South Africa's problems with crime, racial rhetoric, land reform, economic empowerment and foreign policy are serious. They do not add up to 'white genocide'.
Relations between South Africa and the US have deteriorated to a point where what were once domestic South African disputes have become matters of American foreign policy.
Washington has raised concerns about violence against farmers, the "Kill the Boer" chant, expropriation, race-based economic policy and South Africa's relationships with countries such as Russia, China and Iran. The Trump administration has gone further, creating a refugee pathway specifically for Afrikaners and other South African minorities it considers victims of racial discrimination. In May 2026, President Donald Trump increased the US refugee-admissions ceiling for the fiscal year from 7,500 to 17,500, with the additional places allocated to Afrikaners. The presidential determination explicitly cited what it called "racially motivated violence".
As an Afrikaner and a South African, I believe Washington has identified several real problems. But those problems have now been forced into a racial morality play that mischaracterises South Africa and may ultimately make our racial divisions worse.
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The starting point should be the facts.
Farm attacks
Violence against farmers and farming communities is real. It is brutal, psychologically consequential and insufficiently addressed by the South African state. But the available evidence does not support the claim that South Africa is...
