The race war will not subside unless editors and journalists have the courage to condemn racism unconditionally. When Eugene Terreblanche was killed, the insinuation in many newspapers was that he got his comeuppance because he was a racist.
Such heartless logic can hardly be applied to the thousands of murders of innocent people that take place every day, every year. Are they killed because they are racists, exploiters, nasty, etc? Or are they killed because murder together with rape, armed robbery and assault are the daily diet of crime South Africans are subjected to for a number of very complex reasons?
In reaction to Jimmy Manyi and Kuli Roberts' disgusting stereotypes and primordial racism about coloured people in the Western Cape, a range of journalists and political commentators have condemned them harshly and rightly so.
But along comes the City Press (6 March 2011) with the most predictable and counter-productive editorial. Never able to condemn black people unconditionally, the editor, true to form, again blames white SA.
"If we can discuss Manyi and Roberts so heartily, then we should not be dictated to by the likes of AgriSA, which last year walked out of a summit in Somerset West because it was not prepared to discuss the brutal treatment of farmworkers (sic) by farmers."
"The criticism by some that Manuel is advancing a rightwing agenda by admonishing Manyi in public will have merit only if we never discuss other forms of bigotry, especially the most pernicious, white racism whose effects are felt to this day."