Bill and Boer Town Betty

Here's a correspondence I currently find myself in on Facebook. It's such a sad tale I thought I should share it. Like, we should start a fund or something.

Boer Town Betty: I am getting sick and tired of everybody proclaiming Mandela to be a saint. He was the leader of a terrorist party responsible for bombings and murders of who know how many white people. He might not have physically killed anybody, but neither has Hitler or Stalin. Why is Hitler such a bad guy and Mandela this saint?

We are not safe in our own homes, in the street, in shops! Is this what it has come to? It has been said by Siener van Rensburg that the day Mandela dies, is the day that the blacks will start the genocide on the white people.

Bring it on! We have taken our country back from the English. Trust me, the only thing the blacks have going for them is their sheer numbers.

Bill: Wow, Betty, that's beautiful. I mean, seriously, you brought tears to my eyes. I'm glad to see the post-apartheid world has treated you so well. I pray for you, my beacon of light and hope and unity!

BB: Sweetie, if you don't live here, you will have no idea what the hell I am talking about. I invite you to spend a week in South Africa. Don't the American papers report on all the tourists that gets robbed at gunpoint, raped, beaten and killed? And the tourists only make up a tiny portion of the crime stats. Why do you hate Bin Laden but think Mandela is wonderful? What do you know about apartheid? I find it terribly amusing, all the ignorance.

BC: Why, I assumed that apartheid--much like the antebellum and Jim Crow South--was all goodness and light, where a black man--such as myself--could while away the days just a-singing and a-dancing, absolutely ecstatic over his station in life on his way to the de beers mines. Are you saying it wasn't like that?

BB: We had safety. We could walk to school, play in the streets in the evening, leave the doors unlocked while away. Now we cannot even leave the doors open, never mind unlocked while we are inside. You see, cultures differ. Why force someone else's culture onto me? We had free schooling, blacks included, but they burnt it down, they burnt books. They still do today. When there a march, nothing is sacred. Shops get looted, cars get destroyed. They kill each other. Why, just a couple of months ago, we had the xenophobic attackes. Being married to a Fire Fighter in Johannesburg, my husband's life was in danger trying to help these people. The Sunday I could not even leave the Fire Station. There were groups of men and plenty police and shots being fired. Let's go back to apartheid. Blacks have their culture and I have mine. I do not believe in slaughtering a cow in my backyard. I do not believe in dancing and singing and destroying. Have you heard the news lately? We virtually have no electricity, most of the staff in the municipalities can't read and write! The standard of education has dropped. I know, I have two kids. Wherever they force me to live, it will be better than the hell I'm in now.



Please. Someone help this woman!