HI! My name is (mumble, mumble) and I am… err… ‘a racist’.
Phew! What a relief getting that off one’s chest. Now let the healing begin.
This is National Anti-Racism Week and, like recovering alcoholics, we are all encouraged to accept our weaknesses… and prejudices. Only then can we start to ‘heal’ and learn to become kinder to each other.
The South Coast Herald and the entire Caxton Group of community newspapers, magazines and on-line sites have committed to support former Robben Island prisoner Ahmed Kathrada who is spearheading the campaign to get everyone to see that “Racism is Wrong!”
Although we certainly take no responsibility for the now infamous Penny Sparrow’s comments, social media did pick up that she worked for our Scottburgh office many years ago. There was no monkey business then, but everyone who worked with her is now acutely aware of how mindless rants on Facebook are wrong and can literally ruin one’s life.
Every one of our staff has now willingly signed a formal pledge and has acknowledged that any comments like Penny’s that bring the company into disrepute can… and probably will… lead to instant dismissal.
This is an ongoing fight against a curse that has afflicted many continents ever since pale faces (no racism intended) first set foot on other peoples’ native soil. It’s not quite as simple as black vs white, but more about races dominating and feeling superior.
In actual fact we can’t afford to be colour blind in this country, probably for many moons to come. The vast majority of whites are still seen as the ‘haves’ and the vast majority of blacks the ‘don’t haves’. We desperately need to balance the scales so that we can move forward together as Nelson Mandela’s dream ‘rainbow people’.
We (everyone) are all encouraged to be philosophical about racism, speak out about it openly and recognise that it’s also not quite as simple as merely avoiding the ‘K-word’ or ‘oo-gqongke’ or ‘ama-kula’ (the derogatory, Zulu equivalent for ‘whites’ and ‘Indians’).
For example, there was a letter in one of our sister newspapers in Scottburgh, the Rising Sun, last week. The writer – ‘Sad Resident’ – probably didn’t even think he/she was being racist when bemoaning the proposed new development of the ‘largest water park in Africa’, hopefully still to be built at Kelso.
The writer said the park would ‘ruin the peace and quiet’ and ‘village feel’ of Kelso and Pennington.
What the writer probably didn’t think of was that the whole South Coast desperately needs new revenue sources so that our municipalities can afford to provide infrastructure to a rapidly increasing and needy population.
Unfortunately, most of these citizens happen to be black and they too deserve services that many others take for granted.
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