Talk:History of South Africa in the apartheid era/Archive 1

message: In my opinion, this article needs references and inline cites, and it also needs proofreading and tweaking because of its present rough state as a merger of the other two articles.--Bcrowell 9 July 2005 18:14 (UTC)
:I agree, and given your dedication, I assume you're working on doing exactly that.  Tomer TALK 14:46, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
::I actually don't have any print sources on apartheid handy. Does anyone else?--Bcrowell 15:54, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: work needed

message: The article uses the term "coloured" a lot, and this particular usage is a weird term used that way only in apartheid-era SA. Can anyone insert an explanation before it's used the first time in the article? I'm a USian. These racial classification systems seem obvious to the people who have grown up in the society, but they're actually very idiosyncratic, e.g., the U.S. has traditionally made a dichotomous distinction between white and black, whereas Brazilians see it as more of a spectrum. Did "coloured" take in Indians? Asians? All Asians, including rich visiting Japanese CEOs? What about the case where a white person and a black person had a mixed-race child (presumably violating a lot of laws)? Was that child considered white, black, or "coloured?"--Bcrowell 15:54, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: See Coloured for an explanation of the term. I agree a short definition on this page would be helpful too. --Angr/ 09:58, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, thanks, I didn't even know the Coloured article existed. I've added a cross-reference, and a small amount of information cut and pasted from that article.--Bcrowell 14:38, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

text: Wikipedia has a policy against including source materials in bulk, and the article is already fairly long, so I'm not sure it's a good idea to add something that lengthy to it. IMO, what would be helpful would be a footnote giving a reference to back up what the article says. For an example of how to use footnotes and references in a WP article, see the Ku Klux Klan article.--Bcrowell 18:14, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That sounds fair enough. However I do feel that the article in its present form fails to fully convey the conglomeration of absurdities that was the apartheid system, including definitional rhetoric. Will do my best with regards to footnotes, in between exam studying!--Xiphon 18:41, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, I love the part about the "pencil test" (more detail!?), and classifying people in the same family as being of different races -- yeesh!--Bcrowell 19:07, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: definition of "coloured"

message: I am a South African, so maybe its just my bias, but perhaps this article should be a little longer, considering what a huge portion of South Africa's ( and southern africa's ) history apartheid was. 
Bearing in mind that the apartheid goverment was also important to the soviets and the americans, with the uranium and all. If nobody minds I think I will start working on a section on south africans who opposed apartheid. Banes 09:23, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You're responding to an old version that a vandal replaced the latest version with (see below).--Bcrowell 16:19, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A bit short dont you think? 

message: On July 28, 64.252.37.117 deleted the whole article, and then an hour later 64.252.33.223 replaced it with what appears to be the text of the old Apartheid article, including the statement about "diaspora Jews." (I assume from the similarity of the IPs that these were the same person.) The part about "diaspora Jews" had led to a long revert war in the Apartheid article, culminating in a vote in which there was a decisive majority for leaving it out. This July 28 edit was nothing but wholesale vandalism. The current version of the article is far more detailed than the old Apartheid article, since it combines the relevant text from the old Apartheid article and the History of South Africa article. The anon tried to undo a huge amount of work on the article, sneak in the part about "diaspora Jews" again, and complete the whole act without so much as an edit summary or a heads-up on the talk page. Despicable.--Bcrowell 16:19, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As some of you are probably aware by now, this has been reported at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Jews did Apartheid editor has returned.   Tomer TALK 04:50, July 31, 2005 (UTC)
Ok, I am so sick of vandalism, I am glad you fixed it up. I was quite horrified to see such a tiny disjointed article. Thanks for sorting all of this out. That user should be banned.Banes 16:50, July 31, 2005 (UTC)
Stop taking the easy road and making personal attacks to justify your positions.  Please blame the vandalism on the vandal, when you can accurately pinpoint who the vandal is,  do not make assumptions that cannot be backed up.  Blame vandalism on the fly-by vandal, not someone who had to battle a ridiculous amount of crazy Jewish bias and overt denial of fact and history for over one month.  I notice these same Jewish people are not contributing to the South Africa apartheid article now.  It was clear their main concern was not South African history, but Jewish bias.  They are not on this article contributing now, and that's not a surprise whatsoever.  All over two words, it brought the incredible bias those editors have, right out into the open for all to see.  Noboby ever said, "Jews did Apartheid".  Leave it to the Jewish-biased editors (of which many showed up to exhibit it) to mischaracterize the issue, in such an absurd and ridiculous way.  And now they are on their way, somewhere else to push POV.  They never cared about South African history or the apartheid article itself, their actions have proved it.  Cheers!  Please follow my user contributions.  Please help stop censorship and abuse by editors and admins.  You'll see who they are, and why they do it. 69.222.254.7 00:56, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Wholesale vandalism

message: Anonymous user 219.88.176.157 has made a long series of edits all in one shot. Many of them seemed highly POV to me, oriented toward some kind of claim that whites and blacks were treated equivalently. For instance, the caption to the photo of the segregated beach was altered to state that "Whites were only allowed on the right side of the boundary, and blacks on the left," and a statement was inserted that "Whites required passes in black areas." While this may in fact have been the literal contents of the legal code, it's ridiculous to imply that whites were really restricted de facto in these ways. I've reverted the edit. Highly controversial edits like this really need to be discussed beforehand on the talk page, and, if there's a consensus for them, they then need to be carried out in small, manageable chunks, not as huge sloppy one-shot edits of the whole article.--Bcrowell 03:18, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: edits by 219.88.176.157

message: Although 219.88.176.157's recent massive edit was, IMO, an attempt to mislead people about the true nature of apartheid, he/she does bring up some interesting points. Was it true, for instance, that whites theoretically needed passes to enter black areas? Obviously apartheid was not evenhanded in its treatment of blacks and whites, but if this is true, there should probably be a sentence or two in the section on the legal system to explain what the laws said, and how they were actually implemented.
--Bcrowell 14:53, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Since you're familiar with the facts, do you think you could add an appropriate note to the article somewhere explaining this?--Bcrowell 17:23, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: de facto and de jure treatment of whites and blacks?

message: Another edit by 219.88.176.157 that may have some value is the statement that "The Sharpville Police Station came under attack from demonstrators." Is this true? If so, what exactly is meant by "attack?" This is an example of how this article really really needs to have some references added by people who have access to good print sources. Until that happens, we're always going to have  disputes about factual issues. Similar issue regarding the Soweto riots: "rioters destroyed school buildings, and murdered teachers, both black and white." True?--Bcrowell 14:52, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "Attack" has been used too loosely here. All the affidavits indicate that the crowd was not armed in any way, and did not have violent intentions. There were only about 5000 protestors facing the 300 policemen. The SA government naturally rushed to cover up the incident,which resulted in the exaggerated figures one sometimes finds. I am a South African who is studying history,and have been able to tap into some of the multitude of sources that we have available.--Xiphon 15:34, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the information! It would be wonderful if you could add some footnotes to the article on factual points like this that are likely to be controversial. For an example of how to do footnotes and references in Wikipedia, see Ku Klux Klan.--Bcrowell 16:39, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You already told him that.  :-p  Tomer TALK 20:52, July 31, 2005 (UTC)
In the 80s a number of police stations in Soweto and other townships came under grenade attacks or with limped mines. Most of these attacks was never told to the public. I came across a number of them in the Umkhonto we Sizwe's confessions to the TRC and have recorded them in the Timeline of South African history--Jcw69 09:05, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: attack by demonstrators on Sharpeville Police Station?

message: The removal of targeted ethnic groups and foreign countries: i.e. listing the Germans, French, etc. is balanced and fair.  Otherwise you have to include all groups that profited under the apartheid system using black labor, including Jewish businesses.69.222.254.7 00:46, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Rewrite

message: There should be mention under the international relations section of the front-line states and SADCC. Other than Namibia, none of these counties have been dealt with adequately. I propose to add a paragraph or two detailing their exploits in the face of SA's "destabilisation policy". Fine by all?--Xiphon 18:49, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds great!--Bcrowell 19:28, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Done, but I have left the original piece in case there are any problems. If all goes well, it will have to be incorporated into the additions. In the mean-time, quality control?--Xiphon 20:24, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Front-Line States

message: The article states that Biko was a medical student.  I dont think this is correct.  My research shows he was a 'gardener' (his orginaly employment title) at the university and slowly began to do work in the medical lab.  Although throughout the years he did assist with medical experiments in the lab, he was never registered as a medical student and infact never took classes towards a medical degree.  Can anyone confirm or deny this? Rian
:I'd suggest you be bold, but footnote it with your source. Since it's only a side issue, maybe the words "medical student" should just be changed to "lab technician."--Bcrowell 15:49, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If that is the case, that he was a lab technician, then I will have to change that on an article I authored in which I referred to Biko as a medical student. As this article used to say. If it is changed, please let me know here. Thanks. Banes 12:06, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biko as a medical student?