MovieChat Forums > Disgrace (2009) Discussion > When whites are randomly attacked in Sou...

When whites are randomly attacked in South Africa...

posted 13 years ago by nick-1036
15 replies | jump to latest

are they as submissive and afraid as the father and daughter in this film? Is it very common to be attacked, raped, murdered or almost murdered, have your house and property destroyed just because you are there, just because you are white? Do many of these crimes go unreported and many of the criminals never prosecuted? You see, it wasn't only the daughter who did nothing, it was everyone they knew and everyone who knew about the crime that did nothing.

I have other questions...

Why did the daughter freak out at the party after the rape when she saw one of the rapists, I thought she was okay with all of it? Just a short time later she accepts everything, the pregnancy, the fact that the rapist is virtually the son of the guy who lives next door, etc. Why such an inconsistency at the party, "hey dad, forget it happened, don't call the police, don't get revenge, I don't care if they come back for me" etc. but then she freaks at her father that she has seen the rapist at the party as if she wants him to do something about it? I don't get it, she didn't think the rapists were from the area? Of course they were.

Another...

If everyone is so okay with the black on white violence and rape would they then be okay with the father getting revenge or would he go to jail for lighting a rapist on fire? My question is, in the real world of South Africa, is it okay to fight back, and do whites ever fight back?

Do any blacks and whites get along in South Africa or are the comments of the characters in the film correct, that violence is everywhere (and all the time), and police do nothing. Is the country that messed up?

Another:

This is a complex question that I think only a violent person can answer but... how does the mindset of black on white violence in South Africa work? What I mean is, what is the motivation? Does a black attacker think about past injustices and exploitation by whites when he is attacking whites? Is it revenge, or does he just use this presumption as an excuse? Are the attackers common criminals, sadists that have no remorse because they are animals, as opposed to being politically correct (in their minds)? Is it simply poverty and jealousy that makes them kill and steal and therefore they rob and kill wealthy blacks also? Is it because there is no law in the land and they know they can get away with it?

I'm asking because I believe evil is banal. I think most violence of black on white is a crime of opportunity by a person who has never been taught to love, only to hate, I don't think it has anything to do with race, i think it's all about ignorance and poverty and lack of family.

Personally, I know two families that lived and worked in SA, both left because of direct violence to their families.

[–] jeronavdg 13 years ago

i can not answer all your questions, but I can the one about Lucy.

She is definetely not okay with it. Actually the book shows this very well. After the rape she doesn't get out of bed, she doesn't work or eat, she is very torn up and ofcourse this is something that will effect her for years and years to come.
She simple does not discuss it with her father because they don't have a very good relationship and in some way the fact that he is a man is quite difficult for her to handle.
So yeah, she wants to accept and forget what happened as soon as possible, but it's not that easy.

[–] marbleann 13 years ago

Oh gee. What about the random violence and the system of apartheid that the white people had black people living under for almost a century? And it wasn't a crime of opportunity it was part of a well thought out system by the government's to keep black people oppressed. What kind of monsters think that sort of stuff up? And what kind of monsters agree to live in that sort of system? Sounds like evil like that can be done only by people who are devils. The same devils the oppressed black people learned about violence. I love you folks. While black folks were treated like animals none of the state sanctioned violence bothered you. Now after and the black people run the country they are only doing what they have learned to do from their oppressors. Who should of remembered you reap what you sow. And now you want to ask questions. Why? You know two families that left SA because of violence. Well they should of not been reaping the benefits of apartheid, which I am sure did before it was overturned. I say too bad. What about millions of black people who were displaced and forced to leave their homeland and put into ghettos like Soweto. What about them? You can go to hell.

[–] RickShaw2010 13 years ago

Why so angry marbleann? Reading most of your posts, you seem like quite the race monger. Stick with it, a few blacks have made a good living off of playing the race card for every negative event that happens to them. Maybe you'll be the next reverend Al. I don't think you're articulate enough to get that far...so you'll probaly just go down as a racist who likes to bait people on IMDB message boards. Good luck with your next trumped up Duke Lacrosse issue.

[–] marbleann 13 years ago

Hey Rev. Al is ok with me. And the fact that you take it as some type of insult to call me that tells me who the real bigot is. Any black person who is pro black and a activist is a threat to folks like you. FOrty years ago the same white folks who bring up MLK's name to insult and compare him to Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson were the same bigots who couldn't stand the man when he was alive. Kind of like why they have the saying the only good n*gg*r is a dead one. I will not allow you bigots to tell me who I should like and listen to. I do not need your approval. Any way I never said anybody being attacked is a good thing. It is wrong no matter who the victim or attacker is. But I am not congering up any sympathy for the people who flourish during apartheid. Oh about those boys at Duke. I still believe they did something to that girl. And time will tell I am right. Because folks like them cannot stay out of trouble too long. So now that you know how I feel and still feel. Ignore.

[–] goldshine44 13 years ago

What happened to blacks in South Africa under Apartheid was horrible. Nevertheless, two wrongs, don't make a right. I think many whites, while in some ways they benefited from the cheap labor of Apartheid, also thought it was terrible. If they protested, they would be tortured and killed also. A friend of mine, who is white, protested Apartheid, and was arrested, tortured, and only lived, because Apartheid ended before they had a chance to kill him.

My question is how safe are well to do Blacks there?

[–] marbleann 13 years ago

I agree with what you said I do not advocate violence and 2 wrongs do not make a right. The problem is being oppressed sometimes makes you a worse oppressor. I happen to have a well off cousin who lives in Cape Town and she lives alone. It is like they live in another world. Isolated from the violence for the most case. As it is in most countries.

I do not believe during Apartheid there were many well off black people. Perhaps colored. I believe it was the intellectual community who were the leaders of the anti apartheid movement. As far as the wealthy white or black I believe in most cases even though their own people are being oppressed the wealthy with the exception of a few want to stay with the status quo. So they do little to make a change and perhaps do more to help keep it the way it is.

[–] goldshine44 13 years ago

What you say sounds accurate to me. I am sure the wealthy loved having their live in maids. I think you are correct about the intellectual community leading the anti-apartheid movement. My friend of a friend who is white, and was arrested, and tortured, and would have been killed, had apartheid not ended, was a college professor. I am actually quite ignorant on the subject. Is this even a realistic picture of what South Africa is like? Also, I noticed, that the bi-racial seem to be their own group. Both of Melanie's parents, and her friends were bi-racial. Do they mix with neither whites or blacks.

[–] marbleann 13 years ago

There is a large Indian community in South Africa and they were given a particular racial status that put them about equal or a above the coloreds which were light skin black people or mixed. I do not believe any of these folks mixed with the poor black people who were forced to live in slums such as Soweto.

[–] goldshine44 13 years ago

I met someone from South Africa who actually is liberal, and asked her what it is like there. I copied her response. It is much worse than I had any idea of. See her post below. As you said, it is easy for the oppressed to become the oppressor.

"Yes. 3000 white farmers (of 40 000) and their families have been wiped out. In that one respect Disgrace is no longer accurate; the violence has escalated to the point where no one survives farm attacks, not even children and babies. Now th...e threat is genocide, and it isn't even veiled. When the "campaign" is stepped up, they will come for us, they say. They call it "the night of the long knives", and even the leader I mentioned above (Julius Malema) talks that way, calling regularly from podiums for whites to be killed - no crosshairs as with Sarah Palin, just the straightforward words: Kill the whites/kill the farmers.
What frightens me about such rhetoric (and should frighten Americans too) is that over time such "messages" are normalised; if you hear it enough, it begins to sound "normal", and people respond to this message, there's no doubt.

I live on a farm and sometimes when I sit clutching a firearm in the middle of the night, because someone is trying to get into my house (they tried seven times last year, and once so so far in 2011), I wonder about the night of the long knives and whether, when it begins, anyone will come to help us. I believe not. Forgive me for saying this, but the general thought is that assistance will depend on whether America has anything to gain, and by the looks of things, it does not.
I don't know whether it will happen, but when people live in fear like this, they become more conservative, they close up, so that exacerbates the problem."

[–] eYeDEF 12 years ago

Wow that is a CRAZY story you pasted from your friend. What I found fascinating was her clutching to the hope that America might come save them. WOW! Talk about desperation! I know everyone needs some yarn of hope but the possibility of that happening is so inconceivable that it's hard to imagine how she even came up with the idea.

Wasn't it the British and Dutch who were primarily responsible for colonizing South Africa? Why would America play any role in feeling responsible to assist Dutch and British expats in South Africa? Bizarre!

It sounds like she's just a sitting duck preparing for her apocalypse on the Night of the Long Knives. What a MORBID existence.

Some fellows get credit for being conservative when they are only stupid.
- Kin Hubbard

[–] StrangerandPilgrim 12 years ago

What's the difference between black and colored? I don't understand what the difference is in South Africa, especially since America used to call African-Americans black and before colored, but it all meant the same thing.

[–] marbleann 12 years ago

Colored People are light skin black people or black people who are mixed.

[–] at7000 9 years ago

Different rights and social staus based upon ethnicity(Indians for example) but also based on skin colour and such.

[–] TrentnQuarantino (8447) a year ago

But a wrong unavenged or unpunished is never right. Blacks in South Africa have had their whole culture destroyed, like blacks in America and Native Americans, and most of the indigenous peoples all over the Earth who never knew about massive armies of criminal psychopaths who organized and roamed the Earth in search of weaker people to steal from and exploit.

[–] BOandBarbecue (2264) a year ago

is see picture online of aftermath of farm attack that kill family.

i now understand why white south african did not want to live with black hahahahahahahah