Why is Miss South Africa White?

Last night, London played host to the Annual Miss World Beauty Pageant. The winner? None other than Miss SOUTH AFRICA. But wait a minute. Miss South AFRICA... is... white? 

I have seen so many comments on various social media websites questioning the race of the very beautiful and, might I add, smart, Miss Rolene Strauss. And you know what. It seriously irks me that in this day and age, with information literally at the tip of our fingers, people are dumbstruck by the fact that there are white people in South Africa. Um, have you ever heard of a little thing called 'Apartheid'. Yes, that system of racial segregation that use to exist in South Africa, fought against by Nelson Mandela and comrades. Think about it. If there were only black people in South Africa, how could there be a racial divide? Back in the 70's when Apartheid was still being implemented, South Africa use to send two contestants to participate in Miss World. One had to be white and the other non-white. The white participant got to carry the title of Miss South Africa while the non-white participant had to carry the title of Miss Africa South. In fact, the first year of South Africa doing this (1970), Miss Africa South, Pearl Jansen, was first runner up while her White counterpart, Jillian Jessup, was 4th runner up.

Pearl Jansen - Miss Africa South 1970

Miss Israel - Irith avi (3rd), Miss South Africa - Jillian Jessup (5th), Miss Grenada - Jennifer Hosten (winner), Miss Africa South - Pearl Jansen (2nd), Miss Sweden - Majorie Johansson (4th).

But maybe I'm being too hard on ya'll. After all, many times the media feeds us a whole lot of bullshit and Africa seems to be perceived as one big, poor, dessert country with a bunch of starving kids and wild animals running all over the place. This may be true for some parts of Africa, but Africa is actually one very large continent comprised of several countries, one of which is South Africa. And while South Africa has it's fair share of poverty, it also has it's fair share of filthy rich and in betweeners. Not so long ago we were well on our way to becoming a first world country. I'm not so sure about that now lol. But overall, South Africa is pretty well off. Hey, Cape Town was voted the best city to visit in the world!

But back to the race thing. South Africa is also known as the 'Rainbow' nation. It was given this name due to the cultural diversity and many types of races found within it. We have white, black, Asian. You name it, we've got it. Then of course we have the melting pots aka 'coloured' people. Not coloured as referred to black people in the USA. But coloured as in mixed race. You find coloured people with all sorts of heritages. White mixed with black. White mixed with Asian. Black mixed with White and Bushmen etc etc. This is one race that is very diverse all on it's own.

So ya, to answer your question. Miss South Africa is a white woman who is part of our beautiful rainbow nation and deserves to be Miss South Africa just as much as her fellow non-white South Africans.

So a big CONGRATULATIONS to Rolene Strauss! 

South Africa is very proud of you!

Until next time, have a great day, or night, wherever you are!

xoxo

Angel