LEMON DROP | An American Apartheid?!
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Is Donald Trump fast-tracking white South African farmers as refugees?
So, you know, recently Donald Trump has made this exception where he says, you know, he doesn't want immigration, but now he wants it, especially if it is white people, white Afrikaners. As a matter of fact, he's allowing white South African farmers, giving them a fast track. to come into the country. They're claiming that they are victims of quote, unjust racial discrimination and genocide. As a matter of fact, I spoke to, I'm gonna play this before I bring in my next guest. I spoke to Elon Musk about this a year ago. He brought it up on his own. I was surprised, here it is. South Africa, I mean, look at what happened with apartheid. It seems to me that you should be someone who is more understanding of that considering where you came from, considering your history.
Yeah.
There's a slow white genocide going on in South Africa. Do you care about that? So that was Elon Musk a year ago saying there was a slow white genocide going on in South Africa and asking me if I care about it. So what is going on here? Is there any truth to that? Is it a racist conspiracy or fear mongering? What is it? So to get to the bottom of this, I wanted to speak to an expert, someone who can actually report on what's going on in South Africa. And that is Simon Allison, the co-founder of the Continent magazine based in Johannesburg. Thank you for joining us. Hi there, Don. So when you hear that, and Donald Trump, our president here in the United States, also claiming that, is there a white genocide going on in South Africa?
And if not, where is this notion coming from?
Well, Don, if there is a slow genocide of white people going on in South Africa, as Elon Musk claims, it is very slow. very, very slow. I wrote some statistics down. One, that's the number of farmers that were killed in the last quarter of last year in South Africa. And of course, all this has to do with the alleged persecution and violence against white Afrikaner farmers. That is apparently such a scourge in our society that the United States is having to sort of bend all its rules hire private planes to bring these persecuted people to safety in the United States. And from the perspective of those of us sitting in South Africa, myself as a white South African, it's hard to see this white genocide anywhere.
In fact, you can argue that the opposite is true, that even 30 years after the end of apartheid, which was a white supremacist state, it is still very privileged to be a white person in this country.
Why does it seem like South Africa occupies a very special place in the imagination of white supremacists? Why are they so obsessed with South Africa?
Well, I think it's two reasons. The first is that South Africa is the most recent example of a successful, sophisticated, white supremacist state. Apartheid only ended in 1994. That was not very long ago. 31 years. That is in my lifetime. It's in most of our lifetimes. We remember what that looks like. And don't get me, you know, we forget so easily. that it was a sophisticated state, that it was incredibly technologically adept. It developed nuclear weapons. It had advanced military systems. It was the sort of aspirational model of what a white supremacist state looks like if you are wanting to create similar structures in your own country. That's reason one. Reason two is that so much of the sort of white supremacist ideology
Philosophy ideology is based on this idea that, well, white people are victims, that they are being persecuted, that white people are suffering. You know, it's pretty hard to find any evidence of that. One of the few places where white people are getting killed in any kind of numbers is South Africa. But that doesn't mean that they're being killed because they are white people. South Africa has a terrible problem with violent crime. That affects people of all races, all genders. And in fact, it disproportionately affects not white people, but black women. But they are not being offered asylum and expedited refugee status in the United States.
Why do you think then, Simon, why would Elon Musk, where would he get that information from?
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
Is Donald Trump fast-tracking white South African farmers as refugees?
0:14–5:43
2
What evidence supports or disproves the 'white genocide' claim in South Africa?
5:43–13:11
3
Why does South Africa fascinate white supremacists and fuel victim narratives?
13:11–22:51
4
How is misinformation about South Africa being spread and amplified internationally?
22:51–28:37
5
What did President Trump publicly say about killings of South African farmers?
28:37–31:56
Speakers
4 identifiedMore from The Don Lemon Show
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