Racial redress is not revenge, it's right

THERE are not 142 race-based laws on the statute books in South Africa in 2025. From 1652 to 1910, South Africa was colonised by the Dutch East India Company and later by the English.

- LORENZO A DAVIDS

The colonisation of the land and its indigenous people was characterised by brutality towards Africans and unlimited privilege for Europeans. It’s a privilege that still reaps benefits for white people today. Currently, 62% of the management positions in the South African economy are held by whites, while being only 7% of the population.

From 1910 to 1994, for eighty-four years, South Africa was governed by internationally condemned race laws that dispossessed Black, Coloured and Indian citizens from full participation in politics, economics, education and all other aspects of civil life in the land of their birth.

Race-based laws were the bedrock of Apartheid South Africa. Black bodies were buried in unmarked graves across South Africa, while the brandy and braai fires of Apartheid security forces celebrated another terrorist killed. Most of white South Africa did not bat an eye at the torturous deaths of black people. They braaied while we buried.