By April Ryan
The build-up for the Oval Office meeting between South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and President Donald Trump resulted in a spectacle of a Presidential show and tell. President Trump worked to support the alleged claims that thousands of white South African Farmers have been killed with nothing done to remedy the situation. Leaders from both countries, Elon Musk, world-renowned white Golfers from South Africa, and reporters attended the highly publicized press event in the Oval Office. Before the president showed a video, a reporter in the Oval Office sternly questioned Trump, asking, “What would it take for you to be convinced that there is no white genocide in South Africa?” President Ramaphosa immediately answered the question as President Trump said, “ I’d rather have him answer.” “It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans, some of whom are his good friends,” said the South African president. Ramaphosa also emphasized it would have to take place at a “quiet” table so he could hear the facts.
Another telling moment in the meeting was when President Trump could not answer South Africa’s president’s question about the location of some parts of the video he showed in the Oval Office. Ramaphosa said calmly with concern, “I would like to know where that is. Cause, this I have never seen.” However, Trump continued his assertion that white farmers are being killed throughout the meeting and warned the president of South Africa that before the November G-20 summit in South Africa, the issue must be handled. Ramaphosa said, “There is criminality in our country; people who do get killed, unfortunately, through criminal activity are not only white people. The majority is Black people.” Trump, in a passing moment in that press event, recognized the wrong of the deadly apartheid system in South Africa when the country was white minority rule from 1948 to 1994. During the deadly apartheid system, the white-led government enforced strict racial segregation rules against the Black majority in housing, employment, government, social gatherings, and facilities.
