More is needed to heal racial divide

IT TAKES only one incident to trigger a return to a divided past. For South Africa today it was the recent podcast with a series of inflammatory and degrading comments about coloured people. It is a prime example of how racial slurs and race-baiting today are delivered and justified with claims to freedom of speech and the satire of pop culture.

- RUDI BUYS

Formal complaints to the Human Rights Commission by political parties and senior politician followed shortly after, charges were filed with the SAPS, and a flurry of social media comment. The most prominent voices demanded immediate action against the podcasters and foregrounded as fact their view that coloured communities of all are the most subjugated and targeted for racial stereotyping and insult of all in South Africa. The social media campaign of these voices without restraint took hold of strongman tactics, threatening to re-organise coloured protest movements and calling on coloured communities to rise up and fight for their own.