of apartheid.

'While the incident at the University of Stellenbosch may seem like an aberration - an appalling act that has been roundly condemned - the truth is that racism is still a feature of everyday life in South Africa. The sooner we recognise that reality, the sooner we can change it,' the President said.

President Ramaphosa said that racism, here and around the world, is driven by feelings of superiority on the part of those who perpetuate it.

Athough racism can be directed against anyone, he said it is black people who bear the brunt, both in the past and in the present.

'As the 'Black Lives Matter' movement has so strongly asserted, we need to systematically dismantle and eradicate attitudes of white superiority,' he said.

The statesman said that it was encouraging and exhilarating to see young South Africans taking the lead in the effort to systematically eradicate racism.

He said that the thousands of students who have joined protests at Stellenbosch and elsewhere were not responding to just one incident but were responding to a deep and pervasive problem in society, which they themselves have to confront daily.

ing racism

'Ending racism is not just about changing attitudes; it is also about changing the material conditions that still today separate black and white South Africans.

'We have come too far and the sacrifices made have been too great for such appalling acts of racism to turn us against each other. Rather, we must use this incident to confront the issue of race and racial inequality in our society,' he said.

President Ramaphosa said that it is government's wish and expectation that the student population and the broader Stellenbosch university community, both black and white, find each other and rally together to confront racism honestly with courage and...