Zille’s tweet causes race profiling ruckus

PREMIER Helen Zille has been called out on Twitter for posing a question about racial profiling at an upmarket restaurant in Clifton.

On Monday a picture of the food bill at The Bungalow handed to Scott Maqetuka and his friend went viral.

The bill which had the table number, waiter’s name, number of patrons, date and time also had the note “2 Blacks” typed on it. The story went public on Tuesday .

Yesterday, Zille tweeted: “Why is it ok to racially classify people for jobs, but not to identify people at a table by their race?”

The tweet was in response to The Bungalow’s racial profiling incident.

The tweet, posted at around 8am, was subsequently removed.

On the social media platform, Zille’s decision to post her views on the matter was questioned by many Twitter users, trending with more than 2 000 tweets.

Thembi Nkalishane wrote: “In any situation, as a leader, is this the best you can do or think?”

Moreki oo Modumo wrote: “... How were you a leader when you still don’t get this? Why are you even in politics?”

Kevin Dantu said: “Oh come on Helen. You are embarrassing yourself and your party. You don’t understand transformation.”

Another group accused the premier of supporting racist behaviour.

Nonkululeko Ngcobo tweeted “Wow Helen. You should just apologise and retract your statement. You are advocating racist behaviour.”

Zille then responded to more tweets saying: “Let us not trivialise the fight against racism by assuming that it is everywhere in every situation.”