Two Bits – 15 January 2016

The furore caused by Penny Sparrow, Gareth Cliff, Chris Hart, Velaphi Khumalo and others over the subject of racism revealed a gaping wound in the fabric of our society. The raging debates in the media – the subject accounted for 20 percent of all traffic on social media last week – showed one thing very clearly: we all have to change our ideas if we are serious about living at peace with one another going forward.
I will be the first to admit that I have made mistakes. I have said things that others considered hurtful that I did not at the time, within the context of the society I had grown up in. You don’t think twice about using expressions that are being used around you every day. We can all recognise blatant racism, but sometimes it can be hard to spot the finer nuances.
For example, I was chatting to a friend about a statement you hear everywhere, that white kids are overlooked for jobs because blacks are given preference.
That, my friend said, is a racist statement. It is a generalisation, an assumption not necessarily true, and shows blacks in a bad light. If you however simply said that white kids are struggling to find jobs, that could be true and does not reflect on, or blame, others for the situation.
Okay, I’ll go with that. But that said, we also need to guard against being overly sensitive about race issues, seeing offence where there is none and waving the race card at the drop of a hat.
The issue about beaches being public space is very well covered by reader Musa Mnyandu on today’s Letters page, so I won’t go into that, but I do want to look at what radio jock Gareth Cliff said following Ms Sparrow’s outburst, that people should respect the principle of freedom of speech. He later apparently realised that what she had said was, in fact, indefensible. He did withdraw the statement and has lost his Idols job as a result, but I want to discuss freedom of speech as it applies to the media.
It is necessary from the outset to recognise that freedom of speech is not a free for all. You might be forgiven for thinking otherwise, given the outbursts on social media every minute of the day, but in fact you cannot just say what you like. You need to watch your words carefully if you do not want to end up in the soup.
Freedom of speech is enshrined in of our constitution but it is not without limits. In granting freedom of expression, it imposes very clear constitutional limitations. Hate speech, the incitement of violence, and stereotyping according to gender, race, religion or sexual orientation, are clearly excluded. While we are free to sometimes offend, we’re certainly not free to cause serious hurt.
Section 10 of the Constitution protects the right to dignity and our courts have ruled that this includes the right to a good reputation.
Information that damages someone’s good reputation can be disclosed if it is substantially true and it is in the public interest to disclose it. There must be tangible public benefit. The information can’t just be published because it’s interesting.
In 2013, acting Judge Hiemstra in the North Gauteng High Court awarded damages for defamatory comments made on Facebook which insinuated serious sexual misconduct.
Making the accusations on Facebook, where others would be guaranteed to read them, showed “intention to place the plaintiff in a bad light,” said the judge. Some of the victim’s friends lapped it up with relish and added their own snide comments, “compounding the damage to the plaintiff’s reputation”.
As a result of that judgement, Facebook users must now be very careful not only about what they post, but also with regards to the posts on which they may be ‘tagged’ or which they ‘like’.
My Std 4 teacher at Merchiston had a sign above the blackboard that read: “Think Before You Ink!” The principle applies doubly so today, in social media where everything you post is available worldwide in seconds and is there forever and a day, and in casual conversation in everyday life. In this day and age it has become even more important to engage brain before opening mouth!
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Doctor: “I’m sorry but you suffer from a terminal illness and have only 10 to live.”
Patient : “What do you mean, 10? 10 what? Months? Weeks?!”
Doctor : “Nine.”