Comments by "TJ Marx" (@tjmarx) on "The vigilante movement targeting immigrants to ‘clean up’ communities in South Africa" video.

  1. Isn't it funny that channel 4 think this is in any way new for South Africa or, anywhere in Africa for that matter... Funnier still that when it's whites with this behaviour against any race, even other whites, channel 4 call it racism. But here they call it xenophobia. Of course neither label are true, it's just an attempt to cast such people as outliers when it's really how the majority feel. It isn't just hard economic times, hard economic times just make people drop the pretence of socially acceptable tolerance masking their true feelings. Whether it's South Africa, Kenya, Argentina, Texas, Poland, or the UK, the people all say the same things. They're worried about IRREGULAR or UNCONTROLLED border crossings (which they call illegal), increase in crime, undercutting of local merchants and a dilution or evaporation of existing culture. They say those things independent of their own skin colour or that of the migrants. Their worries only increase the poorer the source country and the more different their culture. Not because they're foreign or because they're afraid of their cultures, the same people welcome legal immigration. It's about having control over ones borders, knowing people let in aren't a safety risk, that people let in will provide a greater benefit to the community than they receive in return and will assimilate into the existing culture.
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