Yeah I used to date a coloured girl from Jo'berg who'd grown up in that era and she was positive that they had some degree of prosperity and modern comforts unlike the surrounding African countries. The overwhelming flow of people voting with their feet and walking across the borders was from the surrounding countries to SA rather than vice versa.

But this is literal apartheid apologia.

Saying "advancements in black literacy and real wages during the era" as if those things are due to apartheid is offensively absurd.

How about we advance literacy and wages without, you know, all the apartheid.

By "we" I will understand that you mean Africans. Otherwise, you might be committing one (1) colonialism.

So, ask the rest of Africa how that has gone for them.

Ah yes, the use of inclusive pronouns is colonialism, but apartheid is good.

I am sure this is a sincere concern of yours rather than an attempt to mockingly use the arguments of your position's opposition.

I wonder if something called "context" and the socio-economic direction might have something to do with it.

"I think we gotta hand it to Apartheid because schools were very slightly less worse" isn't the argument you think it is. It does paint where you stand quite clearly.

Never start a sentence with "I'm no apartheid apologist, but". Nothing good can ever come out of it.