Racism hits home on the streets of Rondebosch East

LAST year we reported on the spike in racist attacks in the southern suburbs of Cape Town. The Wynberg Magistrate’s Court had heard how a white student urinated on a black man. Why? Well, apparently because he was “rich” and because he could. In other cases, those who had been hauled into the dock had spewed expletives at k****rs.

During those hearings, our own unease had to be suppressed to report as objectively as possible. But as the hurtful details came to light it was like a dagger to the chest. Cape Town has always been classified as racist, cliquey, brutal at times.

And while we have had whiffs of this over the years we have never fallen victim to the hatred — that was until Thursday, write

and IT was a sunny day in the land of the flat mountain. We had been dispatched to investigate the story of the 15-year-old girl who allegedly tried to join the Islamic State terrorist group.

We were not familiar with her neighbourhood of Kenwyn and got horribly lost in our Gautengregistered car.

We snaked through Rondebosch East, searching for directions on our cellphones. The suburb was quiet and the gardens outside the properties were beautifully groomed.

Then a vehicle screeched past us and then tried to force us off the road. “What are you looking for? You have been driving in circles,” screamed a man.

It was like a slap with a wet cloth to the face. He seemed crazed and gestured aggressively, demanding an answer.

We felt the panic rise but realised we did not owe him an explanation. We told him we knew where we were going.

We carried on driving. But he chased after us, flashing his headlights, and almost ploughed his vehicle into ours.

Suddenly, two armed response vehicles pulled up in front of us and we were forced to stop. Now we felt anger. We had done nothing wrong.

The man jumped out of his car and screamed that it was people of “your colour”, “your nation” who were breaking into “our” homes and stealing.

Our fury grew but we controlled ourselves and did not retaliate.

He said we had “no right” to drive around in the neighbourhood because we are “foreign to the area” and asked the armed response team to call the police to search us and our vehicle because we were black.

Now we had become real victims of the racism that we have reported about over and over and over. Like dirty criminals we were forced to wait for the police to arrive, unsure of what would happen to us. We were at their mercy.

One of the security guards approached us discreetly and urged us to stand our ground.

“I am sick and tired of how black people are treated in this area. I think you should open a case against this man and I am willing to testify,” he said.

When police arrived — a black and a coloured officer — the man continued the abuse.

The police informed him that he had no right to stop motorists on a public road, “no matter what his suspicions were”.

The man then accused the black policeman of sympathising with us. And so the officer also fell victim to his wrath.

What was perplexing about this aggressor, this bully, is that he too is considered a black man. He might have carried the coloured label in the past but all of us were oppressed.

We have opened a case at the police station and now we wait, like the men and women we write about, for justice to be done.