RACISM: WHITE ON BLACK ENDS IN PUNISHMENT, WHY NOT BLACK ON WHITE?

WITH reference to Dennis Pather’s column, I found it interesting reading.

With all due respect, though, my views on racism are worlds apart from yours.

I always maintained racism is not only a colour issue. Colour is secondary to culture. In South Africa it is perceived as white against black. What about the coloureds and Indians? Are they not affected?

The reason racism is still present all over the world today is because people of different cultures have been unable to integrate for centuries.

Examples are the French and English, North and South Korea, India and Pakistan, Russia and some of its neighbours.

To thank Vicki Momberg for her act of naked bigotry, which had the unintended consequence of helping to unify the country against racism, is futile.

It might be that racism starts and ends with each of us, but as long as we are unable to integrate on a cultural level that is unlikely to happen in our lifetime.

Have you ever attended a social or a meal at someone’s house in a township? Or had blacks at your house for a braai? I have done it, it was an exception and not normal practice. And I think not even 1% of whites or blacks would be able to confirm that they have done it even on one occasion.

So although it would be a good starting point, I do not believe it is as simple as us committing to start looking at one another not in racial terms but as fellow citizens.

One of our big problems is the previously disadvantaged want the previously advantaged punished, while the whites are caught in a catch-22 situation. What can they do to redeem themselves? Another spanner in the works is that double standards are practised after each revelation of racism. White on black equals condemnation as well as possible prosecution. Black on white hardly elicits criticism and seldom even an apology.

In the apartheid days the minority’s rights were unjustly protected. Now the rights of the majority are protected. Do they need protection?

I am against any form of racism. But it makes it difficult as a white person to ask a black person nicely to consider the disabled by not parking in that zone as in seconds I face the accusation: “It is because I’m black?” I see no light at the end of the tunnel for years to come.

JOHAN CRONJE via e-mail

I COME from a different angle with regard to views of racism.

It is almost 25 years since apartheid ended. Sure, mistakes were made by the previous regime. But in the current situation, why do whites need to be blamed for everything and be punished while blacks walk away free when doing the same?

Why do whites need to pay for the words they utter during a situation when they are obviously in shock?

If a black person says

“kill a Boer, kill a farmer”, is it lawful?

If a black person wears the same slogan on their T-shirt, is it acceptable?

If a black person uses hate speech on social media, why are they not prosecuted?

If a white person uses the k-word, he or she is branded a racist and can be prosecuted.

Yet a black person says “we must use white children as fertiliser for the ground” and that is not considered hate speech. Is that lawful?

The way things are, this only provokes more anger and hatred than ever.

NEELS WELSH Durban