Pikester

Please don't take this personally, but I'd like to point out an article you wrote following the recording of the Big Debate episode on Whiteness, in which your comment "all white people are inherently racist" made quite a big splash. Most South Africans don't know the episode's total recording time lasted almost SIX HOURS. They were presented with a mere 45 mins of edits. Prior to the show's release, you wrote an article stating producers encouraged panellists to express their most extreme opinions, turning an already contentious discussion into an escalating competition of outrage. I'm thankful for that, only finding it now a decade later because, looking back, it explains quite a bit. Unfortunately, what was presented as a serious examination was actually just a political circus because it gave the wrong impression of tensions in the country. Sweeping racial accusations, ideological grandstanding, and the casual dismissal of legitimate concerns about government accountability were packaged as meaningful public discourse. I can laugh at it now, even though I think it was irresponsible. But there was something magical that made that show worthwhile. The most revealing contribution came from an ordinary woman living in an informal settlement. The show was debating whiteness. And while everybody was acting like clowns, she described the indignity of poverty, inadequate services, and daily hardship. Yet, when invited to direct her resentment towards WHITE South Africans, she refused to assign them exclusive blame. Instead, she acknowledged the failures of the democratic government that was supposed to improve her circumstances. Her lived experience cut straight through the ideological theatre. The voice usually drowned out by the circus. I know it's a decade later. You already understood the mechanism. You acknowledge how provocative statements attract attention. You understood that outrage was being rewarded. A decade later, we understand why legacy media is dying, because it exposes what we have come to understand from journalism. If journalists know that outrageous statements generate attention, one can't help but wonder how often they deliberately exploit that very phenomenon for clicks and how much damage they're prepared to do to public discourse in the process. X isn't awful. Throwing stones... very South African. X can be unforgiving. I've learnt a few lessons the hard way myself. As the South African proverb goes: Don't take people for a P**S. Food for thought. Take care. God bless.

Now think about how arbitrary the Hate Speech Act is.

Woke Liberalism is an illness. Imagine accusing all white South Africans of being racist just because her parents might have been, and that rubbed off on her. @dailymaverick, this is why your credibility is at the lowest level it has ever been.