Last week it was Chicken Licken that felt the heat of the internet.
This week it’s Nando’s. They had to act quickly after the internet threatened to boycott their food if they continued their support for broadcaster Gareth Cliff.
He is known to court controversy, but this time it seems he went too far when he interviewed the DA’s John Steenhuisen and constitutional law scholar Mudzuli Rakhivhane.
A highly intelligent black woman talking politics with two privileged white men – what could possibly go wrong?
Well, the debate went from robust to cringeworthy very quickly, when Gareth talked right over her and then dismissed her comments about being a victim of racism with this inflammatory statement: “Your personal experience is completely anecdotal and unimportant to all of us.”
It was that remark that convinced Nando’s to clip Gareth’s financial wings and distance themselves from him.
Now hear me out when I say that I understand what he was trying to say.
The debate was about local government elections and it was a broad conversation around ward councillors and service delivery.
When they try to talk over you and tell you that your experiences as a black woman in South Africa do not matter🤦![CDATA[]]>🏽♀️. Racism is structural and even operates at a municipal level. The literal definition of black lives don’t matter. 💀 pic.twitter.com/i2KcVzjcCd
— Mudzuli Rakhivhane (@mudzy_r) October 22, 2021
I suspect that he was trying to say that personal experiences are subjective, and therefore anecdotal by nature.
But what he fails to appreciate is that there are a few exceptions, especially in a climate where these stories are now the norm.
These include GBV, sexual abuse in unbalanced power dynamics, vaccine misinformation, and of course racism.
Unfortunately, in the South African context, racism is not an isolated experience and therefore cannot be divorced from any social issue of which politicians are the custodians.
Race is the triggering, low-hanging fruit that can easily divide opinion, but will also secure you an instant support base, if you are a ruthlessly ambitious politician.
It is much harder to have a deep, delicate debate that requires authentic soul-searching, compassion and empathy.
What Mudzuli may have been trying to elaborate on when Gareth cut her off, is the fact that racism is so systemic now, that it underpins just about everything in the lives of black people.
And even when it doesn’t, we live with lingering doubt and suspicion that racism may have had something to do with whatever outcome we are facing.
By extension, if it is so ingrained and baked into corporate and government policy, then our experiences become much more than just anecdotal.
Gareth makes the mistake of thinking that because not enough people of colour complain about it, it must therefore be rare and specific to a few individuals only.
But I can assure him that it is not and our silence mustn’t be confused for satisfaction or appreciation.
We stay mostly quiet about it, because we desperately want to believe in a meritocracy for our skills.
And we are tired of being accused of playing the race card, of having a victim mentality, of paranoia, or of constantly blaming apartheid.
So we just get on with it, but it is a dark and depressing shadow that is always with us.
In the interview, Gareth cites a report by the Institute of Race Relations that places racism at the bottom of a list of social priorities, as proof that South Africans care more about service delivery than they do about racism. But he misses the nuance completely.
It doesn’t prove the unimportance of racism in people’s lives. Instead it proves the insidious nature of it; it proves that racism is so pervasive and subtle, that it has become impossible to separate it from seemingly unrelated issues, like service delivery.
It is something that should shake a broadcaster to the core, instead of being used to support an argument that is ignorant and shallow at best; and supportive of the status quo, at worst.
As for Nando’s, they have kept us entertained for years with their clever ads that poke fun at current affairs issues.
It was extremely clever to not only embed themselves into relevant conversation, but also to bring a bit of fun to the topics of the day.
That was controversy they could control. I would argue that sponsoring a particular individual who is known to shoot his mouth off, was perhaps not as smart, because this one is going to leave a bitter taste in our mouths for a while.
But it’s always interesting to see how hitting the pockets can cause people to have a change of heart.
I wonder if it will have the same effect on Gareth. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: White people cannot understand the lingering effects of racism on our psychology.
So when we address it, they should stop talking and listen, so they can learn.