UPDATE: LISTEN TO HIS APOLOGY HERE. 

People are idiots, this we know, but they don’t come more idiotic than a certain Matthew Theunissen.

Let’s put aside the fact that he is obviously a racist of the highest order – has this imbecile never heard of Penny Sparrow, the woman whose racist social media post has seen her go into hiding?

In case you’re playing catch up here’s the post that caused the controversy, although it has since been deleted along with Matthew’s account. Strong language warning:

That would be his response to Fikile Mbalula suspending bidding rights for local sports organisations that failed to meet their transformation goals.

And here we were thinking people had used up much of their outrage slating Jacques Kallis.

A little more about this Matthew chap then courtesy of IOL:

On his LinkedIn profile’s summary, the 26-year-old describes his strengths, stating: “Good leadership, analytical and logical thinking, as well as an ability to work under pressure and deal with a diversity of people.”

In no time Theunissen’s LinkedIn profile was uncovered, which showed that, originally from Durban, he had settled in Cape Town and had attained a Master’s in environmental management from Stellenbosch University.

He had also completed a Master’s degree at Utrecht University in the Netherlands through a partnership between European and South African universities.

According to his profile, he works in water resource management.

You can head on over and check that Linkedin profile HERE.

It’s about to get a lot worse too:

Theunissen’s CV, containing his telephone number and home address [in the sleepy hollow of Noordhoek in case you were wondering], embedded on his publicly available LinkedIn profile, later made it on to Twitter, where it was widely distributed through “retweets”.

Maybe he can join Penny Sparrow at her secret hideout?

As you can imagine the backlash to Matthew’s tirade was swift, with this below from News24:

Such offensive racial outbursts not only undermine reconciliation, nation building and social cohesion but are abhorrent, provocative and polarise racial relation,” Sanco spokesperson Jabu Mahlangu said.

Mahlangu described it as shocking that there are young professionals who have embraced racial prejudice and hatred.

“He ought to be blacklisted by all individuals and organisations that support non-racialism and the register be accessible to embassies for screening during visa applications,” he said.

Here’s IOL:

Cape Town mayor Patricia deLille said: “These comments and that kind of language is totally and utterly despicable.

“My office will look into this and we will make contact with Matt to address this because he clearly does not understand how hurtful racism is and that we now live in a democracy where we are all equal, and no one can discriminate, disrespect or infringe on anyone’s rights or dignity.”

DA national spokesperson Phumzile van Damme said Theunissen’s comments were appalling.

“There’s absolutely no space in South Africa for racism, the espousing of racist views,” said Van Damme.

“We see that the matter has already been reported to the South African Human Rights Commission and we trust that swift action will be taken against him.”

You can be sure this won’t be the last we hear of this one. Just do better people, and if you happen to be such a racist twit then do the rest of us a favour and keep your ramblings to yourself.

Better yet, head on overseas and join the chorus of bitter ex-Saffers moaning about the old days.

[sources:news24,iol]