JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- It was shocking even for South Africa, the country that gave the world the word apartheid. Four young white men laughed as they duped five middle-age black cleaners into eating what looked like dog food supposedly fouled by urine.

To many, the video that was splashed around the world suggests that 13 years after apartheid ended, racism is rampant and the nation isn't paying enough attention.

When Culture Minister Pallo Jordan, who is black, protested on a radio talk show that the incident was isolated, people called in to contradict him.

According to many discussions in the media and Associated Press interviews with a half-dozen analysts and human rights workers, there's a creeping increase in racist incidents.

''It's getting worse because it's becoming more overt. This is not isolated; we have really appalling and degrading incidents,'' said Theresa Oakley-Smith, who for 15 years has run a human resource development company that offers diversity workshops.

With its strong economy and democratic structures, South Africa is the African nation with the most potential to bring about change on a beleaguered continent. Yet where racism is concerned, Oakley-Smith said, nothing has changed in the 10 years since she took part in an investigation at a school resisting integration. 'We haven't come to terms'

There, white pupils, parents and teachers, including senior staff, disguised their faces with camouflage paint, went into a classroom of blacks and ''beat the children up horrifically,'' she recalled. "Nothing was done. The senior guy involved in the attack wasn't fired, he may still be teaching there for all I know,'' said Oakley-Smith, who is white.

"We haven't come to terms with dealing with the past and with racism," said Jody Kollapen, head of the government Human Rights Commission.

When Nelson Mandela walked out of the prison where he was held for 27 years, he forgave his captors and urged fellow blacks to be equally magnanimous in reconciling with whites who held power through terror tactics.

Reconciliation in the new ''rainbow nation'' meant forgiving whites, but the needed transformation of society was resisted by the whites who had benefitted from apartheid, said Kollapen, who is Asian. Whites got off too lightly, Oakley-Smith agrees.

South Africans tend to avoid discussing racism, callers to talk shows agree, and few victims, including the abused cleaners at the University of the Free State, ever complain.

Oakley-Smith and Kollapen called for a collective apology from whites similar to that made in February by the Australian government to Aborigines.

''Collectively, the very least white South Africans can do is to apologize, not just for this sick act but for the centuries of abuse that we have inflicted on black people in this country,'' white opposition legislator Lance Greyling, said in a statement.