Many years ago when I lived in Florida., I had South African Jews as friends, both Jewish MDs married to each other. She spent a month every year back in Johannesburg giving free medical care to poor Blacks.
She could see this mess coming, as Blacks had zero idea how to drive, run a tractor — no useful skills at all. She called it cruelty to “liberate” them without preparing them to do. necessary practical tasks.
Precisely what Ian Smith was trying to do in Rhodesia, but they never gave him the chance.
No, cruel was not treating them as adults. They want to make their bed, let them lie in it. There is no other way to get them to grow up.