{"id":1769,"date":"2012-09-21T07:20:45","date_gmt":"2012-09-21T07:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=1769"},"modified":"2012-09-22T14:23:31","modified_gmt":"2012-09-22T14:23:31","slug":"the-stars-janet-smith-finds-steve-hofmeyr-not-stupid-wow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=1769","title":{"rendered":"The Star’s Janet Smith finds Steve Hofmeyr ‘not stupid’. Wow!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Steve Hofmeyr at the celebrity roast<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Janet Smith, The Star’s resident Afrikaner-hating, Boer-bashing muck columnist, wrote the following piece about Steve Hofmeyr in which she comes to the following amazing if disappointing conclusion:<\/p>\n

“That\u2019s the thing about the Afrikaner superstar. You want him to be stupid. You expect him to be stupid.<\/p>\n

But he just isn\u2019t.”<\/p>\n

The most dangerous white man in SA?<\/h2>\n

September 21 2012 at 09:00am
\nBy Janet Smit<\/p>\n

\n
\n

INLSA<\/p>\n

Steve Hofmeyr on the red carpet before the beginning of the show, “The Roast of Steve of Steve Hofmeyr” at Lyric Theatre, Gold Reef City. Photo: Dumisani Sibeko<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Johannesburg – The crowd jostled shoulder to shoulder outside the Afrikaans Protestant Church in Ventersdorp. Flat-haired tannies in sensible shoes tripped over each other for a better view.<\/p>\n

The whine of bikes revving in the church parking lot wound higher and lower.<\/p>\n

The wrinkles on old army uniforms pinched middle-aged men around their bellies.<\/p>\n

Dirges moaned out of the wooden doors of the church.<\/p>\n

No one else was allowed in. It was packed solid.<\/p>\n

Only Eugene Terre\u2019Blanche\u2019s corpse inside his coffin could still be accommodated.<\/p>\n

Not far away, national police commissioner Bheki Cele had arrived at Terre\u2019Blanche\u2019s house in town in his blue light convoy to deliver his condolences. But he was out-pipped at the celebrity post when, Moses-like, the real deal was already parting the sea of fans of the dead man in the crush outside the church.<\/p>\n

It was Steve Hofmeyr, the country\u2019s biggest-selling pop star, soap opera hero and notorious philanderer. His arrival in Ventersdorp on this bright, fascist morning had tipped his borderline racist status close to the edge. But he didn\u2019t seem to mind. His sunglasses were too rock star to suggest he wanted to be incognito.<\/p>\n

This was upfront. Hofmeyr had come to pay tribute to Terre\u2019Blanche. And the people in black, proudly wearing their AWB sew-ons, couldn\u2019t have been more delighted. A rock star for their rock star.<\/p>\n

But Hofmeyr doesn\u2019t think his appearance at the funeral more than two years ago deserved as much attention as it got. He brushed it off.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think people underestimate how wide I see the Afrikaner \u2013 from far right to far left. It\u2019s not just a small little group. It\u2019s really massive.<\/p>\n

\u201cTerre\u2019Blanche always tried to get me to join the AWB. But we only met after his prison stint at Rooigrond, and that\u2019s when he told me: \u2018I did wrong.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had changed, he had found religion. I respect that. So when I walked into that church, I knew that\u2019s what I was doing there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trouble is, that was not the only example of Hofmeyr teetering on the edge of being an unredeemed white racist.<\/p>\n

There were several others, including the threat he made to sing a song about \u201ck*****s\u201d, if the judge in last year\u2019s Julius Malema hate speech trial had ruled in favour of the then-ANCYL president singing Dubul\u2019 iBhunu (Shoot the Boer).<\/p>\n

Frans Cronje, the deputy CEO of the Institute of Race Relations, was so unsettled that he wrote a letter to Hofmeyr in the newspapers.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are obviously ignorant of the fact that white people occupy a very privileged and controversial position in South Africa. Their long-term future\u2026 depends on the extent to which they can use that position to promote a more stable, just, and prosperous society.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tell you that if you think that we can fight racism with racism, then you are as much of a fool as you are racist.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shames me\u2026 You are in fact an embarrassment\u2026 and a disgrace.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Hofmeyr didn\u2019t seem at all cowed. Before he appeared on Africa\u2019s first roast \u2013 recorded last Tuesday and to be aired on Comedy Central on DStv on Monday night \u2013 he warned: \u201cI can\u2019t give any guarantees that I won\u2019t get emotional\u201d about race issues and Afrikaner issues.<\/p>\n

Fortunately for Hofmeyr, the scriptwriters, roastmaster Trevor Noah and the roasters extracted no shouts or tears for the volk. In fact, they unwittingly gave his career a boost with a free ride on charges of racism. Instead, they went with a lame volley of jibes about his energetic sperm count.<\/p>\n

The only moment at which Hofmeyr almost lost his nerve was in response to jokes about Boer hero Piet Retief from comedian John Vlismas.<\/p>\n

Hofmeyr leapt up at last, like a blue streak in his turquoise suit, grabbed Vlismas\u2019s script, crunched it in his hand and pushed it into the comedian\u2019s open mouth.<\/p>\n

The audience took a gasp, but all-too briefly. And that was that. Hofmeyr, the torchbearer who could be the most dangerous white man in SA, had got away with it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the thing about the Afrikaner superstar. You want him to be stupid. You expect him to be stupid.<\/p>\n

But he just isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

In fact, Hofmeyr, as fans will see on the roast, won the night. From the moment he stepped off his throne on an oxwagon wheeled in with cheerleaders in tiny outfits, he was king. Nobody could touch him.<\/p>\n

Read the full article on IOL here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Janet Smith, The Star’s resident Afrikaner-hating, Boer-bashing muck columnist, wrote the following piece about Steve Hofmeyr in which she comes to the following amazing if disappointing conclusion: “That\u2019s the thing about the Afrikaner superstar. You want him to be stupid. You expect him to be stupid. But he just isn\u2019t.” The most dangerous white man … Continue reading “The Star’s Janet Smith finds Steve Hofmeyr ‘not stupid’. Wow!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1827,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[782],"tags":[37,1245,1247,21,1246],"class_list":["post-1769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-eugene-terreblanche","tag-janet-smith","tag-roast-of-steve-hofmeyr","tag-steve-hofmeyr","tag-the-star"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/stevehofmeyr_roast3.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1769"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1771,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1769\/revisions\/1771"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}