Penny for your thoughts
I HAVE seen a movie that tells the story of a connection and love between a white person and a monkey. I even watched its sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.
The movies are about a scientist, Dr Will Rodman, who took his chimp surrogate son Caesar to a national park for the first time when he was three years old. For the next five years it became his favourite place to play. After leading a mass breakout of genetically altered apes to the same national park, Caesar still remembered his dad, Will.
Now, how dare Penny Sparrow try to kill that moment of love and harmony between a monkey and a white person that I so cherish and have etched in my heart?
Firstly, she called black people monkeys on her Facebook status, then she made it explicit that she thinks blacks can’t help but make a mess of beaches, like she owns them. And then she goes on to say “it’s just the facts”.
We are having another heatwave, Penny; it is too hot for racism.
While all this is happening, Standard Bank said in a statement posted on its website that it had suspended economist Chris Hart pending an inquiry into the events of his commentary on Twitter on Sunday.
Hart was also accused of racism after he expressed an opinion on what he described as attacks on minorities by black people .
Standard Bank said the comments carried racist undertones and it intends instituting internal disciplinary proceedings.
The bank distanced itself from Hart’s comments and said the outcome of the inquiry will be communicated once the process has run its course.
Hundreds of people, including high-profile celebrities, took to social media to share their views on the posts. Penny’s stood out, though, and branched out to a series of memes and what Tweeters and Facebookers called the monkey challenge where black people took selfies eating bananas.
One of my favourite memes was a picture of Caesar from The Planet of the Apes movies, saying: “Hi Penny, what were you saying?”
Of these hundreds, including celebrities, radio personality Gareth Cliff came under fire on Twitter after he weighed in on the Penny Sparrow racist post debacle.
On Monday after noon, Cliff found himself trending on Twitter after users threw spears at him for his opinions on the matter. He tweeted “people really don’t understand free speech at all”. This didn’t sit well with Twitter users, who labelled him “racist” and calling for Idols SA to remove him as a judge.
The common denominator for all those accused of racism was apologies, but the social media sphere did not accept any of them.
Just when you think the heat may have melted the hatred, Velaphi Khumalo, an employee at the Gauteng sports, arts, culture and recreation department, called for black South Africans to do to white people what “Hitler did to the Jews” on his Facebook status.
I think there is something vile in the 2016 air and everyone seems to be affected.
Khumalo said he hated all white people. “I want to cleanse this country of all white people. We must act as Hitler did to the Jews…,” he wrote.
The department has suspended Khumalo in the wake of his comments.
The SA Jewish Board of Deputies will also be laying a complaint against Khumalo with the SA Human Rights Commission, National Director Wendy Kahn said in a statement.