this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2026
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Yeah I have always hated the idea that peoples descendants carried on their forefather's beliefs. Like if my grandfather was a huge rasist, antisemitic, islamphobe... I will be as well. I cannot have my own agency or beliefs, I am forever tainted...
You'd probably change your name if it was Mengele-Eichmann and you didn't follow in their footsteps.
That is just erasure and denial of history. Famous politician Melanie Verwoerd here in South Africa. Her grandfather, Hendrik Verwoerd has basically the architect behind Apartheid. She joined the ANC, under Nelson Mandela, and was a MP for the ANC in democratic South Africa and ambassador to Ireland. I was a powerful message.
But let's play devil's advocate, I have a really Afrikaans name and Surname. Should I in South Africa begin the process and change my name and surname to something more fitting, take up a cultural name and surname of the natives, like Thabang Nkosi? Feels very wrong to me. Again my actions and choices dictate who I am, not an inherited name that actually represents my heritage, I need to acknowledge the weight of my heritage, and like all good people try to improve the world for all. But like Romeo and Juliet even asked, their names dictated they be rivals, what is in a name?
I once heard someone say Afrikaaners should leave South Africa and I was like - you live in North America and you're white, why tf don't YOU leave?
I wouldn't say the whole Afrikaaner ethnicity is poisoned just because of a few apartheid assholes. There were plenty who were against apartheid also.
But also even a name like Verwoerd wouldn't carry the weight of something like Mengele-Eichmann.