Comment by anonym29

Many (but not all, it's worth noting) people who work for the government live in an apartheid society inside their own heads, where they and everyone else who works for government is the superior tier of their imaginary hierarchy, and everyone else is thought of as "lesser than", with fewer rights, a different (more strict) set of rules, on the inferior tier of their imaginary hierarchy.

Next time you're observing this, try to imagine the outrage if the government official were a white South African government official talking to a black South African citizen. There's the same level of condescending animosity and supremacist ideology at play, just along a completely different axis - employer rather than skin color.