Toxic attitude of neighbourhood watch

I AM concerned about the potential of neighbourhood watch groups to aggravate racial tensions in South Africa. I’m part of my community’s neighbourhood watch group, and I have seen how quickly a good idea can go from helpful to toxic. Often a POC (person of colour) will be walking through the neighbourhood doing something innocuous.

And then racist messages start appearing on the group, from eagleeyed white neighbours.

Seemingly always suspicious of a POC. It’s never a white man or woman.

I don’t understand how people think they can get away with such racist behaviour.

Just because a POC is walking around in your neighbourhood doesn’t mean they are there for nefarious reasons.

We need to do better as South Africans living in 2019. Why do people still think that a POC doesn’t belong in a “white” neighbourhood?

Or why do some whites think that having homeless people walking through the area is a cause for alarm?

Recently a neighbour spewed out a racist rant after seeing a POC giving out money to the homeless. God forbid we help the poor!

The offending neighbour cried that giving out money might be gang-related activity and that it would encourage loitering.

This kind of behaviour is unacceptable. We must confront racism wherever we find it. We can’t go on profiling people based on the colour of their skin.

We need dialogue between POC and whites, so white people can see and hear how POC experience racism and discrimination every day.

If we don’t we are likely to continue this sad pattern of prejudicial behaviour. DEEPLY CONCERNED CITIZEN