Casual and unconscious racism is always below the surface in South African society and can be most disturbing as the speakers often don’t realise the attitudes their words betray.
It’s not just white towards black/coloured but can be black towards coloured/white or any other combination. However it manifests, it is a definite brake upon the integration and development of South Africa as a nation.
An older lady of Dawn’s acquaintance, commenting on the style of the lady who’d led prayers at church, wrote: “the coloured people get a bit wound up”.
She would probably be horrified to be accused of racism and indeed regularly cares for young coloured students but decades of experiencing apartheid as a privileged white have left deep marks.
Pray for healing from the past for whites, blacks and coloureds, all of whom have been damaged by South Africa’s history whether they’re conscious of it or not.