Social Action
Racism Research
The South African Apartheid
Under the apartheid system, nonwhite South Africans, who comprised the majority of the nation’s population, were forced to live in separate areas from whites in both rural and urban areas. The districts set aside for nonwhites were generally much poorer agriculturally and located farther from transportation hubs and offices, which put their inhabitants at a disadvantage when getting to and from work and even completing basic tasks like shopping for groceries.
Nonwhites had no say in the politics of South Africa, and were required to have documents or passes in order to move from one area to another, which escalated the levels of hardship experienced by the people.
At first, apartheid was a social movement, but it was signed into law under the National Party with the adoption and passage of the Population Registration Act of 1950. This legislation created framework for apartheid by classifying South Africans according to their biological races. Then, the National Party enacted a series of land acts, which collectively set aside over eighty percent of the nation’s lands for whites. In an egregious display of authority, the government evicted thousands of nonwhite South Africans from their rural homes, driving them into cities and selling their land to whites for farming and ranching.
Hitler and The Nazis
Hitler had firm racial policies and believed that non-Germans should not have any citizenship rights. There were many groups of people who were targeted by Hitler's policies, but none more so than the Jews.
The Nazis believed that only Germans could be citizens and that non-Germans did not have any right to the rights of citizenship.
The Nazis racial philosophy taught that some races were untermensch (sub-human). Many scientists at this time believed that people with disabilities or social problems were genetic degenerates whose genes needed to be eliminated from the human bloodline.
The Nazis, therefore:
-Tried to eliminate the Jews.
-Killed 85 per cent of Germany's Gypsies.
-Sterilised black people.
-Killed mentally disabled babies.
-Killed mentally ill patients.
-Sterilised physically disabled people and people with hereditary diseases.
-Sterilised deaf people.
-Put homosexuals, prostitutes, Jehovah's Witnesses, alcoholics, pacifists, beggars, hooligans and criminals - who they regarded as anti-social - into concentration camps.
The Untouchables in Modern Day India
More than 160 million people in India are considered Untouchable, Human rights abuses against these people, known as Dalits. They also refused their children access to school. Dalits are not allowed to drink from the same wells, attend the same temples, wear shoes in the presence of an upper caste, or drink from the same cups in tea stalls.India's Untouchables are relegated to the lowest jobs, and live in constant fear of being publicly humiliated, paraded naked, beaten, and raped with impunity by upper-caste Hindus seeking to keep them in their place. Merely walking through an upper-caste neighborhood is a life-threatening offense.
