Human Evolution = Apartheid?

About seven years ago, a Texas county official by the name of John Wiley Price made unwanted national news when he referred to the astronomical term “Black Hole” as racist. From the original story:

Later, Price told MyFOXdfw.com that he believed it and other terms were racist.

"So if it's 'angel food cake,' it's white. If it's 'devil's food cake,' it's black. If you're the 'black sheep of the family,' then you gotta be bad, you know. 'White sheep,' you're okay. You know?" Price said.

Price said people should watch their words when it comes to stereotypes.

"I think people should always be careful. You know, I'm okay if I'm 'bartering' with you. ... But if I try to 'Jew you down,' Oooooh. Is that racist? I thought it meant the same thing? No, maybe it doesn't."

Rather than confirm that the term “Black Hole” is racist, this story, instead, confirmed that science education had completely failed Mr. Price.That he could not distinguish between an astronomical term and a racial epithet was truly amazing.

A story today from South Africa is broadly similar in its absurdity.  As PhysOrg reports:

Some prominent South Africans have dismissed the discovery of a new human ancestor as a racist theory designed to cast Africans as "subhuman", an opinion that resonates in a country deeply bruised by apartheid.

"No one will dig old monkey bones to back up a theory that I was once a baboon. Sorry," said Zwelinzima Vavi, former general secretary of the powerful trade union group Cosatu, a faithful ally of the ruling African National Congress (ANC).

"I am no grandchild of any ape, monkey or baboon—finish en klaar (Afrikaans for "that's it")," he said on his Twitter account, which is followed by more than 300,000 people.

His comments were backed by the South African Council of Churches (SACC), which was historically involved in the fight against apartheid.

Cloaked in the fight against apartheid to give it legitimacy, this perspective is nothing more than anti-evolutionary creationism.  Incredulous, Richard Dawkins comments:

It "breathes new life into paranoia," said prominent British biologist Richard Dawkins on his Twitter account this week. "Whole point is we're all African apes."

He is correct. Importantly, just like Mr. Price, science education has failed Mr. Vavi. We are not descended from baboons. We never were. The large-bodied and small-bodied primates split sometime around the Oligocene Epoch, some 35 to 40 million years ago.  Baboons went one way and the apes went the other.

I am waiting for the Discovery Institute and Answers in Genesis to jump all over this.  The DI has attempted to link evolutionary theory with eugenics and racism before. As far as AiG is concerned, evolution is just plain evil.