Whilst doing work for my many many school projects (sigh), I found myself wondering the highways of cyber space and I happened upon an article about a lecturer at the University of Pretoria being accused of hate speech (and all that fancy legal jargon).
"Naturally, it is much easier to endlessly complain about 'Calvinism' than to ask the question on why the rape of babies is a cultural phenomenon among black ethnic groups,"
As expected this post caused quite a stir in our little "slice of heaven", but as a black South African I can safely say that I am not offended by this comment nor do I think that anyone else should be. Coming out of the fog of apartheid many of us still have haze on our lenses and we only see things as black and white.
Having said this one must understand that apartheid has left many scars, there has been damage the country must try to remedy but unfortunately people seem hell bent on carrying these scars with them and parading them as war wounds of the old regime. This kind of mentality needs to stop in order for us to move forward. As black people, we still view ourselves as victims and as a result we use apartheid as an excuse to behave and think poorly.
One can see how the phrasing of this comment can be seen as a hateful remark on black culture, but I believe that this was not the intention. We as a people are all aware that there are many people with severe perversions in various different cultures, however pointing out a phenomenon that appears in a particular cultural group should be put up to debate instead of criminal prosecution. Basically If her hypothesis is incorrect why not prove her wrong with facts and statistics instead of putting her in jail.
One of the comments on the article highlighted that she didn't say that it occurs exclusively in the black culture but that it seems to happen more prominently in the black culture. I completely agree with this because, it seems to me that this lecturer happened upon a hypothesis about the cause of the raping of babies in the black culture. Perhaps superstitious beliefs and misinformation may be the cause of this phenomenon happening within our culture, who knows? but if that is true, shouldn't we try to fix that instead of prosecuting the woman who pointed it out? If it was a black woman who posted this would we still be making such a big deal about the whole thing?
This is the problem I have with Democracy in this country, and even globally. We as black people, Not Africans, African Americans, no Black people, have created a cultural notion that we can call each other niggers and kaffers or any other racial slur and its okay but the second someone of a different race does it immediately it is seen as racist? I find this very troubling. The problem with selected speech is that who sets the rules? and governs one race over the other? If you don't like being called a nigger or a darkie then stop calling yourself that.
Why do people of other races have to walk on egg shells in this country when addressing issues concerning or in relation to black people? everywhere you turn, "That's racist", "that's racist", It's beginning to get very tiring hearing that everywhere. What happened to freedom of expression? what happened to tolerance? If she had said "all black people rape and mutilate their babies", then by all means my people raise up your pitch forks and riot but don't persecute her for having an opinion about an issue we are all aware of. We are so defensive about being black that we have forgotten that being black isn't all that we are. We are South African's, We are human beings? why are those not important any-more?
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