Racism and Desmond Mpilo Tutu

In the 1930’s it was rare for a black South African to attend college. But Mandela not only attended, he graduated, got a degree from law school, and set up a practice in Johannesburg which he hoped could support his small family. Yet apartheid was always a humiliation to him. When the Afrikaner, or Dutch South African, Nationalists came to power in the 1948 election, the segregation habits of the past three hundred years became law. Hoping for a brighter future, Mandela joined the African National Congress (ANC) and became its first Youth Leader.

Racism, discrimination and degradation faced by Blacks and other ethnic minorities under the apartheid system was not unlike the segregation and intimidation faced by African-Americans in the Jim Crow south. Jim Crow system of segregation that kept Blacks from fully participating in public and civic activities and relegated African-Americans to substandard conditions at work, school and even in the home. Blacks in South Africa were under the clutches of an overt, national policy of racism and segregation implemented by the country’s highest level of government. Civil and human rights abuses of Blacks in South Africa at the hand of the country’s white minority occurred long before apartheid officially began, but the system’s official start brought strict, sweeping laws such as the rule that all persons in South Africa to be categorized as white, Black, colored and Indian, without exception. Like in the U.S. during Jim Crow, Blacks and whites were not allowed to marry and sexual relations between members of different races was a criminal offense.

The Apartheid was initiated as a ploy for Europeans to better control the exploited populations for economic gain, as maintaining tension between the different racial classifications diverted attention from the Europeans as it fed hatred between groups. This assisted in minimizing unity between the exploited to rally against European control as it backhandedly induced “submission” for survival. One way of accomplishing this was by instilling laws that’d force segregation, classification, educational “requirements”, and economic purposes. The Population Registration Act of 1950 enacted, requiring segregation of Europeans from Afrikaans . Following shortly, the Group Areas Act of 1950 was enacted as a new form of legislation alongside the Population Registration Act. This detailed act separated tribes based on ethnics; consequently, further detailing segregation amongst the natives .

Throughout history in America there has always been the idea of racism. When Americans think of racism, they usually think of slavery and that racism is no longer a problem in America. However, this is not the case. Racism is still very apparent in America. It is true that since the end of slavery, the U.S. has made great strides towards becoming a less racist country. In reality, racism will never be extinct. In today’s society, all American citizens of all races have the same rights as one another, yet there is still racism. Racism can be linked directly to stereotypical mindsets of certain groups of people. It is human nature to make conclusions about other people, this is what leads to racism. Today’s racism is not limited to whites

Archbishop Desmond Tutu was one of these people and Doc 7 showed a 1984 speech to the United Nations Security Council where he addressed the possibility of a new society for all people in South Africa. 1984 was the year P.W. Botha became president and began his police state and South Africa was still yet to see the worst atrocities of the Apartheid struggle. Tutu believed that the only reason the whites in South Africa were cruel to the blacks was because they were scared; they were outnumbered and after the ancestors of the white population had fought against the natives for decades their fear was only reinforced through stories of the barbaric Africans. They were also scared that if given the opportunity the blacks would drive them out of South Africa and out of their land of birth. Tutu suggested a new nation in which all people were equal as they were created in the image of god and where the government was truly democratic. Because Desmond Tutu had lived through the entire period of Apartheid and was a leader of the back christian community in South Africa he would have seen and understood the feelings the people of South Africa had toward Apartheid. He would have also strived to implicate Christian beliefs of equality back into the hearts of the white people and end the use of violence. One year before Desmond Tutu's speech a new political party formed called the United Democratic Front. This party was a non-racial and anti-Apartheid organization which specifically opposed the Tricameral parliament which allowed coloured and asian south Africans minimal representation while the black population was still excluded. The Poster for the United Democratic front shown in Doc 9 gave an image to the blacks in South Africa that

The history of the United States in regard to racism and discrimination is no secret. Children are taught about segregation, slavery, and the Civil Rights Movement like the events were purely in the past. In part the events were in the past; however, the results of said events are not. As Americans, we live in a nation with a rough history and, in order to keep growing together, we cannot forget what has happened. Granted, racism is not extinct, but it is most definitely not the norm it was 50 years ago. Many people are not aware of how much racism still exists in our schools, workforces, and anywhere else where social lives are occurring. According to Derrick Bell’s book, Faces at the Bottom of the Well, Bell uses fiction stories to show that racism still exist but has a different form. In American society, racism is still evident today in racial symbols, covert racism and affirmative action.

In 1993, Nelson Mandela was elected the first multi-racial president of South Africa. During his term, he created a new constitution of law that declared majority rule and South Africa became racially united. Every race was granted their human rights in South Africa thanks to the hard work and struggles of Nelson Mandela, and his work was recognized nationally. Nelson Mandela later worked on economic improvement within South Africa and focused on issues such as poverty and AIDS.

It was now that Nelson Mandela voted for the first time in his life alongside with all the citizens of a stronger and more unified state of South Africa.

Faith and love are integral parts of the King community and Christianity in general. Social justice is a product sparked by the combustion of these two elements. Sitting in my Zimbabwean primary school, I learned about the history of South Africa and apartheid; these laws left South Africa covered with dark clouds. However, a light shines its brightest in darkness, so as my teacher revealed the extraordinary life of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, I felt inspired and saw the good in the world.

“Awaking on Friday morning, 20 June 1913, the South African Native found himself, not actually a slave, but a pariah in the land of his birth” (Gish 18). Desmond Tutu is one of the greatest rabble-rousers for peace that there ever was. He maintains huge political and religious influences even to this day. Most people in South Africa and many more countries hear his voice. His impact on fixing the apartheid system in South Africa was a major one. This apartheid system was very segregated towards whites and blacks in South Africa. Blacks were being forced to move to so-called “homelands.” The blacks had very little land to live with such many people. These people were being oppressed only because they had a different skin color then white

Desmond Mpilo Tutu known fondly as the Arch , was born in Klerksdorp on 7 October 1931, and a survivor of prostate cancer. Tutu is a said to be a South Africa Human Rights Activist who came to be very famous in the 1980’s by fighting on legal racial segregation. Racial segregation is the separation of different kinds of humans into racial groups. South Africa was one of the African countries that practiced apartheid; it was practiced where by the ruling power did not provide the rights of citizenship to black people of South Africans. During this times the government who were the white colonizing the South Africans black people had been practicing the system of apartheid. This was a system whereby they had separated races into different classes. All South Africans were legally assigned to an official racial group the whites and the black’s majority; each race was restricted to separate living areas or neighborhoods and separate public facilities like hospitals and schools. The white South Africans were permitted to vote in national elections and the black South Africans were only represented in the local governments of remote areas or regions "tribal homelands." Also interracial marriage was forbidden, and blacks were legally banned from certain jobs and from forming any labor organizations. At this times it was passports were required for travel within the country and the blacks were not allowed public speaking. Despite of the apartheid era that ruled south Africa for

The Mixed Marriages Act made marriage between the races against the law (Evans, 9). In 1952 a system of “pass laws” required blacks to carry identity papers or pass books so the government could identify and restrict them (Wright, 68). The “pass laws” were designed to separate the population and was the base of the apartheid system (“History of South Africa in the apartheid era”). Apartheid had a major effect on the development of South Africa.

Nelson Mandela was the man who abolished Apartheid, freeing South Africa from the binds of racial segregation forever. However, it was not an easy road and Mandela needed patience, strength of character, focus, passion, understanding, perseverance, and most importantly, forgiveness, to achieve this. For more than forty years, black South Africans were subject to the harsh racial segregation of the Apartheid system; despite making up over 70% of South Africa’s population, they had little to no rights.

Desmond tutu wanted to stop the discrimination in africa but he did not want to do it in a violent and bad way so he did it in a peaceful way and the first thing he did was to not live in the same neighborhood that the dean lived which was a white one and went to live in the area where the black people lived

Imagine being systematically oppressed from the moment you exited the womb. All your civil rights, based on the amount of melanin in your skin. Drinking from the wrong water fountain, could even get you thrown into jail. Coincidently; this was the life, of black South Africans from the moment of Dutch colonization in 1652, to the first true democratic election in 1994. Apartheid, meaning “separateness” in Afrikaans; was legal segregation enforced by The National Party (NP) from 1948 to 1994. It legally imposed preexisting policies of racial discrimination on the Majority of the South African population. The entire basis of the racist policies, was the darker your complexion the less legal rights you had. Presumably this injustice, could have continued much longer if it weren’t for all involved in the fight against the NP, however the man who arguably contributed the most, was Nelson Mandela. He ended an apartheid, with both his philanthropy and political prowess. He united a nation that used to be segregated; which seemed a daunting task at the time, but through the sweat and bloodshed he achieved the impossible. This alone exhibited his heroic characteristics, but to be more precise: both his actions and inactions lead to his success. Furthermore, Mandela was both a strong leader and forgiving at the same-time. Being in the forefront of the abolishment movement, was an extremely risky move during the apartheid. He risked his life for what he believed in, and this personal