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Racism Still Blights ‘Everyday Life’ in South Africa: President

Racism remains part of “everyday life” in South Africa, President Cyril Ramaphosa said Monday, after a scandal erupted over a viral video showing the humiliation of black student.

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He said the nation was “outraged at the sight of a white student at the University of Stellenbosch degrading and humiliating a fellow black student in a despicable act.”

The shows a first-year white student urinating on the books and laptop belonging to a black colleague in the early hours of Sunday, May 15.

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“We need to understand what is causing racist attitudes to flourish in our schools and places of higher learning,” Ramaphosa said.

“We need to understand what kind of institutional cultures contribute to racism in the workplace, in social organisations and in communities.”

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The university has opened disciplinary proceedings amid calls for the student’s expulsion for what it condemned as a “destructive, hurtful and racist incident”.

Justice minister Ronald Lamola on Monday denounced the incident as “akin to urinating on the Constitution itself”.

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