Everyone and their aunties has an opinion on the likes of Ashleigh Schultz and Matthew Theunissen, so be sure to remind them not to publish any of those on social media and invoke the next shitstorm.

Max du Preez is paid to have an opinion though, and his latest column on News24 is titled ‘We need to talk about South Africa’s everyday racism’.

We won’t put words in Max’s mouth, so here’s some of what he had to say:

I think there is value in highlighting such incidents so that our society can debate them. The Sparrows, Qwabes and Theunissens represent attitudes not uncommon in our country.

The challenge to decent, rational people is to resist the temptation to simply choose sides on the basis of race and ethnicity or to let anger cloud their ability to analyse and understand. We should rather sit back, think about the utterances and the reactions to them and try to make sense of what that says about our society. And then we can express outrage if we feel we should…

When it comes to judge Jansen, all I can say is that the words attributed to her appear shockingly racist and unbecoming of a decent human being, let alone a judge. Racial stereotyping, if that is what she’s guilty of, is one of the surest signs of prejudice.

(One has to wonder, though, why the person she was corresponding with, one Gillian Schutte, waited an entire year before she released parts of their exchange. If she thought 12 months ago that Jansen “animalised” black people, as she said on television yesterday, why did she not go public then, instead letting Jansen continue to be a judge for all that time?)

Judge Jansen’s only honourable way out, if her explanations are not generally accepted and if she really cherishes the standing of the judiciary in society, is to resign and not to wait for a lengthy process in the judicial service commission.

If you want to read the full column head over HERE.

[source:news24]

[imagesource:here]