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The jokes mask a deep-seated anger over the legacy of apartheid and the inequality that many Black people say continues to define life in their country.
By Lynsey Chutel and Zimasa Matiwane
Lynsey Chutel reported from London. Zimasa Matiwane reported from Johannesburg.
May 22, 2025, 4:23 p.m. ET
Mandla Dube, a South African farmer, fled his home three years ago after being attacked by armed robbers.
He was living outside Pretoria, South Africa’s administrative capital, when about eight armed men stormed his house one night, he said. The robbers pointed a gun at him, tied him up for six hours and stole his valuables. He begged them not to harm his adult son.
Mr. Dube remembered the episode as he watched President Trump lecture South Africa’s president about the persecution of white farmers from the Oval Office on Wednesday. The story didn’t resonate, however. Mr. Dube is Black, and his experience was nowhere in Mr. Trump’s vision of South Africa.
“You’re like, ‘No, that’s not true,’” Mr. Dube said, referring to Mr. Trump’s statements. “It just makes you go, ‘Geez, how about some of us who’ve been attacked, who haven’t left this country and who are still here?’”
Ever since Mr. Trump announced in February that he would create an expedited path for white South Africans to resettle in the United States as “refugees,” Black South Africans in the country have responded with a mix of anger, disbelief and humor.
After living through decades of brutal apartheid, they say, watching the Trump administration cast Afrikaners — the white descendants of the colonizers responsible for that system — as victims has been infuriating.
