r/south_africa

Awe mense.

So I am in the tricky position of having to give a job interview on behalf of a company I work for.
I want to say I am approaching this in the most well meaning sense and in the best of good faith.
The two previous people who occupied the position were let-go for rather severe acts of racism (first one was to a black colleague and the second was towards black clients).

I need to understand how do I ethically and legally go about asking a potential employee. “Do we need to be concerned about any acts of racism you may or may not enact towards a black colleague or black client while you are employed with us?”.
But right off the bat that feels like a hell of a shitty thing to ask. I want to not have to worry about this but the company has gotten into hot water both with employees and clients because of the actions of an employee with racist views.
How can I conduct this interview in a way that is legal, fair and ethical without ignoring the potential that I am signing off on hiring someone with damaging views in a professional space.

Please understand I am not trying to cast judgement or sow division here. I want to be as fair as I can with both this potential employee and to the black clients we serve and black workers we employ.

Any advise thoughts or good faith assistance will be greatly appreciated.

:

My Story

My life did not start the way most people’s do.

At just 2 years old, I was taken away from my biological parents and placed in an orphanage. I was too young to understand what was happening, too young to understand loss, abandonment, or why the people who brought me into this world were suddenly gone. But even if I could not understand it then, I think part of me carried that wound my whole life.

The orphanage became home. I grew up around other children who were also missing pieces of themselves, all of us trying to understand why life had turned out this way. I learned independence early because I had to. I learned that crying did not always bring comfort and that life could feel lonely, even in a room full of people.

When I was 10 years old, I was adopted. People often think adoption means everything suddenly gets better, like the ending of a movie. But real life is more complicated than that. You do not stop carrying pain just because your address changes. I still carried hurt, confusion, and memories of things that had already shaped me. Abuse, emotional pain, and feeling different became part of my story. School was not always kind either. I was bullied and hurt by people I trusted, and somewhere along the line I started believing that maybe pain was just something life handed me.

At 18, I moved out and had to learn how to survive on my own. I did not have life figured out. Truthfully, I was still just a hurt kid trying to act like an adult. I wanted what everyone wants—to be loved, to belong, to finally feel safe with someone.

But life had more lessons waiting for me.

I got cheated on, and betrayal cut deeper than most people understood. When you already grow up feeling abandoned, being betrayed by someone you trust does not just hurt—it reopens old wounds you thought maybe had healed.

Then came one of the darkest things I have ever had to carry.

I was sexually assaulted by someone of the same sex. It is not something easy to talk about. It is not something easy to process. It left me with pain, confusion, anger, and questions I did not always know how to answer. Some wounds are invisible, but they still change who you are. That experience stayed with me in ways I cannot fully explain.

After that, I started drinking.

At first, maybe it felt like relief. A way to quiet my thoughts, numb the hurt, silence the memories, and stop feeling everything for a while. But pain has a way of following you, no matter how much you try to drown it.

Then I met a girl.

For the first time in a long time, life felt different. I fell in love. I got married. For seven years, I believed I had finally found my person—someone who would stay, someone who chose me. I built a life around that love. I trusted it. I believed in it.

Then one day, she left for work…

And never came back.

No warning that prepared me. No ending that made sense. Just silence, distance, and eventually the painful truth that the woman I loved no longer wanted the life we built together. The same fear of abandonment that had followed me since childhood suddenly stood in front of me again. Losing a marriage felt like losing a future, losing stability, losing someone I thought would never leave.

And while I was already trying to survive heartbreak, life handed me another challenge.

In September 2024, I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.

Suddenly, survival became physical too. Needles. Blood sugar. Fear. Constant monitoring. The exhaustion of managing something that never takes a day off. Diabetes became another thing I had to fight every single day, whether I wanted to or not.

There were other struggles too—times of deep pain, moments of feeling completely lost, battles with drinking, loneliness, heartbreak, and trying to carry trauma while pretending I was okay.

People see a person and think they know the story.

They do not see the 2-year-old who lost his family.

The child in the orphanage.

The boy trying to fit in after adoption.

The young man trying to survive on his own.

The betrayal.

The assault.

The drinking.

The husband who loved deeply and got left behind.

The man learning to live with diabetes while his world felt like it was falling apart.

But here is the truth:

I am still here.

Life tried to break me more than once. Maybe it did break parts of me. But somehow, despite everything, I kept going. I survived things that should have destroyed me. And even though I still carry scars, I am still standing.

My story is not a perfect one.

But it is a story of survival.

Hey everyone, I have a job interview at iStore coming up next week. I’m a Zulu guy with long hair currently in two-strand twists (looks similar to locs).I’ve been looking online but can’t find a clear answer on their specific policy for hairstyles like this. Money is tight, and I don't want to spend on transport to the interview if I’m just going to be rejected for my hair.Does anyone here work there or know someone who does? Have you seen guys with dreads or long twists working on the floor? Any advice on how to style it for the interview would be great. Thanks!"

So unless you’re living under a rock, I’m sure you know there’s been a lot of hostility toward foreigners/illegal foreigners specifically lately. Protests outside embassies, even citizens “arresting” people. I’ve seen some very hectic things where cops drag and beat illegal foreigners and don’t even take them into custody, just leave them on the side of the road.

It feels like every couple of years this happens and then goes away. The reason for the hostility this time around being the unemployment rate, which FOK am I frustrated with. And yes I am fully on board with a proper legal immigration process needing to be followed, and it is 100% wrong that MANY people have not followed it. I feel that so much time, energy, and effort is being directed towards the wrong people.

Illegal immigrants are wrongdoers, yes. But why are they wrongdoers? Because they are simply trying to survive, same as us South Africans. Why are we not protesting US/EU nationals who come, disrupt the local economy and overstay by god knows how long and buy up properties in Cape Town?

The true people who are at fault here is the people in power, the people who have the ability to put in the necessary safe guards to stop illegal immigration, to improve the unemployment rate, to actually improve the quality of life but consistently choose to line their pockets instead. And what do we as South Africans do?

“It is what it is”

Loadshedding? Buy a generator/install solar
Water cuts? Buy a Jojo/Get a borehole
Nee fok mebru.

I have a wide range of skills, many of which are what employers are looking for, but because I don't have a university degree, or direct experience in certain roles, nobody will hire me.

I'm unable to get a degree for a variety of reasons, so I can't do anything about that. But I do have a few years of experience since I've done volunteer work where I did a lot of different things, which is why I have a wide skillset. But employers want you to have a year of experience directly in that field and don't seem to consider experience doing those tasks in a different field.

Does anyone have recommendations on what I should do? I'm feeling very frustrated since I need a job and I'm not even getting replies to my applications, nevermind interviews and it's not for a lack of sending them out.

Edit : and it's not even that I'm looking for a specific job. I've applied to dozens of different job types and positions in different industries where I think I have the ability to do the job. At this point, I'm considering walking around with a stack of CV's and handing them in at every business I come across.