Trump confronts South African leader with baseless claims of the systematic killing of white farmers

7 comments

1. I thought the title was editorialized, but this is the title in AP:

   > Trump confronts South African leader with baseless claims of the systematic killing of white farmers

   ‘Systematic’ is doing the heavy-lifting here, systematic implies the government is causing the issues. What’s happening is that South Africa isn’t a safe country to live in for anyone. They have violent high crimes rates for any ethnic group, urban or rural, even racially motivated ones. The videos he showed are indeed disturbing and they are real, but they are happening to every South African community on every level, not just Afrikaners. This is absolutely a serious problem that South Africa needs to resolve, but it’s a problem for every group, not just one.

2. It’s hilarious watching this play out live, where Trump is literally playing videos to the President of huge political rallies where politicians are chanting “kill the Boer”, and videos of political rallies where leaders are openly talking about killing white people and stealing their land, and videos of crosses lining streets as far as you can see as a marker for a white farmer that was killed, then seeing mainstream media straight up lie.

   This headline is a lie. Trump is straight up showing video footage of these events happening for the world to see. You can see this for yourself. It’s playing out right now.

   This article is absolutely shameless.

3. It’s rare to see a news agency calling a spade a spade like that, they usually adopt a more genuflect position in relation to narratives from those in power.

4. edit: holy hell OP posted this to a lot of subs. And downvoted me in record time on posting. Just under 200 seconds. Nice. Bot?

   ———————

   Everything about this meeting was wild – on both sides.

   The SA team brought a rag-tag team that appears to have not coordinated message ahead of a white house meeting. They all went on their own tangent.

   Then there was that very obvious ambush of Trump showing a video live with very questionable connection to reality. The first part checks out [Malema speeches singing about violence against farmers]. The second part [burial site] less so, camera cut away from feed just in time to not show it. The [site is very real – its near where I grew up](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witkruis_Monument) but its 3000 crosses, not 1000. And it’s symbolic not a burial site – no dead people in ground. And its a mixture of white and black farm murders, not just white as claimed. So on a very basic you can look this up level the facts are just plain wrong. And there somewhat credible claims of it being a doctored video (video cut away, but I’m inclined to believe given you don’t need what sounds like a very long heli overflight to show 3k small crosses plus some other drama around this topic). And frankly also surprised the SA president asking where is this…that could either be raw ignorance (doesn’t know about the crosses memorial) or him looking at a doctored video and legitimately questioning where this is because it is not real. So that’s either very sharp or very ignorant.

   Everything about this story is just chaos from both sides & don’t think it was a win for anyone.

   As a side note, as a white south african the word “systematic” in title doesn’t sit right with me. A case can *perhaps* be made for fringe elements of society doing targeted attacks on their own accord/idealogy and *perhaps* state isn’t doing enough to prevent. And *perhaps* a case can be made for state sponsored discrimination (Affirmative action laws), but systematic killings sounds a bit too state sponsored to me and is in misinformation territory in my books.

5. As someone unfamiliar with the whole issue can someone explain why Trump is doing this or why he even cares? Given his track record I doubt it’s a genuine moral concern. Is it because of Elon or is this just culture war red meat?

6. Trump gets his intel briefings from 4chan

7. The word “systemic” is doing an awful lot of lifting there. Is there a government led and run program to kill whites in South Africa? Almost certainly not. If there is, they are incredibly inept.

   That being said, the KKK wasn’t a government organization, but it (and like minded individuals and groups) had a profound effect for a century. In the 85 years from 1865 to 1950, there were around ~6500 lynchings and/or racial terror killings of blacks, with around 2000 killings just during the 12 years of reconstruction. The black population of the US in 1865 was basically the same size as the current white population of South Africa. We consider the legacy of the KKK to be one of extreme terror and violence – and at the height of its terror, there were around 166 lynchings per year. Very few people are going to say that the KKK was “no big deal” because “only” 166 people were killed per year.

   I think the KKK might be the closest analogy, although likely it is not actually as bad in South Africa as the worst times of the KKK – which was during the era of reconstruction. But I doubt anyone is going to say that the KKK during the 1940s wasn’t a problem or that blacks didn’t have a real reason to fear the KKK.

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