This opinion published by The Conversation is by Steven Friedman. Here is an excerpt:
Claims of racial bias against black pupils at affluent private schools are becoming a routine South African event. They are also a symbol of the country’s reality.
The private schools were created by and for white people – this is reflected in their rules and customs. But they are seen as centres of education quality and so black people who can afford them send their children to them. But they either can’t or won’t change into institutions which include everyone. All of which is a fair description of South Africa since 1994.
In a just published book, Prisoners of the Past: South African Democracy and the Legacy of Minority Rule, I argue that the new order created when racial laws were scrapped in 1994 is “path dependent” – patterns which held sway in the old order are carried into the new. This does not mean that, as some claim, nothing has changed – anyone who claims there is no difference between racial minority rule and democracy was either not alive before 1994 or not paying attention. But core realities have not changed.
Read the full story here.
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