Oh boy, this is a complicated and controversial topic.
So for me to answer your question I am going to have to give you some South African history, to give you an idea of how people perceive things. And then the current status. Ill try and keep it short.
First, the History
We had Apartheid, which literally translates to "separation" of all white and non-white.
This officially came to an end in 1987 with a newly elected president F.W. de Klerk was elected president, and he laid the Stage so that Nelson Mandela could become president (in 1994) in our first truly democratic elections, where all South Africans could vote.
The "Official" perspective for Apartheid was, let white people do white people things, and black people do black people things. (It got tricky as we had loads of Indians and colored people here too)
During Apartheid we had a very sophisticated economy, powerful army, produced more than 80% of all the electricity on the Continent, one of the highest GDP per capita in the world, amazing medical services, close to zero unemployment, amazeballs everything! With one tiny problem, those things where only true if you where white.
In the mean time VERY few black people where allowed to get a proper education.
After the fall of Apartheid we ended with a massive inequality problem, because for the first time, people who where not white where included in national statistics. Our GDP per capita obviously fell, suddenly very few people had access to water and electricity, and it turns out our medical industry was massively under-prepared for the full population.
This was made MUCH worse by the fact that almost all the new leaders had basically no higher education, or any formal education at all.
Corruption coupled with incompetence followed.
Our previous President was (I hope) the low point in this, where we had promotion of vastly under educated people to high positions due to simple corruption. We call this the Zuma Years, or the lost 10 years.
There is currently a huge investigation in all of his scandals. This concludes the Shortest History lesson possible for RSA.
But the important take away is this.
If you are white, and over 50 years old, you saw a nation go from one of the most powerful, wealthy and sophisticated in the world, to just being a common African Country. Many white people are still in this mindset, and completely forget that 80% of our population is not White.
These same people also correlate incompetence to Black people, which if you look at the vast difference in the socio-economics and education, you can see why. They ignore that more black people now have university degrees than black people had high school education during Apartheid.
Now, South Africa today
Crime - Currently we have a very high crime rate at about 30 murders per 100 000 people, this is one of the highest in the world. It is a decrease from 60 per 100 000 before 1994. So we have a huge problem, I have been mugged once by gun point and once by knife point.
But, most of our crime is very localized. During Apartheid almost all of our crime was outside white areas (Which was strictly kept white) so white people generally did not believe we had any crime at all. Currently 90% of our murders happen in 10% of our Police precinct areas. And these areas are usually in very dense and poor shanty towns. To give an example, the area where I live has a murder rate of 4 per 100 000. Not the best in the world, but among the safest areas in London. About 10km away is another Area where the murder rate is above 50 per 100 000. It is more dangerous there than Iraq at the peak of the war. Most of our murder is domestic violence. I do a lot of work with our Police and Prison services, and can give you real stats if you want.
There is no truely safe area in RSA, but in my neighborhood you can find women Jogging alone at 4 am to 7 pm all the time. Farm attacks are a big issue as they are venerable targets with slower police response times. But that seems to be a lot better this year already.
The open rape and murder of white people is pure rubbish. Sometimes our police system fucks up and people get away due to bad police work, but this is not unique to RSA.
Employment - When Nelson Mandela took over he introduced Black Economic Empowerment (BEE - or its various forms such as BBBEE) The idea was to "Correct the wrongs of the past" by getting more black people in a position of management and employment. The idea may have been noble, but It did not result in any improvement in inequality, all it seems to have done was slow down the economy. But it wins loads of political points, so it is probably here to stay. What it did was to create a preferential system of employment for Government Work. So for government jobs they would always chose a black person over a white person with the same qualification. However, it just leads to corruption.
HOWEVER, the private sector does not need to comply with this, especially if you dont trade with the goverment. This means that our private sector has been doing quite well without the additional head winds. And in reality, the unemployment rate by White Males in South Africa is really low. Last I checked it was at about 4%. But it could be as high as 7%. Again, I can find stats for you if you want.
For black Males, the unemployment rate is well above 40%
Electricity - One of the big issues we currently face (lets pretend Covid19 is not a big issue) is our electrical supply. Remember the Zuma guy I mentioned earlier. Well he really was corrupt as fuck, and ran our electrical grid into the ground to keep his buddies in control of the coal supply. The BEE systems did not help either, as all of our competent engineers left and where replaced by who ever passed the colour chart test. Since the Apartheid era, only the Government was allowed to produce electricity to the grid. We have had load shedding, which is controlled power outages on a schedule (so you can plan) to not crash the entire grid system. The worst has been 6 hours long in a day (not all at once) for 2 days in a row. We will probably see 2 hour load shedding when we end lockdown again. This has been a headache and murder to our economy.
Our new president has pushed to allow private investors to build renewable energy, gotten rid of red tape which mandated government monopoly over generation and seems to be pushing back against the unions. So it seems as if the light at the end of the tunnel may not be a train for once.
Overall its a mixed bag. There is good and bad.
If you focus on the bad its hell. I see improvement, especially as I work with the goverment in various departments. Our youth seem a lot less interested in the past than the older generations who just want revenge. Also, South Africa is big, so there is a differnt vibe in each area. I came from a super conservative racists area, the Free State, and am now in what seems to be a lot less of all of that, in Durban. So each persons experience will vary.
I love it here, have lots of freedom, its not that bad.
Ask my anything else if I have not answered it, or want more clarity.