Btw a janitor isnt above a student eps in that kind of environment. Seeing that it's an all white school, those workers arent above anything;

Read somewhere that the school is 55% black

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What is essential is the motive of the Whites in this case.What the Blacks were thinking is irrelevant.If a mental retard is racially abused,would it matter that the retard thought he was actually being praised?

I disagree. yes the whites have a part in it all but to conclude that it is all about racism without making sure the other side bears it's part is ridiculous. This to me is sort of a case of a woman wearing all her million dollar diamonds and walking down an alley in the ghetto just cause she can. It actually reminds me of a case I read of a while ago about a man who shot two black boys who came to rob his neighbours house, claiming they would have come for him next,  Both sides have to own the blame here,  not just the one side.  We can cry racism all day long but the very fact that these men were not forced tells a lot of the other side as well. Infact, I do not know of any court of law that will throw the book on the white boys without considering the stupidity of the other side to this case.

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Read somewhere that the school is 55% black

I thought the thought of admitting black students in was actually what caused the video??  

R-Dynamite:

I agree but they would not have been killed if they said no. And it's not even one person. 5 elderly workers. The workers sef I tire.

Cant be too sure.  I first thought they (the students) were armed. Maybe they figured if they didnt listen to them, rthey could lose their jobs. It's a sad situation either way  

D-reloaded:

Cant be too sure. I first thought they (the students) were armed. Maybe they figured if they didnt listen to them, rthey could lose their jobs. It's a sad situation either way

I don't think they would have lost their jobs for saying no. The school admin would have been notified and the students involved dealt with appropriately.Like I said, I really don't get the whole story

D-reloaded:

I thought the thought of admitting black students in was actually what caused the video??

Could you imagine,their hostel residences are segregated along racial lines and it was against attempts to end such segregation that the Whites were protesting.

Culled from the Times:

The video, which was made to protest against moves to integrate blacks and whites in the same residences, shows the students forcing the women cleaners to drink beer and perform athletic tasks.

More clashes are expected as the university accelerates plans for integration among the 25,000 students - 55 per cent of whom are black.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article3455796.ece

Whatever the reason I believe those women had a right to say no. Why they complied is freaking ridiculous.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/02/29/south.africa.video/index.html

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (CNN) -- Two more white students who were seen in a video allegedly mocking black housekeepers and serving them stew seemingly laced with urine apologized Friday, according to their lawyer.

Two other former students apologized late Thursday.

The University of Free State identified the last two students, who are no longer at the school, as Danie Grobler and Johnny Roberts.

In a brief statement released by attorney Nico Naude, Grobler and Roberts said they concurred with the apology made Thursday by Roelof Malherbe and Schalk van der Merwe.

There was no other information released Friday by Grobler and Roberts.

Naude represents all four men responsible for the video.

The video sparked an uproar on the campus and among human rights groups in South Africa.

On Thursday, Malherbe and van der Merwe denied they are racists and "most certainly had no intention of humiliating or degrading the employees concerned or black people in general or of detrimentally affecting their dignity."

In their statement, they said they had acted without malicious intent when they participated in the making of the video. They apologized "for any embarrassment which they may unintentionally have caused to any person or group of persons including parents," the statement said

The video, which surfaced Tuesday, showed four white students putting five black female housekeepers at their university dormitory in Bloemfontein, South Africa through a series of "competitions" in the style of the program "Fear Factor."

One of the scenes shows the women drinking stew that in a previous scene appeared to have been laced with urine.

Naude told CNN the students did not urinate in the food served to the housekeepers, but the video was edited to make it appear they had done so.

The women were also informed that the food was not contaminated, the students said.

The men said the video, which was taped in September, was a "satirical slant on a topic which was then prevalent and controversial."  Watch tension between black and white students »

They also asserted that the employees who participated in the video did so voluntarily, "knew the purpose for which it was made" and "as is evident ,  clearly enjoyed it."

At the end, one of the students awards a large bottle of whiskey to one of the women, telling her she has won the "Fear Factor."

Then a message appears on the screen in Afrikaans saying, "That, at the end of the day, is what we think of integration."

Naude said the video that surfaced Tuesday is actually made up of the out-takes of a montage that won a contest at the dorm last year.

An attorney representing the employees shown in the video told reporters Thursday his clients were tricked into participating. He also told CNN that the cleaning staff is pursuing a civil and criminal case not only against the four but also against the university.

Malherbe and Van der Merwe said they had no intention of humiliating the black employees and were in fact friends with the employees until the video became public, their statement said.

The university denounced the video as a gross violation of human dignity and said Thursday it has officially reported the matter to the director of public prosecution, a statement on its Web site said.


The video, which a university statement said showed "black employees ,  having to undergo a mock integration ceremony," was a reaction to the university's efforts to integrate its residences, school officials said. Eighteen years after the official end of apartheid, they were still separated into white and black dormitories.

The university is 400 miles south of Johannesburg

You really thought these workers knew they were supoposedly doing "Fear Factor"

and how does it go from doing claiming the video was MADE to show what they thought of integration to "Fear Factor"

They're bloody cowards who cant stand by their words and their apology is hogwash.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j1vdp8gIFc2m7olKlRSPoa3edFLQD8V434IG1


SAfrican Students Apologize for Video
By CELEAN JACOBSON – 1 day ago



BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa (AP) — Two white students behind a video in which five black university workers appear to be duped into eating food tainted with urine apologized and said they had been "crucified as racists."

Meanwhile, a magazine said Friday that one of its black journalists covering the video story had been assaulted in what appeared to be a racial attack at a restaurant in Bloemfontein.

Themba Makamo, 26, had to receive stitches after been accosted at his table by a "burly white man" who later followed him to the bathroom, where he headbutted, kicked and punched the journalist in the face and used racially derogatory words, the news and entertainment magazine Drum said in a statement.

Bloemfontein police spokeswoman Superintendent Annelie Wrensch said the complaint was being investigated.

The video, which showed four middle-aged women and one man on their knees eating the food, has been seen around the world, exposing deep racial tensions in South Africa more than a decade after racist white rule ended.

The University of the Free State in the city of Bloemfontein, 400 miles south of Johannesburg, is regarded as a bastion for Afrikaners, descendants of Dutch settlers who are often most closely linked with apartheid rule.

The two students, Roelof Malherbe and Schalk van der Merwe, who have been banned from the university's campus, said in a statement issued by their lawyer late Thursday that although it appeared as if the food had been urinated on, a "harmless" liquid had been squirted from a bottle.

The two students, said they regretted making the film, which they said they meant as a "satirical slant" on the issue of racial integration at the university dormitories.

Malherbe and Van der Merwe are "not racists and, most certainly, had no intention of humiliating or degrading the employees concerned or black people in general or of detrimentally affecting their dignity," the statement said.

However, it said the students "now regret having participated in the making of the film" and "apologize for any embarrassment which they may, unintentionally, have caused to any person or group of persons, including their parents."

Authorities at the university have launched a criminal probe into the making of the video.

On Thursday, the four female university workers expressed their hurt at the video and said they had not been aware of what they were participating in, believing they were taking part in a competition.

"We feel pain," said Emma Koko, 40, who has been working for the university for 20 years and whose son attends classes there. "It's something we were not expecting. We regard them (the students) as our children."

The video depicts a mock initiation ceremony into a campus residence, with the middle-aged black cleaners portraying students. The workers seem to know and trust the students in the video, laughing as they try to eat the food while on their knees. But according to the video footage, one of the students urinated on the food beforehand, unknown to the cleaners.

Commentary on the video in Afrikaans included sarcastic reference to the university's policy of integrating the campus dorms — being phased in only this year, 14 years after the end of apartheid.

In the statement, the two students said that the four women workers were "loyal friends" and took part voluntarily in the making of the film and "as is evident clearly enjoyed it."

The students said the workers knew the film was being made, what its purpose was and that the "brew was not contaminated."

The statement went on to say that it was "suspected that the film was published with malicious intent at a time when it would — and apparently did — purport to serve the purpose of demonstrating racism on the campus."

The university, known for its science departments, is one of a handful of institutions set up for the Afrikaans elite across the country. They all have high academic standards but are seen as conservative and have struggled with racial integration since opening their doors to black students in the early 1990s.

Black students make up 60 percent of the Free State university's 25,000-strong student body. Most of the support staff are black but over 80 percent of teaching staff are still white.

Students say racial tensions on the campus remain high and that the residence where the video was made has a particularly bad reputation.

Yea as long as the students said they enjoyed it, they must have been right. alainironu

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Could you imagine,their hostel residences are segregated along racial lines and it was against attempts to end such segregation that the Whites were protesting.

Doesnt surprise me. Still cant believe they are JUST integrating schools/dorms over there. Pathetic

"I still believe that the black man is striving too hard to be accepted by the white man while the white man MOSTLY relaxes and has a laugh at the effort of some learned black people to get accepted as equals.

These students did it as a protest- because black people were being allowed into a hall of residence. Al this happening in AFRICA!!!

In Europe, what you hear is that if you don't like something as a black man, you should get out and return to Africa. Nobody is saying same to white south Africans who control the SA economy."

Blatant - I couldn't agree with you more; blacks, particularly Eastern & Sothern Africans are so busy falling all over themselves begging for white acceptance. I think it's the inferiority complex that often afflicts other races that grow up arround whites. But in SA, imagine !!! A minority dictating what he wants - walai !!!. Why are there no black brothers who can find these assholes and kick there asses ? No need for police or demonstrations. But of course, the black SAs are afraid of the whiteman & the oyinbo man takes full advantage of it. It's soooo sad.

kai my ancestors have suffered

I notice no one has said much on this with the new developments in the story.

You are obviously blind.

I have been to south africa and I can not blame the whites for the situation with the blacks in South Africa. The majority of the blame remains on the blacks as it does the rest of Africa. The Blacks have nothing limiting them at all. Infact, they have not had anything limiting them advancing in the past decade or so and look at what is going on. Please how can you advocate racism as solution to the situation in South Africa today?? As someone who has seen south africans in Action on so many occassions, I fail to see how you arrived at this idea. I can point out quite a couple of Nigerians who have gone to south africa with so little and are among the people doing well down there in South Africa. I know a particular nigerian who has been in south africa for a decade now or so and he will tell you the same. He came there with nothing, did not have to resort to crime to get to where he is now. The society is an open one where you have a lot of opportunities should you want to succeed. It is simply up to you. Like every place else, you will run into obstacles but you decide what you do with those obstacles: focus on them and make an issue out of it all or move on to take advantage of other open gates available, you decide.

Let's take a deeper look at this.

Black South Africans have suffered several decades without education, so majority of them are illiterates and cant know how to educate others. Recently, the country opened up and they claim that everyone is now entitled to get educated. How on earth do you expect the children of poor illiterates to cope with/compete with the children of the white people who have had several decades of being educated? even in Nigeria, the richer you are, the higher the likelihood that your child will get a better quality education: let alone a situation where the parents of most of these black people are also illiterate by design

Opportunities exist but the black South Africans are immediately disadvantaged because they are starting from a terribly lower point than white South Africans who have had the education and wealth to give the best to their kids. It will take several generations for Black South Africans to be able to compete effectively economically with the white.

Nigerians who go to South Africa are smarter because Nigerians, in the main have a decent level of education. NOT SO BLACK SOUTH AFRICANS!!! It is wrong to say that because Nigerians do well in South Africa, there exists equality. Black South Africans have been disadvantaged from the outset

If as i suspect the answer is very low then is it the fault of the British? Did they make a policy that deliberately kept blacks out of school?

I see blacks here busy working hard at mcdonalds while their white colleagues are slaving away in med school. In 10yrs time somebody will claim racism because there are not enough black doctors.

It was never going to turn out otherwise because the black people who came as immigrants are put in slums and they were not allowed to get decent education several years ago. Those who suffered segregation in old Britain will tell you this better. People who were not allowed to go to school with white people cannot give their children proper education even when the opportunity is there. They can't teach their children values that will help the children to take advantage of going to school.

An illiterate cannot help his/her child with what the child has been taught at school. An illiterate does not have the same values as an educated person and this is why it has taken several generations for black people in UK to start rearing their heads in decent professions.

The blacks you see busy working at macd's have things to sort out that the white people in uni don't have. Sometimes, they don't even have what it takes for academic achievements because they were groomed by people who know very little about education. these things are extremely important and cannot be written off.

let's stop looking at the shadows and focus on why the shadows are there