Mariel Garza, the editorials editor of the Los Angeles Times, resigned on Wednesday after the newspaper’s owner blocked the editorial board’s plans to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president. “I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent,” Garza told me in a phone […]
Semantically, structuring a sentence in that manner still makes the noun (and thus the emphasis of the point) South African and the adjective asshat. Taking out the adjective still makes the sentence problematically pejorative.
Saying “the South-African asshat” instead still adds the context that he isn’t American, but changes the point to be that he is an asshat, not that he is South African.
But the point is that he’s South African, he just also happens to be an asshat. OP could have said, non American, but there’s nothing wrong with their phrasing, unless you’re looking for something to be wrong.