Contrary to many optimistic expectations, the relative position of the nonwhite in the Republic of South Africa has not improved over the past several decades. To lay observers the existence of a state committed to racial exclusion and oppression seems an anachronism in our age of modernity. There is a naive belief that explicit racism is somewhere incompatible with futuristic office buildings, double-knit business suits, teaching machines or a degree in sociology. Yet these and other trappings of the modern age coexist in South Africa with absolute racial division.