Quote of the Day

Why was there so little racial tension in South Africa, a country with fresh, open wounds from apartheid?  And why was there so much racial tension in America, a country that supposedly put an end to its great sin of chattel slavery well over a hundred years ago, and its version of apartheid years prior to my visit to South Africa [in 1994]?  Perhaps South Africans experience so little tension compared to Americans because officially apartheid had such a short life span, about forty-five years.  Perhaps it is because in the end they voluntarily gave up their unjust system.  Perhaps it is because South Africa admitted their crimes to the world, and through the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (established in 1996, two years after apartheid was abolished), many whites in South Africa owned up to the crimes they committed against their black countrymen.  Maybe it is because South Africa has fought, suffered, and continues to struggle to establish justice and firm footing while in the plain sight of us all.

-- Joy DeGruy, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, p. 12