Khaya Dlanga

Khaya Dlanga
This illustration here is added last, as an example of how black South Africans even outside of the political space can make racially dubious remarks in the name of humour. Not incidentally I have no objections to making fun of our racial insecurities, the trouble is that a white person would not get away with making the comments Dlanga does in this November 2008 YouTube video titled “I want to marry a white woman”.
“Black women do not like it one bit when brothers are into white women … I have noticed, especially the last few years that when a black man marry white woman they seem to create this super child. So I want to have my own little tribe of super children … this is my evidence; look at Barack Obama his father is a black man, his mother is a white woman.”
Based on the reactions to this week’s accused trio, if the proposed criminalisation of race were in place when the above comments were made many prominent black South Africans would have been charged. This is not including the many unknown black South Africans like Velaphi Khumalo, whose social media profiles are yet to be scanned. If we will not abandon the obsession with our racial identities, then at the very least perhaps we can lay bare the hypocrisy and dishonesty of treating black South Africans as the victims.
We’re all suffering from living in a country absolutely mad about race. Now that we’re all victims perhaps we can stop the finger wagging and conjuring of absurd laws and set our sights back on more productive areas of outrage and policy innovation such as the economy (myself included).