Mohamed Ameen Dabhelia – 2016/05/10

A founding member of Media Justice says the prevalence of racism in South Africa must be acknowledged.

Over the past week a number of incidents of racism and hate speech have emerged on social media platforms denouncing black South Africans.

Media for Justice’s Gillian Schutte, says South Africans should be honest about the fact that we live in an ugly racist society.

“When it came to certain transformation and social cohesion etc. this hasn’t worked. The Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) process never really worked, it did not make people face up to personal racism, and then understand systemic and institutional racism either.”

She says that when people pretend something doesn’t exist, it will keep raising its ugly head and erupt like a disease.

Racist posts on social media by 26-year-old Matthew Theunissen early last week aimed at Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula following a government decision to ban major international events have raised questions about what drives this particular behaviour in society.

In the latest ‘racial incident’ calls have been mounting for high court Judge Mabel Jansen to be removed from the bench after snippets of Facebook conversations were posted to support an accusation that she is racist and believes rape is part of black culture.

Can Black People Be Racist?

While Schutte agrees, many people are of the opinion that ‘black people cannot be racist’ however she says this does not rule out the fact that black people can be highly prejudicial.

“When we look at the root of racism, it relates to power and domination, racism is in fact a white construct, racism was devised in the 1700’s when people went out to conquer the world and it suddenly became that ‘white people are elevated and Godly and people of brown and black skin are demonised and Ungodly and therefore can be put to work to support a white supremacist system.”

Schutte says 22 years after South Africans celebrated the first democratic elections it is obvious to most that racism remains a key challenge in the country’s democracy.

Twitter: @thedabhelia

(Edited By Faizel Patel)