By Mike Smith
16th of May 2016
When you look at white South Africans then you will see that most of them are liberal. Even the ones who are right or conservative employ black farm workers, black domestic maids and gardeners and blacks in their businesses. It is the way it has always been. I grew up with it like that and it is still like that.
These whites for the most part treat their black workers very well. Farmers will build houses for them where they live free. Farmers will take the workers to the beach on hot days. Whites will buy school clothes, books and stationary for the children of their domestics and gardeners and even give them groceries and food. If you take a look at white churches you will see that they are constantly collecting clothes and groceries for blacks in the townships. I know, because back in the days when I was a liberal idiot I did it too.
I had two gardeners and sometimes when the work was too much a third one. I used to pay them double the normal going rate and if they did an exceptionally good job, I would give them a small bonus. After a hard day’s work I would braai some chops and boerewors for them and give them some beers. I would then take them back to the township in my Merc. When my first wife was still alive she was a deacon in the church and involved with collecting clothes and distributing food parcels in the black townships.
So what changed me?
One hot day after I took the three gardeners back to the township and got home I quickly wanted to vacuum my car. On the floor behind my seat I discovered a rusted “Minora” razor blade. Many things went through my mind. How did it get there? It wasn’t there this morning. What could somebody do to me with a razor blade from behind whilst I was driving? What would the other two do? Why would they want to do it after I have treated them always well, with respect and dignity and paid them so well?
One thing was clear; I could NEVER trust them again and within a moment all three were jobless. They never worked for me ever again. The black maid went soon after. Four people without a job. Yesterday marked 13 years without any maid or gardener for me. I do it all myself.
The benefits were enormous and almost instantaneous. I discovered that with a washing machine, tumble dryer, dishwasher and vacuum cleaner you actually don’t need a maid. Suddenly my tea, coffee, sugar and milk seemed to last forever. Soap, washing powder, dishwashing liquid, everything seemed to last ten times longer. My cheese didn’t mysteriously get smaller every day, the tomato sauce bottle seemed bottomless, packs of chicken, meat, sausage and mince in the refrigerator didn’t mysteriously disappear. The saving was enormous.
However it is an eye opener when reality sinks in and you realise how you were robbed for over a decade by somebody you trusted, did so much for and treated as a member of the family. You feel naive. Done in. Stupid. Then comes the point where you are simply glad that it is over. Today I still shudder when I think about that razor blade in the back of my car. They could have slashed both my carotid arteries within a second. The maid could have slowly poisoned the entire family to death.
Today I don’t employ any blacks. I don’t help them at all. I don’t tip them at restaurants or petrol stations. I don’t give any car guard money, I don’t give money to beggars at traffic lights or when they ring the doorbell. I don’t buy any of their shit at traffic lights, at stalls or tourist destinations. I try to have as little to do with them as possible. To me, they are for all intents and purposes invisible.
Sometimes people try to make me feel guilty and say, “Ahh come on Mike, he/she did a good job. Give them a tip!”, but I refuse, because every now and again something happens that confirms my beliefs. Take last week with the death of liberal Afrikaans author Winnie Rust (77) in Wellington who wrote mostly about extraordinary black and coloured women and black and coloured "suffering" under Apartheid's forced removals, etc.
Murdered by a man she helped
Well known South African author brutally murdered in Wellington
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| Winnie Rust |
Her coloured maid Rachel Jones who worked for her for 20 years was not there at the time. She said the day before Winnie gave her a bag of apples and a blue umbrella and told her that winter was coming and she didn’t want Rachel to get cold and wet. Rachel mentioned how Winnie installed a shower for her in her township home and personally came to her daughter’s matric farewell and wedding to take the photographs herself.
There are many moral and ethical reasons why one should not help blacks. First of all, your life comes first. If Winnie Rust never tried to help this guy she would probably be alive today. Secondly, the moment you try to help them, build schools, churches or hospitals for them you are racist, because you are telling them that they are incapable of helping themselves. You tell them they are incapable of educating themselves and their Sangoma medicine is inferior to your white western medicine. Their religion is bad and therefore they should convert to your Christianity, etc…
Further, why help them any further when they talk hate speech against whites all the time?
Yesterday in Gugulethu near Cape Town, the racist EFF millionaire Julias Malema said Rich whites in the suburbs should pay the electricity and water bills of the blacks in the townships and help build houses for them because they benefitted from Apartheid.
Nothing new. Malema should wake up, because this is exactly what whites have been doing in South Africa even under Apartheid up until today. This cross-pollination of resources was always my biggest problem with Apartheid.
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| Julias Malema |
According to Malema, lots of blacks are poor, because “The Boers of the Apartheid regime prevented them from going to school.”
“It is high time that they should shame themselves for their wealth. Let those who benefitted from Apartheid show remorse. They always say they are sorry, but sorry is not enough. They must pay.”
So the Boers prevented blacks from going to school?…Of course Malema is talking out of his arse.
In an article called “Die Afrikaner” 11 Feb 1987, the quarterly magazine called “Vox Africana Nr 29 4/87 stated that,
South Africa had 4,8 million whites and 18,2 million blacks in 1987. The whites paid 77% of the taxes and the blacks only 15%...despite this...56% of the government budget was spent on blacks.
Since 1970 the budget for black education was raised by about 30% per year every year. More than any other government department.
In the period 1955 -1984 the amount of black school students increased 31 times from 35,000 to 1,096 000.
65% of black South African children were at school compared to Egypt 64%, Nigeria 57%, Ghana52%, Tanzania50% and Ethiopia 29%.
Amongst the adults of South Africa, 71% could read and write (80% between the ages 12 and 22). Compare this to Kenya 47%, Egypt 38%, Nigeria 34% and Mozambique at 26%.
In South Africa, the whites built 15 new classrooms for blacks every working day, every year. At 40 children per class it meant space for an additional 600 black students every day!!!
In 1985 there were 42,000 Blacks at 5 universities in South Africa, about the same amount at the universities of the homelands.
I think if anybody wants to do a good deed then please show Malema how to wet his beret with hot water and wear it properly, two fingers above the eye brows and the flash above the left eye, because every time I see the stupid bastard I want to pull that red beret off his thick head and slap the idiot with it.
