Present-day Afrikaners discard identity markers that tie them to the accountable past

Evidence

Participants constructed sanitized versions of Afrikaner identity. In doing so they jettisoned the aspects of public Afrikaner identity, which threatened to tie them to the accountable past. These were aspects such as die taal (the language), the Voortrekkers or brandy-drinking Boers in long socks and short pants. Since these images would anchor their own identities as Afrikaners in the past, they would also increase the accountability of present-day Afrikaners for the sins of their predecessors and these images were therefore discarded as identity liabilities in postapartheid South Africa. — Cornel Verwey and Michael Quayle, Whiteness, racism, and Afrikaner…, 186

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels mechanisms by which groups facing accountability cleanse their heritage — connects to the reader’s question about identity persisting while shed of the aspects that trigger moral responsibility. — connects to: After democracy Afrikaans lost power and became symbolically tied to the apartheid past — Cornel Verwey and Michael Quayle, Whiteness, racism, and Afrikaner…, 22; Post-apartheid Afrikaners treat the label itself as a stigma to be managed — Cornel Verwey and Michael Quayle, Whiteness, racism, and Afrikaner…, 73; Some Afrikaners reduce their entire culture to racism and disown it — Cornel Verwey and Michael Quayle, Whiteness, racism, and Afrikaner…, 90 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Genocide-invoking identity talk pervades younger Afrikaners who never lived under apartheid #contradicts (0.85) — Cornel Verwey and Michael Quayle, Whiteness, racism, and Afrikaner…, 192
• Afrikaner grievance identity persisted after displacement by reattaching to whiteness rather than dissolving. #contradicts (0.85) — Cornel Verwey and Michael Quayle, Whiteness, racism, and Afrikaner…, 187