Comment on social media hits a nerve
A FORMER East London resident has come under fire after she posted a racially charged comment on a popular Gonubie social media site.
Facebook user Ann Stephen cautioned “Gonubie people” to “remember our own” when giving charitable handouts.
“There are white squatter camps scattered around our beautiful country … when giving please remember our own people … they need our help too much … far too many people give to people that don’t seem to need our help … and just want to kill us,” she wrote on the Nubians Unlimited Facebook, which enjoys a following of 5 848 people.
Her post caused outrage among other users from the group who called for her removal.
Although the post was subsequently deleted, screen grabs were sent to the Daily Dispatch.
In a follow-up post yesterday, Stephen backtracked claiming she had posted the comment after having too much “tea or coffee”.
The post was also later deleted after more users called her out for her alleged racial remarks.
Contacted for comment, Stephen said she was not racist but people had taken offence to her posts because they couldn’t handle the truth.
“I don’t want to fight with black people. Black people and white people in this country will never unite because we are always fighting.
“When you open the Daily Dispatch here’s Julius Malema saying kill the boer. I don’t say that. I have even removed myself from that bloody [Nubians] Unlimited because all people do is to fight and say we are all racists.
“I am not a racist, I grew up in the Transkei, I speak Xhosa. Do you want to know if I’m racist or not? No I am not racist, I never have been.”
Stephen said there were hundreds of posts on Facebook encouraging white people to be killed.
“As long as you also put in the paper what people are saying about us,” she said.
Nubians Unlimited page administrator Louw Myburgh initially told the Daily Dispatch he had not seen anything wrong with the post.
“Just that she mentioned colour, which borders on racial lines, but generally there was nothing wrong with the post as the member was encouraging people to give to everyone and not a certain group.”
After a screen grab of Stephen’s original post was sent to Myburgh, he said: “That post is out of line. I did not see the ‘kill’ bit and that is totally unacceptable.”
Myburgh said he had fielded calls from angry users asking him to delete Stephen’s post.
“I contacted her to delete the post and she did.”
He said no form of on the page.
The country has seen an increase in racist comments being made on Facebook.
Earlier this month Hout Bay resident Vanessa Hartley found herself in hot water over an offensive Facebook rant in which she likened “African” people at the beach to “stupid animals”. — racism was tolerated