Quote of the week
Early in 2016, a racist outburst by a white woman in KwaZulu-Natal, Penny Sparrow, ridiculing Black beachgoers as ‘monkeys’, and announcing that thenceforth she would ‘address the [B]lacks of South Africa as monkeys’, published in her online profile, was quickly disseminated countrywide. It convulsed South Africa in shame and acrid anger. The [Constitutional] Court was not unaffected. Previous members of the Constitutional Court took comfort in reflecting, with evident satisfaction, on the absence of racially loaded and racially defined splits. Dramatically, these now fractured the Court.
"Rainbows and Realities: Justice Johan Froneman in the Explosive Terrain of Linguistic and Cultural Rights" - Constitutional Court Review
Sisonke Msimang on Mabel Jansen
There is no question that in the coming week she and her defenders will try to explain away her racism. Already she has suggested that her racist words were taken out of context and has claimed that she is being attacked…. Sensible South Africans will not believe this. The judge will have to go. It would be best if she resigned rather than subjecting the country to a long and dramatic hearing process, but we are not a country known for good leadership in this regard.
