Even South Africa Thinks America Is Racist

Not very long ago, South Africa was the prima facie example of a racist nation. Though slavery there ended in theory in 1834, the enslaved africans simply became apprentices for four years until that program was ended in favor of migrant and forced labor which was slavery by another name. One might compare it to the United States which ended slavery in 1865, immediately transitioning to the Black Codes and then Jim Crow on 1877. In both countries, slavery continued long after it supposedly stopped.

America was heavilly invested in South African racism. Major American colleges and universities poured money into supporting apartheid with billions from their endowments. Between one-half and one-third of the S&P 500 did business in South Africa at one point in the ’80s, placing these companies among the best investments at the time. These were blue-chip stocks and steady earners that were key to the success of endowment funds. U.S. schools invested in the companies that invested in South African apartheid. It took student protests worldwide to shame corporations and nations to divest themselves of South African investments.

Nelson Mandela led the resistance to apartheid and was jailed in 1962, serving 27 years before his 1990 release amid growing domestic and international pressure and fears of racial civil war. Mandela and President F. W. de Klerk led efforts to negotiate an end to apartheid, which resulted in the 1994 multiracial general election in which Mandela led the ANC to victory and became president. What Mandela was unable to do was return the land to the rightful owners. South Africa remained the world’s best example of a minority white population controlling a majority Black nation. Black South Africans, who comprise over 80% of the population of 63 million, own only around 4% of private land.

In January 2025, South Africa enacted the Expropriation Act, seeking to undo the legacy of apartheid, which created huge disparities in land ownership among its majority Black and minority White population. In many cases the white landowners would not be compensated, unlike many American plantation owners who received reparations for their freed slaves after the District of Columbia Emancipation Act in 1962. Some American politicians including Donald Trump got upset at South Africa’s attempt to set things right, possibly because America has no intentions of ever doing so. They were joined by Elon Musk who was born and raised in South Africa, making him an expert on control of a nation by a racial majority.

In a recent interview, South Africa’s Ambassador to the United States Ebrahim Rasool clearly stated what American politicians can never admit.

“Donald Trump is launching is an assault on incumbency, those who are in power, by mobilizing a supremacism against the incumbency at home and … abroad as well.

The Make America Great Again movement was a response not simply to a supremacist instinct, but to shifts in US demographics in which the voting electorate in the USA is projected to become 48% white and that the possibility of a majority of minorities is looming on the horizon.

So that needs to be factored in, so that we understand some of the things that we think are instinctive, nativist, racist things, I think that there’s data that, for example, would support that, that would go to this wall being built, the deportation movement, etc. etc..

It’s no accident” that Elon Musk has involved himself in far-right British politics and that Vice President JD Vance met with the leader of a far-right German political party before the elections there.

That then begins to say what was the role then of Afrikaners in that whole project. Very clearly it’s to project white victimhood as a dog whistle.” — Ebrahim Rasool

In summary, MAGA is a response to the browning of America which has shaped American immigration policy, voting, and increased affinity for white supremacist groups.

The reaction from America was swift. Marco Rubio called Ambassador Rasool, “PERSONA NON GRATA,” which will likely lead to his expulsion from America.

““Ebrahim Rasool is a race-baiting politician who hates America and hates President Donald Trump. We have nothing to discuss with him and so he is considered PERSONA NON GRATA,” — Marco Rubio

What Rubio couldn’t say is that Rasool wasn’t telling the truth. He called out America for being a racist nation and was expelled as a result. While America will always be able to dig up a Tim Scott to proclaim America isn’t a racist country, or Byron Donalds who thought Black families were stronger under Jim Crow. It was refreshing to see an outsider see America and MAGA for what they are. Thank you, Ebrahim Rasool.

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This post was previously published on The Polis.

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