Foreword
The collected data in this book make shocking reading indeed. Whether the reader is black, coloured or white, the racial strife and suffering of the black poor in the United States, or anywhere else in the world, including South Africa, have to be condemned as totally unacceptable in the present stage of modern civilization when taking into account the advances of science and technology. The backwardness of people with another skin ‘as bleached white’, as historian Arnold Toynbee once said, is a contradiction to our basic humanity. Racial inequality has to be eradicated wherever this has been maintained. ‘Apartheid’ poisons the life of all men.
The details presented here deal only with the visible tip of the iceberg. From my own experience of travelling in the United States, (I regretfully admit) I have concluded that American society at large remains riddled with racial injustice and dismal inequality between blacks and whites. In spite of a half-century of efforts to eradicate American apartheid, I am sorry to say, discrimination prevails through all layers of the so-called New World.
Actually, the report compiled by Dutch journalist, Willem Oltmans clearly underlines the huge problems ahead for South Africa, where contrary to the United States, so many different black histories, cultures, and languages compete with one another for their rightful and democratic place within the boundaries of the Republic. Blacks in America are Americans with a black skin, who speak one language and have adopted a similar way of life as white Americans. Therefore, I strongly recommend this up-to-date overview of realities in the United States in the late eighties. The report is factual, accurately documented and based on impeccable sources. It presents a mere shadow of the multiple problems South Africa is faced with.
NELSON T BOTILE
Mayor of the black township of Soweto (1987 - October 1988)
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