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Afrikaans
The descendants of Dutch settlers in South Africa, many of whom moved inland in the nineteenth century after losing control of Cape Town to the British. Afrikaners ran the apartheid government from 1948-1990 and introduced the Afrikaans language to South Africa.
Afrikaners Quotes in Born a Crime
The Born a Crime quotes below are all either spoken by Afrikaners or refer to Afrikaners. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 9
Quotes
Colored people had it rough. Imagine: You've been brainwashed into believing that your blood is tainted. You've spent all your time assimilating and aspiring to whiteness. Then, just as you think you're closing in on the finish line, some fucking guy named Nelson Mandela comes along and flips the country on its head. Now the finish line is back where the starting line was, and the benchmark is black. Black is in charge. Black is beautiful. Black is powerful. For centuries colored people were told: Blacks are monkeys. Don't swing from the trees like them. Learn to walk upright like the white man. Then all of a sudden it's Planet of the Apes, and the monkeys have taken over.
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Afrikaners Term Timeline in Born a Crime
The timeline below shows where the term Afrikaners appears in Born a Crime. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2
...over Cape Town and forced the Dutch-descended settlers to move inland, where they became “the Afrikaners—the white tribe of Africa.” After the end of the British Empire, the Afrikaners took control...
(full context)
Chapter 4
...to know the language of your oppressor”), and Sotho (commonly spoken in Soweto). Once, an Afrikaner shopkeeper tells his security guard to watch out for “those blacks”—Patricia responds in “beautiful, fluent...
(full context)
Chapter 5
...two is six. La la la la la.” This is the difference between British and Afrikaner racism: the British promised natives a way to “civilize themselves” and potentially join polite society,...
(full context)
Chapter 9
...people have largely lost track of their heritage; they are culturally much closer to white Afrikaners than black natives.
(full context)
