keep the different racial groups in complete separation from one another. The obvious result is that they have developed prejudices, complexes and suspicions about one another. They are competing for favors from the powers that be. There is differentiation in living conditions, social amenities and salary scales.
The bulk of the black people, moreover, have accepted their degenerate status. The pride of peoplehood in them has been shattered. They have more than just accepted their lot, for some even help to destroy their worth as human beings. They are being resettled in droves; and 13 per cent of the land, and that the most uneconomic, is allocated for their use.
South Africa uniquely demonstrates that a powerful minority will perpetuate social indignities even on the labor force of a vigorously expanding economy. Civic status is determined at birth and for life by color. Whether he is a wage earner, a businessman, an intellectual or a chief, no black can be admitted to the national Parliament.
The black person has been "uprooted, pursued, baffled, doomed to watch the dissolution of the truths that he has always treasured." As a result of this antimony that coexists with us blacks, we can draw two conclusions--that white men consider themselves superior to black men, and that black men want to prove to white men at all costs the equal value of their intellect. This is to be regretted. It is a negative way of expressing one's values. It creates the unfortunate impression that all values are white-oriented and all standards are white-determined. This I cannot accept. I believe that we have values and standards which are bound to be different from those of the whites simply because the whites enjoy the privileges of which blacks are robbed. There cannot be much in common between the two peoples in that situation of imbalance. I am not aspiring to be equal to a white man but I am determined to establish my worth as a God-created being. I have to assert my being as a person.
I realize that all this may be very theoretical. One has
(copyright 1978 by Donald Woods)