I was recently in North Dakota and I spoke to some white petit bourgeoisie farmers who say they recently made the switch from Latino immigrant labor to white South African immigrant labor. They lamented to me about “how the white man gets treated” in South Africa, hitting many talking points you list here and including other like “black men coming to invade your home but if you own a gun the gov’t will throw you in prison” etc.

It’s very upsetting because I know very little about South Africa, but thankfully I am very well-versed in how white supremacists, Westerners, colonialists and in particular those who are a combination of the three will take out-of-context half-truths, add in a couple grotesque exaggerations and outright lies and paint a reasonable-sounding picture that makes “race realism” and white supremacist violence sound like something that is an ugly truth that needs to be spread. It’s upsetting because I can only imagine how easily many white people who are not so thoroughly inoculated against such devilish influence can be swayed with such stories.

Honestly, one thing that I DO know about South Africa was I was watching a docuseries about a wildlife reserve in the country…and I couldn’t help but notice that all the owners, who were rich, were white, all the middle level workers who got paid well and were stars of the show were white, and all the workers who did grunt work and received little to no screen time or glamor who were noticeably poorer were black. It’s crazy how a little bit of suspicion and the slightest amount of exposure to something real can quickly cleave a leg off of racist conspiracy theory.