South Africans are wearily attuned to governments’ Orwellian misuse of language. This made it compulsory for black South Africans over the age of 16 to carry a passbook. So perhaps they should not be unduly surprised that the government of the US has imported 49 Afrikaners and labelled them as “refugees”. The claim is that they are escaping from the persecution of Afrikaners – and white people more broadly – in South Africa today. But it is poor black South Africans – not whites – who are principal victims of such deadly violence.