Racial Discrimination Of South Africa

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Recommended: History of apartheid

According to the Freedom Charter of 1955, all people [of South Africa] shall have the right to live where they choose, be decently housed, and to bring their families up in comfort and security. Attempting to follow in its footsteps, the Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act of 1998 (abbreviated as the PIELA) aims to eradicate persistent post-Apartheid residential segregation by preventing the unlawful persecution of mostly black, impoverished renters and tenants who occupy land claimed by mostly white, wealthier landlords. Yet, upon examining its imperfect performance, one notes that it has failed to deliver on such a promise. Its sluggish redress of white-dominated land ownership makes such hopes for an egalitarian state where people of color live comfortably unrealistic. Socioeconomic, legal and statistical facts add to the racial discrimination that complicates this law’s enforcement of residential justice. Alone, the PIELA cannot counteract the white corporate, educational and financial complex of influence in South Africa. It is quantitatively and qualitatively difficult to defend so many marginalized people of color accused of outstanding debts by relatively powerful whites in court. Therefore, the PIELA law must join the just philosophies of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), public partnerships with microfinancial nonprofits and diversity training for judges, to effectively enable South Africans of color to avoid dependency on discriminatory corporate interests and inhabit affordable, comfortable homes. Reforming the PIELA with these policies will bring residential justice to South Africa.
One first must understand how the PIELA attempts to relieve racially unequal residential segregation ...

... middle of paper ...

... aiming to offer racial minorities, including South Africans of color, higher levels of socioeconomic agency and comfortable living standards. Nevertheless, black South Africans continue to experience the horrible hatred of yesteryear in the many instances of housing discrimination that have ensued post-Apartheid. Due to the flaws of the PIELA, the issue, therefore becomes a necessary choice for private and public sector leaders to make between alternative solutions to more effectively eradicate contemporary racism not specified in the PIELA. Although nonprofits such as NURCHA have run for only 20-odd years, they represent the most promising solution to the residential segregation that plagues the nation. Laws such as the PIELA alert us to social injustices, but, far too often, they do not extend beyond paper and require alternative social justice for positive change.

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