Collegiate Times

In a recently released video, four white students at the University of the Free State (UFS) in South Africa can be seen treating black university staff in ways that many have described as barbaric, blatantly racist and in violation of human rights.

In the video, which is available on YouTube, the students entice the workers, many of them middle- to old-aged black women, to participate in a mock "initiation" process by promising 10,000 rand (roughly $1,250) and liquor for the winner. The contests were degrading and humiliating and were topped off by forcing the finalists to eat a mixture of dog food, garlic cloves and urine from one of the students. Many interpreted the video as a response from the students towards the university's newly integrated residence hall living program as well as an old fashioned expression of deliberate racism.

As a result of the video's release, there have been numerous riots in the streets of South Africa and many white students and faculty at UFS have received death threats. Some UFS faculty members and students have even being physically harassed by black students in retaliation. This video emerged soon after a move by Jacob Zuma -- the likely next president of South Africa -- to kick white journalists out of a conference at which he was appearing. His actions in turn sparked outrage from the nation's white minority.

What these two events show is that racism is still alive in South Africa, which has only been officially desegregated for 17 years. These events should also serve another purpose to those of us living in America. This is an opportunity for us to re-examine racism within our own nation, which, despite significant strides to diminish it, is still alive after over three decades since desegregation was completed in the 1970s.

Racism is one of those elephants in the room that we are only forced to acknowledge after certain outrageous comments (such as those by Don Imus) or particularly disturbing events (such as Rodney King's beating), but are never truly able to confront as a nation. Great progress has been made in that, for the first time in history, a black president of America is a possibility. Progress is also evident through the fact that today's public school students think of segregation as an antiquated relic of some forgotten and intolerant time.

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