[To the Editor: The Committee for Fairness in Sport, based in Johannesburg, has gone to extraordinary efforts (three advertisements in the October 20 issue of the New York Times) to convince the American public …]
[To the Editor: The Committee for Fairness in Sport, based in Johannesburg, has gone to extraordinary efforts (three advertisements in the October 20 issue of the New York Times) to convince the American public …]
Copy of a letter to the editor of The New York Times. The letter says the Committee for Fairness in Sport, based in Johannesburg, has gone to extraordinary efforts (three advertisements in the October 20 issue of the New York Times) to convince the American public that progress is being made toward reducing racial discrimination in South African sports. The letter says under apartheid law no black is, or can ever be, a citizen of South Africa; blacks outnumber whites 5:1, but have no share in the running of their country; to entrench white control of South Africa, blacks are now deemed to belong to separate nations - the Zulus, the Xhosa, etc. The letter says some have been given scraps of...
Copy of a letter to the editor of The New York Times. The letter says the Committee for Fairness in Sport, based in Johannesburg, has gone to extraordinary efforts (three advertisements in the October 20 issue of the New York Times) to convince the American public that progress is being made toward reducing racial discrimination in South African sports. The letter says under apartheid law no black is, or can ever be, a citizen of South Africa; blacks outnumber whites 5:1, but have no share in the running of their country; to entrench white control of South Africa, blacks are now deemed to belong to separate nations - the Zulus, the Xhosa, etc. The letter says some have been given scraps of land known as "homelands"; others, like the 'Coloureds' and Asians, have no place to go at all. The letter says interracial sports competition within South Africa at the local club or provincial level is forbidden by law; hence there is no possibility for judging true ability or for developing racially mixed teams that are selected on merit. The letter says ''Non-whites" only have access to inferior sports facilities, but there are hefty government subsidies for "Whites only" sports. The letter says leaders of the non-racial South African sporting bodies, which advocate open competition without racial restriction, have been arrested, detained, banned, censored and otherwise harassed by the government; many have been refused visas to travel abroad in order to prevent them from explaining their positions before international sporting bodies. The letter says the International Olympic Committee, which has regularly investigated South African sport, has consistently found South Africa guilty of violating the Olympic principle, i.e. that each athlete be chosen on the basis of merit and performance alone; thus South Africa has been barred from the Olympic Games in 1968, 1972 and will be again in 1976, the claims of the Committee notwithstanding. The letter says beyond sport, apartheid remains the way of life for blacks in South Africa. The letter says those black South African athletes the Committee so proudly cites in its ads are still subject to all the racial laws of South Africa: they must carry on their persons at all times the infamous "pass books"; they cannot eat, travel, sleep, work or live except where white South Africa allows them to. The letter says slick, professionalized public relations campaigns cannot hide the ugly realities of life for the 18 million blacks of South Africa. [Note: This is how the letter was distributed in the U.S. The actual letter to The New York Times most likely did not include a copy of the advertisement by the Committee for Fairness in Sport. Presumably this was produced a little later than the letter date.]
