Avoid racial profiling

ON WEDNESDAY in your main frontpage report you correctly drew attention to racism in social media, in particular a Facebook page titled SA News.

One example you singled out read “Jogger raped by black rapist…”; and another “Police have launched a manhunt for black thugs”.

As the report points out, racial profiling in South Africa is prohibited, and it quotes Mr Hishaam Mohamed, regional head of Justice and Constitutional Development: “The person administrating the page is on the wrong side of the law.”

On Friday the following report in the Cape Times on the Charleston church killings opened with this sentence: “Authorities yesterday arrested a 21-year-old white man”.

Neither white nor black racism has any place in South Africa, especially not in its media, and I trust this disgraceful breach was simply a staff member’s oversight, and does not reflect a racial attitude on the part of the Cape Times. Tim Thompson