CHARMAIN NAIDOO: Crying racism and its dangerous results
'Never in the history of humankind, it seems to me, has race and financial disadvantage been so much at the forefront of global thinking. And rightly so'
Two years ago a friend’s daughter passed matric with a 97% aggregate but still failed to meet the quota for medical school in Cape Town. Her parents, both professionals who were active “struggalistas” in the day, shrugged that it was fair since she’d had such a privileged upbringing. Anyway, they could afford to pay for her to go to study overseas. I thought they’d send her to Oxford, where her grandfather and father went, which, surely, would put her at the front of the line.They laughed. Getting into Oxford these days was as difficult a process as getting into Cape Town University, they said. She’s the wrong race and comes from the wrong strata of society. Now if we were working class… Sweden’s English speaking Stockholm University accepted her, at exorbitant cost. I think that their assessment of Oxford’s skewed entry requirement – that it is biased on the basis of class and financial standing – is a gross exaggeration. My friends have embellished the truth. Still, it got me thin...
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