Two white students photographed dressed up as black nannies for a private party, have been kicked out of their campus residence, the University of Pretoria (UP) said on Thursday.
The fancy dressers were called “racist” by a group of well-organised black haters on social networks with the hashtag #blackface.
The picture was taken at a private 21st birthday party but because they were white students at the institution a witch hunt was quickly launched against UP as well as the two girls.
The SA Students Congress (Sasco) said it felt “particularly angered” by the picture and accused all white people collectively as well as the university of teaching “its” youth to disrespect black people. The institution is actually a functioning multi-racial university.
The display of outrage to maintain and enforce current South African societal norms, once again showed how low whites are in the social hierarchy of tenderpreneurs, nepotists and freeloaders.
“It is clear to us that the white community assisted by institutions of white privilege, like UP, are teaching white youth to disrespect and poke fun at black suffering,” Sasco president Ntuthuko Makhombothi said on Wednesday.
“We have absolutely no confidence in the supposed disciplinary action the university seeks to institute against their precious white students,”
Makhombothi said the picture was distasteful and “racist to the extreme.”
“Black women in our country continue to suffer from triple oppression as black, female, and working class. This incident ridicules the situation of black women in our country and reinforces racist stereotypes about our mothers.”
He said the continued existence of “institutions of white privilege” was an untenable “crisis”, and that the patience of black people in South Africa was “quickly diminishing”.
“Black students will not fold their arms as their suffering and that of their parents is made fun of. The dignity of Africans cannot be trampled on without consequences to the perpetrators.”
Praag has learned that Sasco also plans to write to the Swedish Embassy about a disturbing racist black face cake from 2012 that was discovered only yesterday by its members.
The National Afro-Swedish Association called for a minister of culture’s resignation after she was pictured laughing while cutting the racial stereotype cake and eating it. The event was branded a “racist spectacle” by the National Afro-Swedish Association.
Spokesman Kitimbwa Sabuni told The Local: “In our view, this simply adds to the mockery of racism in Sweden.
“According to the Moderna Museet, the ‘cake party’ was meant to problematize female circumcision but how that is accomplished through a cake representing a racist caricature of a black woman complete with ‘black face’ is unclear.”
Sabuni added that the fact that the minister particiapted in the event, which he argued was also marked by “cannibalistic” overtones, betrays her “incompetence and lack of judgement”.
In a statement, he added: “Her participation, as she laughs, drinks, and eats cake, merely adds to the insult against people who suffer from racist taunts and against women affected by circumcision.