Jansen misses salient point on SA’s people

Jonathan Jansen’s Educated Guess, “UCT’s sharp, white English spear” (August 23), misses one salient point:

Our population is made up of people who are a mixture of very diverse races, colours, classes, creeds, cultures, degrees of civility, etc.

I, for example, am a white. Christian male person.

Due to the corrupt, incompetent and racially discriminatory government, I “feel” unwelcome in the country of my birth.

My body “reacts” to some black people in public spaces, for instance queues, who have no respect for my physical integrity and press against my back with corpulent bosoms.

I feel uncomfortable with such unsolicited closeness.

My body “reacts” to some coloureds who use obscene language in public without shame, or people who use God’s name in vain.

I grin and bear it.

I merely accept that that is how they are, and I will never be able to change their manners or culture.

Jansen says that English is still the only language that can make you feel small without uttering a word. Wrong!

(My wife is not English speaking, but when she clams up during a domestic spat, refuses to utter a word, and commands a cold and disapproving stare for 24 hours, she makes me feel small and “wounded”. However, I return to my place of “woundedness” and live happily until the following shut-down.)

The reference to the high English of folk in Cape Town’s southern suburbs communicating superiority of race and class smacks of racism.

What about minister Naledi Pandor’s speech pattern? Do the professor and Naledi’s political cronies also see her English accent as communications of superiority of class?

I have a high regard for Jansen, but is it really necessary to keep on stirring the racial stew ad nauseam?

I am disillusioned. When the democracy came to our beloved country in 1994, I naively dreamt that there would be no further problems regarding the colour of our skins.

But with utterances like Jansen’s my dreams have become nightmares! Piet Ferreira Parsons Hill, Port Elizabeth

I would like to know what The Herald’s favourite white racist basher, Jonathan Jansen, has to say about your report, “Hospital hate-speech row taken to court” regarding “White staff claim racial discrimination and abuse” (September 5).

Or does the “learned” professor not “waste” his time on “silly allegations of black on white hate speech and discrimination”?

The truth hurts – especially if one goes through life with blinkers and a preconceived opinion of who are racists and who are not!

Or what do you say, Prof? Rouen Pallas Port Elizabeth