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This article describes the private charter flight that made its way into Dulles international Airport from south africa holding 49 white south Africans as refugee of supposed violence and danger in the country against the white minority in south africa. The South African government is accused of anti white racist policies against the white south Africans. Meanwhile south africa holds the position that the whites in south africa hold too much economic privilege and require equitable laws to bring more balance amongst the national community. Both sides have argued and dealt with these issues in the past and the US is not in a great position nationally and this could be used to cite as a negative in the Trump administration.
This comes as a confusing move by the US and white south Africans as this doesn’t show a tolerant and isolationist position from the US as we have not taken as many refugees from other countries while we will take white refugees from an African country. This move is a very disturbing one as this could be seen as escalating the domestic issues of the amount of farmland owned by whites in south africa. The race relations haven’t been good in South Africa even after the end of the Apartheid regime Trump helping the whites in the country could sour relations with the current regime in South Africa and as they are on the more powerful side of Africa this could be a negative for the US and her desires for parts of the resource rich Africa.
This relates to the social cleavages we discussed in class these racial/ethnic splits are extremely inflamed especially when the economic differences between the whites and the ethnically Africans being governmentally equalized. This can be seen as favoritism and discrimination against a minority group but also as re enfranchising victims of the apartheid regime.