Apartheid in South Africa Essays

Apartheid “denied blacks national citizenship, ownership of land, and any voice in the nation’s government” (Macionis 256). The policy of apartheid is a racial caste system designed to keep the white minority leaders in power while oppressing the black majority as well as people of mixed-race and Asian descent. As a result of the apartheid, blacks were much poorer than whites, they could not receive jobs that paid well and also had less schooling than their white counterparts. Living under these conditions made it nearly impossible for blacks to move up in the world. Furthermore, if anyone resisted the apartheid rule, they would suffer great (often violent) consequences. But the consistency of resistance led to change and by the “mid-1980s…the South African government granted limited political rights to people of mixed race and Asian ancestry” (Macionis 256). One of the major leaders against apartheid was Nelson

Thesis Statement: Apartheid may have been a horrible era in South African history, but only so because the whites were forced to take action against the outrageous and threatening deeds of the blacks in order to sustain their power.

Black South Africans living in South Africa, had to endure fifty years of oppression and racial discrimination. Apartheid was a policy implemented by the South African government across South Africa. It was used to control the Black South African population since they make up the majority of the population. The government created Apartheid, due to their fear that the Black population will overthrow them. Living as a Black South African meant that they had to live a more oppressive and undesirable life.

Segregated schools and unfair resource distribution are systemic in the education system. Their effect is reflected in standardized testing gaps and drop-out rates. It is crucial to introspect and look at issues within the black community. The anti-intellectual culture within the community needs to change. Being and acting educated is labeled as “acting white” and stigmatized. The black community needs to strive hard to instill the value of education in their communities. Black people can succeed in more ways than being an entertainer or a sports

Majority of the educator were from Northern and Western institution and had no concerns of a Negro, they directed their attention to the majority, the whites. The educators taught the blacks that they were inferior and would be nothing more than what the oppressor wanted them to be. They were shorted out of genuine education, were taught less than whites, when in actuality they should be taught more than the white.

Black education was not legal until after the start of Reconstruction. Even with the right to attend school, because of discrimination, African Americans couldn’t get a proper education. The colored were seen as the inferior race towards the White Americans, and was perceived incapable of having the same rights. Therefore, African Americans went through many struggles and unfair treatment to receive equality in the educational system.

The promise of education ensures students for a more stable and healthier lives. As a democratic society, it gives the ability to strive for a successful future and provides the institutional foundations for economic, social, cultural, and political aspects of it. Though this can certainly provoke positive and negative outcomes. Education can either be a motivation for equality among races, or it can teach people to hate one another, leading them to compete with one another. It all began in the 1900’s with the idea of industrial versus equal education for all. Before the reconstruction era and civil rights movement, African Americans were being denied and limited to education. The social structure of education primarily focused on whiteness which led black students to advocate and protest for their rights. Reformers like Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois enforced the Mendez v. Westminster School District, the Brown v. Board of Education, and the Milikin v. Bradley bills that brought major changes to African American students. Meanwhile whites kept fighting for a way to disadvantage black students by having black and white schools separated.

Many black people did not have proper formal education as schools were also segregated with ‘black-only’ schools. They were discriminated as ‘white-only’ schools would have the best facilities, teachers, and resources, while ‘black-only’ schools would hardly have any resources and black people would be turned away from higher education as many courses such as law, medicine, etc… were in numerous ‘white-only’ colleges.

The avowal that the apartheid ‘vision for democracy’ necessitated state terror and repression is evident when examining the South African apartheid system between 1960 -1994. The system of apartheid spiked significant internal resistance, hence, the ideology for apartheid stems from the creation of a white state surrounded by economically interdependent and politically dependent black states, which required state terror and repression to ensure mounting resistance and international condemnation did not abolish the apartheid system. The government responded to a series of popular uprisings and protests with police brutality, which increased support for armed resistance. Detentions were set without trial, torture, censorship and the outlawing of political oppositional organizations such as The African National Congress, the Black Conscious Movement, the Azanian Peoples Organisation, The Pan Africanist Congress and the United Democratic Front, were all a result of the apartheid government due to political resistance.

The apartheid of South Africa was a time of constant fear and unknown and tested faith in the people who it continuously impacted.

Nelson Mandela, the first black South African president once stated, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. Moreover, he was unlike other competitors of his time. He heavily valued education and provided bountiful amounts of funding to expand the current education systems. Another well-educated African American in the book A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines was also a graduate who is obligated to educate the younger African American population in Louisiana. However, the near non-existent educational services provided down south skewed Grants mindset from Mandela’s.

Specifically in regards to education, the government targeted the wrong aspect once more. It employed affirmative in university admissions, but with little effect. Recall that the Extension of University Education Act made it illegal for blacks to attend universities without government permission. So when apartheid ended, all universities were open to blacks. But opening a university to blacks doesn’t mean they will attend, and it certainly doesn’t mean they will excel. Just like how apartheid left blacks unskilled and unqualified for jobs, it also left millions of black secondary school students unprepared for higher education. As shown in the figure below, the graduation rate for Africans was 24% lower than that of whites as of 2006. Figure 3: Graduation in regulation time, overall and by population group (%) (http://www.che.ac.za/sites/default/files/publications/Full_Report.pdf

South Africa really began to suffer when apartheid was written into the law. Apartheid was first introduced in the 1948 election that the Afrikaner National Party won. The plan was to take the already existing segregation and expand it (Wright, 60). Apartheid was a system that segregated South Africa’s population racially and considered non-whites inferior (“History of South Africa in the apartheid era”). Apartheid was designed to make it

Many of the contemporary issues in South Africa can easily be associated with the apartheid laws which devastated the country. The people of South Africa struggle day by day to reverse “the most cruel, yet well-crafted,” horrific tactic “of social engineering.” The concept behind apartheid emerged in 1948 when the nationalist party took over government, and the all-white government enforced “racial segregation under a system of legislation” . The central issues stem from 50 years of apartheid include poverty, income inequality, land ownership rates and many other long term affects that still plague the brunt of the South African population while the small white minority still enjoy much of the wealth, most of the land and opportunities

I have always thought that Nelson Mandela has been one of the most important people in history. I find it very fascinating that one man could end the Apartheid and that is why I want to find out more about this. South Africa is a country with a past of enforced racism and separation of its multi-racial community. The White Europeans invaded South Africa and started a political system known as 'Apartheid' (meaning 'apartness'). This system severely restricted the rights and lifestyle of the non-White inhabitants of the country forcing them to live separately from the White Europeans. I have chosen to investigate how the Apartheid affected people’s lives, and also how and why the Apartheid system rose and fell in South Africa.