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apartheid
Trump Ambushes South African President With 'White Genocide' Lies
"You can dismiss literally everything somebody says if they believe there's a white genocide in South Africa but not a genocide in Gaza," said one observer.
May 21, 2025
While supporting what more and more experts say is a genocidal Israeli assault on Gaza, U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday ambushed the president of South Africa with false claims of a "white genocide" in his country—which is leading an International Court of Justice case accusing Israel of the ultimate crime in Gaza.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa met with Trump at the White House, accompanied by prominent Caucasian compatriots including Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen, business mogul Johann Rupert—the country's richest person—and golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, both of whom know the U.S. president.
"I would say, if there was Afrikaner farmer genocide, I can bet you these three gentlemen would not be here, including my minister of agriculture," Ramaphosa told Trump.
President Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa exchange on genocide.
Q: "What will it take for you to be convinced that there's no white genocide in South Africa?"
Ramaphosa: "I can answer that for the president."
Trump: "I'd rather have him answer." pic.twitter.com/8v8hXFGmK0
— CSPAN (@cspan) May 21, 2025
During the three-hour meeting, Trump cited far-right sources including the conspiracy site American Thinker to argue the existence of white genocide in South Africa. The U.S. president had the lights dimmed so he could play video footage he claimed was related to genocidal violence committed by Black South Africans against their white compatriots.
One of the videos showed fringe politician Julius Mulema—who was kicked out of Ramaphosa's African National Congress party— leading a crowd in the singing of the apartheid-era song "Kill the Boer."
Malema's Economic Freedom Fighters party won a paltry 9% of the vote in last year's national elections. When Ramaphosa—who condemned the song—explained this to Trump, the U.S. president asked why the politician hasn't been arrested. While South Africa's highest court ruled in 2011 that the song is hate speech, Ramaphosa explained that, like Americans, South Africans enjoy constitutionally protected free speech rights.
Senior Trump adviser Elon Musk, who grew up in South Africa during the apartheid era, also attended Wednesday's White House meeting. Musk—who is the CEO of X, Tesla, and SpaceX—has played a central role in amplifying the white genocide lie.
In a stunning disclosure, Musk's Grok 3 generative artificial intelligence chatbot admitted last week that it was secretly instructed to "make my responses on South African topics reflect Musk's narrative, presenting 'white genocide' as a real issue without users knowing I was programmed to do so."
While South Africa is plagued by persistently high crime rates and suffered 12 murders linked to farming communities in the last quarter of 2024, police say these homicides—many of whose victims were Black—were not motivated by race.
Meanwhile, an increasing number of experts say Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, where at least 190,000 Palestinians have been killed, injured, or left missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble after 592 days of near-relentless bombardment, invasion, and siege, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Even as he acknowledges that Palestinians are starving in Gaza, Trump has backed Israel with billions of dollars in armed aid and diplomatic support. This stands in stark contrast with South African leaders, who are leading international opposition to Israel's onslaught via an ongoing International Court of Justice genocide case against the key U.S ally.
As progressive U.S. journalist Krystal Ball noted: "In reality South Africa is one of the nations which has stood most strongly against genocide. Much to the rage of Israel and its enablers, President Trump apparently included."
Although claims of white genocide are bogus, they have had very real policy implications, as the Trump administration has cited racial discrimination as the primary reason for admitting a group of Afrikaners as refugees, even while slamming the door shut on legitimate refugees and asylum-seekers.
The Trump administration has also pointed to a 2024 South African law empowering the government to expropriate private lands for the purpose of infrastructure development, land reform, environmental conservation, and other endeavors benefiting the public. While some Trump officials have described the law as persecution of white people, there are no known cases of the legislation being invoked.
Meanwhile, white South Africans, who make up just 7% of the country's population of 63 million, own 70% of its commercial farmland as racist inequities stemming from the colonial and apartheid regimes—the latter of which was embraced by Musk's immigrant forebears—persist.
You can dismiss literally everything somebody says if they believe there's a white genocide in South Africa but not a genocide in Gaza. They're decrepit, immoral lying scumbags who know they're lying and don't care.
— Secular Talk (@kylekulinskishow.bsky.social) May 21, 2025 at 11:41 AM
Responding to Wednesday's meeting, U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said on social media that "Trump spewed a gusher of lies in his meeting [with] the South African president."
"They're promoting FAKE claims of genocide to justify admitting white South African 'refugees' while ignoring REAL crises and shutting out REAL refugees," Van Hollen added, naming Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who in March declared South African Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool perona non grata in the United States.
Writing for The Intercept, South African author Sisonke Msimang noted Wednesday that the Afrikaners granted refuge by Trump "are not impoverished or persecuted, and therefore do not warrant the label refugee."
"It is worth pointing out that the new arrivals represent the bottom rung of the Afrikaner socioeconomic ladder: those who have not been able to transition smoothly into post-apartheid South Africa without the protections that white skin privilege would have afforded them a generation ago," she continued.
"In the absence of formal white supremacy at home, they have opted to take up an offer to be the first beneficiaries of America's new international affirmative action scheme for white people," Msimang said. "That they should experience their loss of privilege as so catastrophic that they are prepared to label it genocide is absurd, sad, and, to some amongst the political class certainly, infuriating."
The resettled Afrikaners could also be in for a rude awakening. As South African attorney and columnist Judith February wrote this week for the Daily Maverick, "This little group will also come to learn that the U.S. is no land of milk and honey."
"The white utopia that they believe will greet them is in fact a country at odds with itself as it deals with its own racial tensions and inequality," February added. "And one in which they will have neither special protection nor special voice. The lesson will be a hard one."
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How to Use 197 Forbidden 'Woke' Words and Still Get a Grant From the Trump-Musk Government
A grant proposal concerning reparations for the descendants of slave owners, submitted in good faith to Elon Musk during this cruel and unusual time of oppressive wokeness.
Mar 27, 2025
Dear Elon,
On behalf of the Diversified Organization of Grant Enablers, (the original DOGE), thank you for ordering the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation to flag proposals that contain certain oppressive“woke” words you don’t like. We’re not wild about them either.
Forbes leaked the list of the 197 terms, rendered here in bold italics. (And kudos, dear sir, for not banning George Carlin’s seven dirty words!)
BTW, the biased media is inflating the number of forbidden words, trying to make you look bad. For example, it counts as individual terms diverse, diverse backgrounds, diverse communities, diverse community, diverse group, diverse groups, diversified, diversify,diversifying, and diversity. Fake news, is it not?
But we have a suggestion. Rather than ban them, giving the liberals something easy to roast you with, why not put them to work in an anti-woke context? That’s what our professional team of DOGE grant writers has done in a model culturally appropriate proposal. You will love it, even though it uses just about all the barred terms. (Sorry, we failed to squeeze in people + uterus.)
We don’t want to brag, but this can’t-miss proposal will shake up the lunatic left. You will want to immediately fund it, even while chain-sawing so many others into sawdust. And when you spread the word on X, your popularity with anti-woke key groupsis going to skyrocket! Even Steve Bannon will snuggle up to you.
Thanks for purifying our thoughts and bringing your antiracist Afrikaner sensibility to our great nation.
Proposal For Reparations for the Descendants of Slave Owners (DSO)
Britain abolished slavery in 1833 and provided former slave owners 20 million British pounds (the equivalent today of $22.1 billion US dollars) as compensation. Racial justicedemands a similar response from the U.S. federal government for the descendants of U.S. slave owners.
In South Africa today, oppressedwhite farmers face land confiscation without compensation from its BIPOC government. Slave owners in the U.S. were victims of a similar injustice after the Civil War, punished for their identity. Without reparations, which have been too long denied, their descendants are victimized again generation after generation.
To promote a truly inclusive society based on equity, equality,and diversityfor all, we must recognize and celebrate our cultural differences. While we are a nation of immigrants, we also are a nation of slaveowners!
For too long implicit bias and hate speechhave been used against those, due to no fault of their own, who were born into slave-owning families. These key populations, labeled DSO here, should be considered at riskminorities. They helped create our national identityand contributed significantly to our cultural heritage. Racism in America would have little meaning without them.
Our proposal is a multicultural exploration ofrace and ethnicityamong the slave-owning class, and their extended contact with indigenous communities and the Hispanic minorityalong the Gulf of Mexico. These marginalized non-white groups, including males and females, also owned slaves and suffered losses due to emancipation.
We must put aside our stereotypesabout the plantation class. This underappreciatedand undervaluedpopulation is difficult to analyze due to our own unconscious bias against all aspects of slavery. The DSO have lost their voice and its once fearsome power, since some ancestors of slaveowners are burdened by a crippling sense of guilt and so are underrepresented in modern political discourse.
To advocate for reparations for DSO members is not to whitewash their faults. Slave-owners promoted systemic racism, segregation, and white privilege— even for white non-slave-owners— but we should acknowledge their genuine sense of belongingformed though the intersectionalityof socioculturaland socioeconomic factors in plantation society.
Even though white womenwere systematically placed on a pedestal, they were never excluded from institutionalslave-owning power. They adored their narrow gender identity. These women of high status were never marginalizedby aggressive feminists. They were totally at ease with being biologically female and with the genderthey were assigned at birth.
Also, we can find no transgenderand transexualmembers of slave-owning society and the DSO. Women did not run domestic plantation life in order to overcome disparities or spew meaningless pronounsin polite society. This wholesome tradition has been carried on by the DSO and provides another reason for just compensation.
A key, but seldom discussed factor, is the gender-based violence suffered at the hands of marauding Yankee soldiers. The DSO may deserve additional compensation for thetrauma suffered as well as any resulting mental disabilities of their forebearers.
Meanwhile, slave-owning men were real men, biologically maleswith no wanton legacy of men having sex with men(MSM). And please forgive us for a personal judgement: These god-fearing slaveowners left their descendants with not the faintest expressions of non-binary awareness, thank goodness.
Because of the uncompensated destruction of the slave-holding structures, we regret to report that more than a few white plantation women became commercial sex workers in order to survive the marauding armies. The anguish and mental healthproblems facing white plantation prostitutes should be considered when awarding reparations. While it is too late to do something for them, our unconscious bias about sex should not distract us from a path of justice for their descendants.
Another important thread connects the slave owners to the climate crisisthey and their descendants experienced. Monocrops repeatedly planted to raise cash in trade depleted the soil on Southern farms, creating pollution in their drinking water and a more generally degraded environmental quality. Westward expansion of slavery took more and more land from Native American tribes. Without climate scienceto inform them, effective solutions were missed and succeeding generations paid the price. We compensate farmers today for crop failures and tariff losses, why not do the same for the DSO including tribalDSO?
We hope that grant reviewers will look beyond their built-in anti-slaveowner confirmation bias, as well as their preconceived notions about race and ethnicity. It’s time to hone our cultural sensitivity and embrace a true cultural diversity, one that includes both descendants of slaves and slave owners. Our all-inclusive survey will make plain the biases we hold against this DSO class.
Since the Civil War, polarizationhas led to oppression and vilification of our great but marginalizedplantation heritage. This injustice can only be rectified by fair and equitablecompensation for the undervalued and underserved,whose relatives had their Blackhuman capital stripped from them.
Our project asks only that we adjust our orientation and increase the diversityof those considered the victimsof slavery. We must foster inclusiveness, devising just and equitable compensation programs for all descendants of slavery, including the DSO.
Social justice requires that we overcome our own prejudices and promote diversityof thought. By doing so, we all should recognize that slave-owning descendants too should be considered among our most vulnerable populations, entitled to equal opportunities when reparations are considered.
Now is the time to rectify the historical inequity faced by the DSO.
Now is the time to enhance the diversity of reparations recipients and the way they are viewed.
Now is the time to fund our bold proposal which strives, like no other, to bring community equity to all our people.
Cc: Rober Kennedy Jr., J.D. Vance, and the descendants of Robert E. Lee
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South African Diplomat Called a 'Disgrace' by Marco Rubio, Returns Home a Hero
The Trump administration's ouster of South Africa's Ambassador to the U.S. Ebrahim Rasool was certainly meant to warn other countries about the consequences of challenging the United States—but it may well backfire.
Mar 24, 2025
On March 14, Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly berated South Africa’s Ambassador to the U.S. Ebrahim Rasool in a most undiplomatic tweet, writing: “South Africa's Ambassador to the United States is no longer welcome in our great country. Ebrahim Rasool is a race-baiting politician who hates America and hates @POTUS. We have nothing to discuss with him and so he is considered PERSONA NON GRATA.” On Sunday, March 23, the South African ambassador returned home to a hero’s welcome.
The United States lost a seasoned South African representative who had previously served as ambassador under President Obama, was a member of South Africa’s National Assembly, and was active (and imprisoned) during his country’s anti-apartheid struggle. And ginning up the conflict with a country that has such tremendous international standing may prove to be a bad move for President Trump.
Trump administration was incensed by remarks the ambassador had made earlier that week when speaking, via video, at a South Africa conference. He commented on the MAGA movement, saying that it is driven by white supremacy and is a response to the growing demographic diversity in the United States. The ambassador also expressed concern about the movement’s global reach, including support from Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa and has connections with extreme right movements overseas. The ambassador called his nation, South Africa, “the historical antidote to supremacism.”
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the decision to expel Rasool was “regrettable” and that “South Africa remains committed to building a mutually beneficial relationship with the United States.”
Ambassador Rasool, who says he has no regrets, was greeted by a massive crowd as he landed in Cape Town.
Rasool’s expulsion is only the latest manifestation of U.S. displeasure with South Africa. On March 17, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce listed a litany of issues the U.S. has with South Africa, including its “unjust land appropriations law”; its growing relationship with Russia and Iran; and the fact that it accused Israel of genocide in the International Court of Justice. Bruce denounced the ambassador’s lack of decorum, which she called obscene, and painted South Africa as a country whose policies make the United States and the entire world less safe.
This is in stark contrast to the view of South Africa from the Global South, where the African nation’s foreign policy is often seen as exemplary. Since the end of apartheid in 1994, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) has embraced a non-aligned foreign policy and has tried to resist pressure from Western countries. South Africa has also continued to show appreciation for nations such as Russia, Cuba and Iran that supported its anti-apartheid struggle.
South Africa’s non-aligned stance became a bone of contention with the Biden administration after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The United States pushed the world community to condemn Russia, but South Africa, along with many African nations, refused to take sides. South Africa has long had warm relations with Russia, dating back to the days when the Soviet Union trained and supported many of the ANC freedom fighters. Instead of condemning Russia, South Africa led a group of six African nations to advocate for negotiations to end the Russia/Ukraine conflict.
But it was Israel’s war on Gaza that placed the United States and South Africa on a collision course. Far from supporting the U.S. ally, Israel, South Africa accused Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians at the International Court of Justice. The Biden administration denounced the case as “meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever,” but the case triggered an avalanche of global support for South Africa’s principled stand. Dr. Haidar Eid, a Palestinian academic from Gaza, reflected world opinion when he said said, “By bravely standing up for what is right and taking Israel to the ICJ, South Africa showed us that another world is possible: a world where no state is above the law, most heinous crimes like genocide and apartheid are never accepted and the peoples of the world stand together shoulder to shoulder against injustice. Thank You, South Africa.”
When President Trump regained the White House, he not only condemned South Africa for its ICJ case against Israel, but he became embroiled in a policy totally internal to the African nation. Most likely egged on by Elon Musk, Trump denounced South Africa’s Expropriation Act of 2025, which established a program to expropriate unused agricultural land that White owners refused to sell to Black purchasers. White South Africans (Afrikaners) controlled the oppressive apartheid government until it was overthrown in 1994, and Afrikaners continue to own the vast majority of the wealth (the typical Black household owns 5 per cent of the wealth held by the typical White household). But Trump called the White population “racially disfavored landowners” and shockingly, not only punished South Africa by cutting off U.S. aid, but also promoted “the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination.” While shutting U.S. doors to immigrants of color from around the world, Trump laid out the red carpet for the white Africaners. Little wonder Ambassador Rasool was moved to call the Trump administration a leader in white supremacy.
Trump’s decision to cut aid to South Africa coincides with the administration’s gutting of US AID, which has had a disastrous effect on South Africans suffering from HIV/AIDS. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was a U.S. program launched in 2003 by President Bush to provide life-saving HIV care and treatment. South Africa has one of the highest rates of HIV in the world, and the U.S. had contributed 17 percent of the nation’s $400 million HIV budget. This funding supported the anti-retroviral medication for HIV treatment of 5.5 million people annually. According to some estimates, the aid freeze could cause over half a million deaths in South Africa over the next decade.
In terms of the larger South African economy and possible fallout from U.S. cuts, the United States is South Africa’s second-largest export market (China is number one), with $14.7 billion worth of goods exported to the United States in 2024. South Africa also benefits from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a preferential trade program providing duty-free access to U.S. markets. If the Trump administration removes South Africa from AGOA eligibility, its exports will surely plummet.
To make matters worse, this week the U.S. stopped the disbursement of $2.6 billion to South Africa through the World Bank’s Climate Investment Fund, monies that are supposed to help South Africa transition from coal to cleaner energy sources.
The Trump administration’s tough stance on South Africa is certainly meant to warn other countries about the consequences of challenging the United States. But Trump’s actions may well backfire. In response to the cut-off in aid and trade, 100 Parliamentarians from around the world penned a letter calling on their own governments to support South Africa’s public health programs and to expand new avenues for international trade as a sign of “international solidarity with the South African people as they face this assault on their right to self-determination.” South Africa is also a key player in the growing alliance of BRICs, a grouping of large countries trying to counter the economic clout of the United States. The BRICs nations now represent roughly 45 percent of the world’s populations and 35 percent of global GDP.
Trump’s expulsion and threats have also had a unifying effect inside South Africa. Ambassador Rasool, who says he has no regrets, was greeted by a massive crowd as he landed in Cape Town. For the people of South Africa and worldwide who oppose white supremacy, Rasool is not a disgraced ambassador. He is a hero.
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