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Reggie Yates White Slums (bbc3)
Will_Bennetts
Posts: 3,054 Forum Member
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Did anyone see ths last night ?
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/the-slums-reggie-yates-extreme-south-africa-tv-review-a-reversal-of-a-racial-trope-9142494.html.
Quite an eye opener really I had no idea there was so much poverty between white proper in South Africa . Some of the places they lived in looked horrendous.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/the-slums-reggie-yates-extreme-south-africa-tv-review-a-reversal-of-a-racial-trope-9142494.html.
Quite an eye opener really I had no idea there was so much poverty between white proper in South Africa . Some of the places they lived in looked horrendous.
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But I thought that Reggie Yates was a bit out of order towards that africaan family moralising and being preachy about how the people living there should approach their situation.
He seems like a nice guy, but I think he should have kept his mouth shut there as it came across as incredibly patronising and preachy.
It's easy for us to tell people how they should live their lives and deal with their situation. We don't have to live it.
It's not supposed to be about his 'journey' and about how he can solve such a tricky problem, but an insight for us about the lives of people living there in such a very difficult situation.
But it was a good enough programme.
I too missed the first part.:D
I only caught the last half.
I wasn't aware if Reggie had a family who suffered under the apartheid regime.
If so then I think there's even more reason for him to practice restraint and try to be an impartial objective observer.
Because that militant party were advocating murder of the africaans, and Reggie was more or less telling the africaan family that they have to understand them a bit more.
It felt like rather a misguided and misplaced stance to take I thought.
Some folk just can't resist wallowing in victimhood. Just about every (indigenous) British person has/had equally innocent family who suffered or lost their lives due to say - WW2. I've yet to encounter much in way of self-serving victimhood among descendants of such folk.
As far as I'm aware he is of ghanian descent and his family had nothing to do with apartheid. You could also argue those in the slums were wallowing in victimhood and felt as though they shouldn't be those conditions.
I thought it was good & it was very eye opening.
South Africa seems eternally scarred & that is so sad.
Agree that RG came across as sometimes preaching to the subjects of his documentary. What does he know about poverty on his fat BBC contract ?
I didn't hear any detailed explanations as to why these people had ended up there.
What was interesting was that the township visitors to the park simply WOULD NOT believe that white folk were living there. He should have taken them to see.
Mandela must have died a very disappointed man to see black extremists longing to kill whites. I'm sure he didn't spend decades in prison for that result.
I'm guessing you didn't actually see the program.
WTF WWII has to do with something like Apartheid I don't know.
What did he say, that you took exception to?
He really annoyed me in this documentary, especially at the part you mention above.
I also think he was trying to justify the situation of the extreme poverty stricken Afrikaners' by basically saying that it's acceptable for a growing number of white people to fall in to that situation to balance things out. Nobody should have to live in those conditions. >:(
Overall, it was a great documentary and shows what a damaged country SA is. It's also sad to see how the ANC has failed the new SA and how they keep blaming the past for all the problems. It's been 20 years since the end of Apartheid, that's an entire generation they've had to improve things but they haven't. As we see in other countries that have marxit/communist governments, there is a small elite at the top who have everything with the rest having nothing.
I wouldn't say that I took exception to anything. I just think that he was rather tactless when talking to the africaaner woman. I could understand why she lost it with him. He was practically trying to tell her how she should accept the reasoning for why a group of people would like to kill her.
It just came over as very patronising even if he meant well.
Not that I can remember the bit you're on about.
Alternatively, he was trying to explain someone else's reasoning to her?
I remember her shouting about how Black people should forgive and forget and him disagreeing over the forget part.
'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it' was the point, I thought he was trying to make, but he failed to explain clearly/simply enough.
The problem with the militant group is that it's the remembering which they can't let go. To be honest they could do with forgetting for a while.
It's all very well a western reporter telling somebody living the life they're living over there that they shouldn't forget. But Reggie isn't actually living it. It's easy to offer platitudes like that if you're not living in such a difficult situation.
You can tell somebody that they should remember or they won't learn anything, but at the moment I don't think that Reggie teaching them lessons is going to be appreciated in the midst of such an immediate problem.
I think Reggie was missing the point that the phrase to 'forgive and forget' is often used as a figure of speech to mean just let it go.
Right now it's the remembering itself which is the very issue, as people don't have much of a problem forgetting as it appears to be too fresh in people's minds.
In this immediate problem the africaaners in the programme appeared to be aware that the militant group was seeking revenge for what previous generations had inflicted on them. So they themselves obviously don't need educating. However it appeared that the people who needed some philosophical preaching to counter the hate propaganda were the people with the bloodlust problem.
Exactly like the capitalist system, then!
This forgive and forget thing makes me think of Truth and Reconciliation Committee and Siphiwo Mtimkhulu's Mother.
She's not forgiving and forgetting, what the security services did to her son, torture, poisoning, put him in a wheelchair and eventually murdered, when he tried to sue them.
IIRC, to fend off reporters her answerphone says exactly that, she's not forgiving or forgetting and she's not talking about it anymore.
It seems every weekend they end up in hospital with multiple stabs wounds yet still do it the next week.
The most amazing thing is that they are laughing as soon as they are fixed up and want to get home.
I am really liking Reggie Yates as I have not been a fan of him.
That was heartbreaking. He even clung to Reggie as he showed him comfort
Also I'm 18 and grew up watching Reggie Yates so I think it's quite a good presenter.