All citizens have a right to respect

Scarcely a week goes by in SA without some individual insulting another person. Sometimes the insults are downright racist or have racist undertones and at other times – as Port Elizabeth saw this week – they simply lack basic decency and respect for the dignity of others. This was seen when 18-year-old sales assistant Maxime Lee was made to stand with her hands tied behind her and a placard round her neck at the Baywest mall branch of Tekkie Town.

Perhaps it should be called Tacky Town for this shameful public spectacle.

Regardless of whether or not the teenager at first saw her treatment as a joke and laughed, it remains a humiliation and the supervisor had absolutely no right to use her power over an employee in this abusive way.

It was not only an affront to Lee’s dignity, but also an infringement of her liberty and it is only correct that criminal charges may be pressed.

Names like Penny Sparrow, Vicky Momberg and Alex Catzavelos are now known across the country because of the racist comments they have made.

More recently there were DJ Sasha Martinengo and Port Elizabeth office worker Sharnay Schwartz Scribante, who both allegedly called people “monkeys”.

The common thread here is that these speakers seem oblivious of how their words could cause offence.

Surely by now South Africans have learnt that infringing the dignity of others is wrong, and may also lead to criminal charges and court action?

Apparently not, as this insulting act at Tekkie Town clearly shows.

Respect should not only be given to those who have authority over you, but extended as a courtesy to your employees as well. Even if you are “the boss”, your staff do not belong to you and the days of store management performing strip searches on staff and other demeaning acts should be long gone.

There is a word for how you should treat your colleagues, whether they are your junior or not.

In the words of the late, great Aretha Franklin, it is spelt R.E.S.P.E.C.T. and it is time for all South Africans to learn this and then to live this.