In part 1 of my interview with Sisonke Msimang, I brought up the phenomenon of “Black fatigue” by telling her a story about a white man who had attended a Black Lives Matter rally during the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. After the police shot him with a rubber bullet, he decided he would no longer attend such rallies.
From there, Sisonke and I agreed upon a basic definition of “Black fatigue” — the expression of annoyance or exhaustion with the awareness and/or attempts to address the legacy of white supremacy. Confronting the past and the present in an honest manner can make people feel sad, ashamed, and uncomfortable. It’s understandable.The flip side of “Black fatigue” is the grotesque overinflation of white victimization and grievance. There is perhaps no better example than President Donald Trump’s “white genocide” fable, which has become a foundation of U.S. foreign policy despite the fact that is fabricated for the purpose of winning a land policy dispute.
Roots
The “white genocide” narrative has roots in the pre-Apartheid, British colonial era of South Africa. In fact, as Sisonke says, it was instrumental in the political campaign that installed the Apartheid regime in 1948.
Today’s incarnation of the white genocide fable is the project of Kallie Kriel and Ernst Roets, two white South African activists of Dutch ancestry (Afrikaners) who have found allies among American white nationalists such as Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, and Charlie Kirk. Their performances on podcasts and other mediums have captivated President Trump ever since his previous administration. But this time around, Trump isn’t just watching the wrestlers in the ring; he has joined them.
Foggy insinuations about “terrible things” soon grew to accusations of genocide in the Oval Office, and in between, the United States expelled the South African ambassador Ebrahim Rasool.
(Elaborate lies spewed at campaign rallies or spread on social media are par for the course in Trump’s America. But when an unfounded conspiracy theory becomes a state-sponsored soap opera, and that soap opera becomes the basis for U.S. foreign policy, that really should be some sort of red alert. But that is not our purpose here.)
While the general public in South Africa has responded with flippancy and laughter, the political class and the business community have failed to see the humor. As Sisonke Msimang writes for The Intercept:
At first, the nation was furious with the Afrikaner organizations. The executive order was strongly worded and threatened sanctions. South Africans across all race groups criticized Kriel and Roets for convincing a foreign government to collectively punish the entire country over falsehoods. They were accused of peddling lies and disinformation and called traitors, as the nation worried that the U.S. would impose sanctions. Even AgriSA, a group that specifically represents the interests of farmers and has historically been dominated by Afrikaners, said “claims linking farm murders to the signing of the [Land Expropriation] act are baseless and irresponsible.”
As the anger mounted, AfriForum and Solidarity held a press conference in which they tried to distance themselves from Trump’s order. With his tail between his legs, Kriel backtracked on his claims of a white genocide. He has gone on to turn down Trump’s offer of asylum, insisting he was a patriotic South African who wanted to reaffirm “our commitment, our recommitment, to the country and all its people.”
Catching up with Mr. Trump’s wrestling show
On Feb 2, 2025, President Trump announced that South Africa is “under investigation.” A reporter had asked him why he posted to social media that the U.S. would suspend aid to South Africa. What was the offense?
That’s when Trump stumbled on the fateful phrase, “Terrible things are happening in South Africa.” These seven words would inspire waves of mockery, defiance, and interracial fellowship, as South Africans of all races posted videos and memes depicting kissing, dancing, and fully integrated, harmonious daily life as sarcastic examples of “terrible things.”
But Mr. Trump wasn’t finished. His executive order five days later proclaimed that the U.S. would no longer provide foreign aid or assistance to South Africa, and it established a refugee program for the white people in South Africa “who are victims of unjust racial discrimination” (meanwhile, legitimate refugee programs that bring nonwhite people to the United States had been indefinitely suspended).
By the time South African President Cyril Ramaphosa sat down in the Oval Office on May 21, 2025, Mr. Trump had prepared a stack of web clippings and a video montage that he thought would expose white genocide, embarrass Ramaphosa, and shock the world.
Journalists quickly fact-checked Trump’s presentation and found jaw dropping mistakes, such as photographs of events that did not take place in South Africa, and the inclusion of white crosses arranged for a political demonstration which Mr. Trump had mistaken for a mass grave for thousands of murdered white people.
Notes:
* Click here for part 1 of this conversation, which focuses on Sisonke’s acclaimed memoir, Always Another Country.
* During this episodes, we discuss Sisonke’s article, How Trump’s Embrace of Afrikaner “Refugees” Became a Joke in South Africa. You might also read On Trump and the invention of white victims in South Africa, which she published on Substack.
* During this conversation, I referenced Episode 10 of Wrestling Darkness as I compared South African Apartheid to the Jim Crow Era in the United States.
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