Sparrow’s fine is small — but it’s a good start

Finally, something good has emerged from Penny Sparrow — the KwaZulu Natal real estate agent who became the poster-child for all that was rotten and unreconciled about postdemocracy SA.

Last week, the equality court found her guilty of hate speech, and ordered her to pay R150,000 to the Oliver & Adelaide Tambo Foundation.

By no means does this insignificant sum of money compensate for the immense damage that Sparrow caused to the country when she referred to black people as “monkeys” earlier this year, but it’s a sign that there is, at least, some degree of accountability.

After Sparrow’s outburst in January, many were quick to call for legislating against hate speech, putting racists in jail. How else will we ensure they suffer some consequence, the argument went.

But the fact remains, as we saw last week, we already have measures to ensure racists pay for what they say and do. We need to use these forums to ensure that it costs people like Sparrow.

And the cost isn’t just financial. Once outed, people like Sparrow find themselves struggling to find work because which employer would want to hire someone so evidently hostile to the democratic ideals on which the modern workplace is constructed?

It is precisely this social cost which, it is hoped, will stifle the repugnant efforts by her “supporters” to help Sparrow raise the money to pay her fine.

The first on the website YouCaring was started by Johannesburg resident Nathalie Moolman under the tagline “Let’s help Penny Sparrow pay her fine”. There was a similar campaign by Helgard Muller — but neither campaign appears to have raised a cent, publicly that is.

The crowdfunding website YouCaring now appears to have discontinued its funding pages too. Which is just as well.

Now that the equality court has reasserted its place in bringing racists to book, let’s hope more people resort to this forum to ensure accountability.