DA leader insults black job seekers

John Steenhuisen is not a stupid man. So, in making the comments he did this weekend about the amaPanyaza crime wardens, he must have had a particular target market in mind.

As a politician, that is his prerogative.

However, at a time when the DA is hoping to lead the first “post-ANC” government and when it has more challengers than ever on the centre and right wing, you would have thought he would have avoided antagonising potential black voters with those sort of remarks.

White DA supporters and Steenhuisen will, naturally, not view the remarks as inflammatory – but likening the ordinary black job seekers who applied for the warden posts as “drunkards” from a “shebeen” is insulting, as is the comment about their uniforms coming from PEP Stores, because it implies inferiority. You can’t blame people for thinking the comments are tinged with unconscious racism.

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And that is not a good look for the leader of a party that needs black votes to achieve its dream.

It also needs its partners in the MultiParty Charter, some of whom have been irked by the outburst.

It’s hardly surprising that the DA continues to bleed promising black leaders.

It’s clearly not a comfortable place for them.