My Take: Hey ‘mngani’, I care

EXCUSE the foul language, but some people just love looking for sh*t!

Why else would one wear a T-shirt that reads: “I’m a Cocky K…..”? (We don’t dare spell out ‘that’ word either.)

Or…

“Proudly Boer” (printed on material in the colours of the old South African flag)?

Two people were seen wearing these items in the same supermarket in Toti last weekend.

Hopefully they didn’t cross paths.

The only message one can possibly get from those T-shirts is that those people are both: “Proudly Racist”.

Freedom of speech is very much in the public discourse at the moment, inspired internationally by the Charlie Hedco massacre in France and, locally, by famous Pennington holidaymaker Steve Hofmeyr, with his statement: “I could still smell the stench.” (In reference to those who burgled his holiday home recently.)

Based on Hofmeyr’s history of alleged racist remarks, most would have seen the latter comment as just that.

Will we ever be mature enough as a nation to simply ignore these people in the knowledge that the vast majority of us just want to be colour-blind and only see each other as “proudly South African”?

Alas, it is highly unlikely that this current batch of politicians is going to inspire us to achieve that. (It was not meant as such, but even that statement will surely be misinterpreted as “racist” by some.)

Then, along comes a world-wide initiative that might just edge us in the right direction if we all take it seriously.

In a nutshell, it’s like a “pyramid scheme” that’s legal and makes all participants feel good, if not rich.

Those who can afford DSTV would have seen it on Carte Blanche on Sunday, but for those less fortunate, February 9 to 15 is “International Random Acts of Kindness Week”.

Perhaps it would help if we took this one step further in South Africa and also made this into an interracial thing.

For example, it would have been easy for the Mail reporter to select one of the white car guards at the Scottburgh Mall as the recipient of her “random act of kindness”.

We purposely did not do that. Instead, we wanted to send out a message that we care about each other, regardless of your colour and status.

It’s not “pity”, it’s just saying: “Hey mngani (buddy), I care.”