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THE situation surrounding NBA’s Clippers owner, Donald Sterling, and his racist ranting that emerged this week is not a setback that only the US suffers.
South Africa has to deal with this danger on a wide scale. South Africa has many innocent African, Coloured and Indian workers facing this grave ranting every day of their lives from their bosses.
For the uninitiated, Sterling is the wealthy owner of the NBA team, the Clippers, who has been banned for life from NBA activities for racist remarks he made in a recorded chat with a girlfriend.
In South Africa, this phenomenon might currently not be as overt as during the apartheid era but it is there, alive and kicking.
This was acknowledged this week by the ANC’s second in command, Cyril Ramaphosa, who many believe is going to be South Africa’s next president after the current incumbent, President Jacob Zuma, leaves office.
Ramaphosa, speaking in Johannesburg this week, admitted that South Africa continues to be a racially divided country.
"The African National Congress is committed to building a nation that is socially cohesive and close the racial gap that exists in this country," News24 quoted Ramaphosa as saying.
He was quoted as saying the ANC would employ “various programmes” to guarantee that the country advanced into a socially unified nation-state.
The ANC will have to work very hard to achieve this. This is in view of the fact that South Africa still has a whites-only small town of Orania in the Northern Cape Province.
Orania is inhabited by whites only, 20 years after a democratic government came into power in South Africa.
Boerewors racism
Only last year, I was insulted by a racist person in Vanderbijlpark for wanting to buy boerewors. According to this guy, calling the meat boerewors was being disrespectful to Afrikaners, which only shows how unreasonable racists can be.
If one can still find people like Sterling in the US many decades after segregation laws were done away with, what can really stop these things from happening in South Africa, which has only been free for two decades?
The next government – which polls show will still be led by the ANC - cannot allow behaviour like Sterling’s and the boerewors racist to stand if they want their support to come back.
An intensive and visible effort to fight racism in the country can bring them more votes than they can imagine.
I hope the ANC achieves what Ramaphosa says is in the pipeline in terms of addressing issues of racism in the country.
In the past two decades, the ANC has set aside the issue of racism and focused more on other things with the hope that those who habour ideas similar to Sterling’s and the boerewors racist would change their mind.
Well, that has not been the case.
Government will have to make sure that the lopsided ownership of companies listed on the JSE is addressed properly, creating wealth not only for a certain population group but for all South Africans.
- Fin24
*Mzwandile Jacks is an independent journalist. Opinions expressed are his own.
South Africa has to deal with this danger on a wide scale. South Africa has many innocent African, Coloured and Indian workers facing this grave ranting every day of their lives from their bosses.
For the uninitiated, Sterling is the wealthy owner of the NBA team, the Clippers, who has been banned for life from NBA activities for racist remarks he made in a recorded chat with a girlfriend.
In South Africa, this phenomenon might currently not be as overt as during the apartheid era but it is there, alive and kicking.
This was acknowledged this week by the ANC’s second in command, Cyril Ramaphosa, who many believe is going to be South Africa’s next president after the current incumbent, President Jacob Zuma, leaves office.
Ramaphosa, speaking in Johannesburg this week, admitted that South Africa continues to be a racially divided country.
"The African National Congress is committed to building a nation that is socially cohesive and close the racial gap that exists in this country," News24 quoted Ramaphosa as saying.
He was quoted as saying the ANC would employ “various programmes” to guarantee that the country advanced into a socially unified nation-state.
The ANC will have to work very hard to achieve this. This is in view of the fact that South Africa still has a whites-only small town of Orania in the Northern Cape Province.
Orania is inhabited by whites only, 20 years after a democratic government came into power in South Africa.
Boerewors racism
Only last year, I was insulted by a racist person in Vanderbijlpark for wanting to buy boerewors. According to this guy, calling the meat boerewors was being disrespectful to Afrikaners, which only shows how unreasonable racists can be.
If one can still find people like Sterling in the US many decades after segregation laws were done away with, what can really stop these things from happening in South Africa, which has only been free for two decades?
The next government – which polls show will still be led by the ANC - cannot allow behaviour like Sterling’s and the boerewors racist to stand if they want their support to come back.
An intensive and visible effort to fight racism in the country can bring them more votes than they can imagine.
I hope the ANC achieves what Ramaphosa says is in the pipeline in terms of addressing issues of racism in the country.
In the past two decades, the ANC has set aside the issue of racism and focused more on other things with the hope that those who habour ideas similar to Sterling’s and the boerewors racist would change their mind.
Well, that has not been the case.
Government will have to make sure that the lopsided ownership of companies listed on the JSE is addressed properly, creating wealth not only for a certain population group but for all South Africans.
- Fin24
*Mzwandile Jacks is an independent journalist. Opinions expressed are his own.
