EDITOR: I was not born yesterday, but the yesterday I come from just so happened to be the era of apartheid. Although I am satisfied that apartheid was abolished and that my parents are no longer considered slaves as they were, I believe this is no longer the South Africa they fought and bled for.
I would like to clarify that I do not support or tolerate racism in any form. After all, we bleed the same. However, I was very shocked to have heard the outcome of the ANC versus Penny Sparrow case held last week in the Equality Court, where she was not even present as a result of an ongoing battle with diabetes.
It was mentioned on your Mid South Coast Mail Facebook page that Penny Sparrow does not even have a home. She is a pensioner and also divorced. Why would the court rule that she pay R150 000 to the Oliver and Adelaide Tambo Foundation? Surely the court could have rather ruled that she only make a formal apology and refrain from acting out hate speech again.
I believe racism should be dealt with in a strict way, but, this was not the court speaking.
In my opinion, I believe this was the ANC exercising its power so as to make an example of Penny Sparrow. Instead of Penny Sparrow appearing in court, her daughter came on her behalf and kindly requested to have the case postponed.
Her mother had been unable to find a willing attorney to represent her in court – perhaps she could not even afford one. Surely, the court should have appointed her a state attorney who could represent her? Instead the case proceeded without her being present. Is this not an infringement of one’s right to be represented by an attorney?
Daily, criminals, real criminals who steal, rape and murder are allowed to walk free after paying bail. Sometimes they are even asked how much bail they can afford and are then charged a pathetically affordable amount, some as low as R1 000.
Why would the court have Penny Sparrow pay R150 000 when she is a pensioner, homeless and divorced? How will she now be able to afford her medication for her diabetes? Did the court take this into account before it ruled?
I understand that we are in the year 2016 and that racism should be dealt with, but, instead of condemning a pensioner to what is certain death through a lack of finances, the court should have rather punished her with community service.
What happened with EFF party member Tesh Ndlovu? Did the EFF remove him from the party as the DA did with Penny Sparrow? Penny Sparrow’s post never even came close to the level of anger and hatred this man spewed, thus shaming our own people.
To prove it, here is a small excerpt from one of his multiple posts:
“I will show no mercy even to white children. We will grab the suckling baby from its mother’s breast and break its neck. We will beat the mother to death with the baby’s corpse. I will rip the babies from the wombs of white women and strangle them with my bare hands. We know that white babies will only grow up to be oppressive white racists. I am not afraid to get my hands dirty. I look forward to personally participating in the slaughter. It will be a beautiful genocide against an evil race. White people are not human beings they are blood thirsty animals. They are inferior to us in every measurable way. They have smaller brains than African men.”
What of government employee, Velaphi Khumalo, the Sports Promotion Officer for the Gauteng Sports, Arts, Culture and Recreation Department who was suspended with full pay? For those who cannot remember, Velaphi Khumalo called for the extermination of white people in the same manner as Adolf Hitler did with the Jews, to gas them.
“White people in South Africa deserve to be hacked and killed like Jews,” he posted on Facebook.
Why do our ruling party and fellow South Africans go mad when a white person calls a black person a monkey, but, when a black person calls for mass murder and the murder of unborn babies, specifically white people, government does not look twice. “Because it is justified”, “because they are oppressed”, “because they are angry”.
The fact is, we are not equal under the constitution.
As a black South African, I can say that my white brothers and sisters are considered inferior by the constitution and Penny Sparrow has, unfortunately, become the living example of this. How can we expect racism to be brought to an end if we cannot treat a spade as a spade?
EX-ANC SUPPORTER
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