Harfield Village has unfairly ended up being demonised as a racist enclave
IN THE past three months there have been articles and opinion pieces published in various newspapers, on blogs, discussions on radio and more recently jokes made by well-known comedians regarding Harfield Village being South Africa’s most racist suburb. It is of great concern that there has been so much media hype relating to this issue, and the purpose of this letter is to appeal to the general public to be careful interpreting these articles and to not jump to conclusions based on the authors’ bias and motivations. Here are the facts.
There have recently been four racial incidents that have taken place in the southern suburbs, but according to the articles/blogs, most of them took place in Harfield. Of the more recent incidents referred to in the article: “Racial profiling: Charlie, Bravo, Whiskey”, two took place in Claremont and one in Kenilworth. Therefore this is absolutely factually incorrect, as only one of these incidents took place in the boundaries of Harfield.
The justification for publishing this misinformation is: “If we have to be the place (Harfield) that makes an example, I’m okay with that.” Also, “I do believe that street boundaries are arbitrary” and a comment stating that because Harfield is so racist people feel comfortable coming to the area to conduct their racist agendas.
There has been a significant spike in crime in the area, which has resulted in the community being more vigilant reporting and observing potential criminals behaving suspiciously on the HVA Facebook page. There were certainly a handful of shocking comments made on this page which cannot be justified. But there are 1 700 members and only a handful were inappropriate. So a new group emerged, whose duty is to “point out racism” and start a “dialogue” with the community.
This group started misconstruing some innocent comments to suit their agenda and started creating havoc on the Facebook page, which resulted in some of them being removed and banned. As a result of this group feeling their concerns regarding racism in the area were being silenced, all hell broke loose. Extremely undeserved, judgemental, aggressive and ugly comments were made regarding the administrators and members of the site. This group then formed a revolutionary house through a new Facebook page (HVYL).
This supposed streetwise, progressive bunch have leaders that include a handful of journalists who write for mainstream newspapers, a well-known television journalist and a handful of bloggers who have clout with the press. How else can such inaccurate, inflammatory, judgemental and hyped up articles be sold and published?
These are some comments that were made to justify the formation of the new group: “The HVA are closed-minded adults acting like ignorant children headed by a draconian, self-instated leader”; “Guys, I’ve just caused my first HVA shit storm. I am quite proud”, “being banned means you are a level-headed rational human with a shred of decency” and “does not being banned mean I am a racist?”. It has even got to the point where one of the journalists (who is white) sits in the newsroom with her colleagues laughing at what is being said about this village.
To summarise, anyone that does not go along with their agenda in the way it has been conducted is labelled sexist, racist, narrow-minded, apartheid apologists, conservative, pensioners, among other insults. Accusations levelled at an entire community are always troublesome and will cause a backlash.
A website which has since been removed but is now on Tumblr, Suburban Fear, was created to “point out” the supposed outpouring of racism in this area. Screenshots of posts (without permission) from all suburbs in South Africa were published on this site, and interpretations of racism were made by the author. Of course, Harfield was highlighted on the website, as it was started by an ex-resident of the area.
For example: One resident of Harfield who has really had enough of crime commented: “I wish we could have a gated community.” This comment was the catalyst for the group to take up arms, as it was perceived as blatant racism. A gated community is unconstitutional and not practical as Harfield is a transport hub, and there are many people (of all colours) walking from the station to their places of work. So the comment could be seen as misguided, ignorant and impractical, but to call it out as blatant racism is in itself misguided.
And this brings us to racial profiling, which is hotly debated worldwide. The exact definition of racial profiling is when someone is called out as being suspicious because of their colour alone. Being vigilant, giving a full description (including colour) and alerting neighbours to a potential threat based on suspicious behaviour according to the actions of the person is NOT racial profiling. As mentioned, our village comprises a variety of ethnic groups, and one can be assured that all people are equally concerned about crime, irrespective of colour. In one particular article it was stated that “many” people were approaching black people and asking them what they were doing there.
There was no clarification of exactly how many people had done this, and the source of the person who made this comment. There were no surveys done in order to get feedback from residents of all ethnic backgrounds as to how they feel about living in Harfield Village. These articles therefore display lazy and inaccurate journalism.
So, to bring a more human element into this fiasco (which seems to be forgotten by the streetwise group) the following needs to be said. There was an extremely active member of the community who dedicated his time and energy to this village. This man was very vocal on social media fighting for the good people that live in the area. He was labelled a racist (and more) by this elite group, and took this very badly. In fact, in the middle of the Harfield-bashing frenzy, he passed away from a heart attack. Perhaps from a broken heart?
It is one thing to get your point across, and another to label individuals without knowing anything about them and their actual viewpoints beyond social media. A very sad day indeed for this village.
The purpose of this article is not to excuse racism, but to ensure that a more accurate picture is painted of the goings on in this Village, which has now been demonised through the media. There are many good people of all colours that live here, and it is not the racial enclave that it has been made out to be. Anyway, as one resident pointed out: Harfield has passed the baton onto Worcester, and hopefully we will no longer make the headlines as the most racist village in South Africa!
References: http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/ jenniferthorpe/2015/01/19/harfield-villagethe-bold-and-the-befok/
http://mg.co.za/article/2015-01-29-racialprofiling-charlie-bravo-whiskey
http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2014/11/30/growing-discomfort-with-neighbourhood-watches-racial-profiles
http:// www. iol. co. za/ news/ crimecourts/ woman-charged- for- k- word- taserattack-1.1805484#.VPwVNkarYvg
https:soundcloud.com/primediabroadcastin/racial profiling
https:soundcloud.com/neighbourgood.roups–and racialprofiling inherfootstepsblog.com idontspeakmylanguage.wordpress.com
Insults from so-called guardians of democracy are unfair and uninformed, says a resident of Harfield Village