Parallels between the lives led by Black South Africans and Black Americans
By Daphnie
This memorialization of what took place in South Africa forces accountability and sets the stage for repairing the wrongs done. In the US, there was no such attempt at reconciliation or restorative justice.
Apartheid cannot be compared to the slavery and Jim Crow laws of the US, but the some of the results are similar. Returning from the trip, I continue to think of the parallels between the lives led by Black South Africans and Black Americans. Both groups with limited options for quality education, reduced access to healthcare, facing discrimination, and denial of oppression. In the case of the US Jim Crow ended in 1965, nearly three decades before apartheid ended in 1994. And yet, the US is not strides ahead on its path to reconciliation. One could argue that the difference may lie in the motivations in ending these policies and laws – the US was under domestic pressure while South Africa’s pressure was international. But a possible explanation could be in the actions that were taken once the institutionalized racism ended.
At the end of apartheid, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission held hearings to allow for victims to record crimes committed against them and for perpetrators to confess. In some cases, it allowed for reparations to victims and amnesty under certain conditions to those who had committed crimes. This memorialization of what took place in South Africa forces accountability and sets the stage for repairing the wrongs done. In the US, there was no such attempt at reconciliation or restorative justice. Instead, there are arguments that slavery and Jim Crow were long ago, the people who perpetrated these atrocities are no longer are alive (although white Americans still benefit), and that reparations would be too difficult to determine.
It will be interesting to see how these two countries treat their marginalized populations in the future – will they continue to run parallel to each other? Will one country lap the other?