Role Reversal in Soweto, South Africa
published by Farhad2000 2 months 2 weeks ago • 553 views
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Witness - No White In the Rainbow
An advert showing a reversal of roles between Blacks and Whites in Modern Day South Africa. Showing some of the problems blacks still face in South Africa. Thought provoking.
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The video starts off in Soweto which is in the outskirts of Johannesburg, a poor impoverished township where many of the day laborers work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soweto


written by Farhad2000  | 3 months ago | CH
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This is a great advert but it's a gross over simplfication of the South African 'problem'. It pushes the black/white dichotomy that has very quickly become irrelevant in the current socio-economic climate and does nothing to advance any meaningfull discourse.

It feels to me like it's promoting the idea that subversive racism is still the large cause of the many problems in South Africa, which is clearly not the case. The imagery is effective in communicating the largely unchanged landscape of the 'new' South Africa, but I never get the impression that it's trying to get its audience to question why the structures haven't changed. This kind of imagery is only going to further aggravate the prejudice that is alive and well in S.A. You have to be practical about Sabc 1's target audience as well. It's very much youth oriented, and imagery like this is not going to be put into the broader context that it deserves.

It's this kind of systemic oversimplification that has lead to issues like the current xenophobic violence and it's a scary indicator of things to come.

How about questioning the GEAR (Growth, Employment and Redistribution) strategy that the government has employed since 1996 (Privatisation, Open markets, etc etc. Sound familiar?), or the negative influence the WTO and World Bank have had on South Africa's economic environment. How about discussing the fact that the new government has had to deal with around 343 billion rands worth of debt incurred by the previous apartheid government, and how this has effectively crippled their ability to implement substantial change, forcing the government to sell off many nationalised assets at one point to cover the payments. Add on top of that the loss of control of the South African reserve bank, corrupt and inept politicans, badly thought out black economic empowerment programs, rising unemployment, etc etc etc and it gets pretty complex and messy very quickly, and that's why simplifying it down to race is disengenuous and incredibly damaging.

My fear is that this xenophobic violence weve started seeing is the first expression of the economic climate that is developing in South Africa due to a cocktail of the broader worldwide economic crisis and the lackadaisical economic programs employed by the current goverment. And with imagery like this being promoted, I wouldn't be suprised if it spills into overt racial violence at some point.


written by SpeveO  | 3 months ago | CH
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Moving this video to Farhad2000's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.


written by siftbot  | 3 months ago | CH
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*beg


written by Farhad2000  | 2 months 2 weeks ago | CH
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Sending this video to Beggar's Canyon to plea for a little attention - beg requested by original submitter Farhad2000.


written by siftbot  | 2 months 2 weeks ago | CH
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Seems to me that this ad tries to make impoverished status hit home with white youth, which I think it does very well. I am not from South Africa; I've never seen Apartheid nor it's direct effects. I am from New York City and see the direct effects of centuries of structured socialization that prevents the so-called races from identifying with one another. This ad has made even me see things a little differently.


written by RhesusMonk  | 2 months 2 weeks ago | CH
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