I am so glad that more voices of reason have come to the defence of Adam Habib.
And in the context of what I said about this last time, I am even more glad that many of those voices belong to highly respected black individuals, among them Professor Thuli Madonsela, Barney Pityana and Professor Jonathan Jansen.
Habib is still on suspension from his new job as director of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, after he used the n-word during a Zoom meeting to illustrate a point he was making.
Ironically, the point was that lecturers who use the word wantonly, will be disciplined.
A student took offence, accused him of being racist and insisted that he had no right to use the word.
Yes, even though he is head of a department that studies social issues in Africa, where one would imagine a certain amount of freedoms in pursuit of academic understanding.
While a number of people have jumped onto the racism bandwagon, others have given this a more clear thought, among them a group of highly respected black thought-leaders, who rubbished that accusation definitively.
In their statement, they say: “In a university there ought to be a level of intellectual rigour and debate about meanings, strategy and intended outcomes,” which I would’ve thought goes without saying.
But clearly it had to be said.
It also had to be said that social media cancel culture is going a bit too far.
While there’s definitely a place for it, it does seem to place too much power into the hands of young cyber bullies who don’t care about context, fairness or intent.
Many of these armchair activists are not the social justice warriors they claim to be, but instead are a gang of misguided pseudo-intellectuals, revelling in the online fame they hope to get from their virtue signalling.
Clearly the implication was that Habib is not black enough to use the word freely, which according to his accusers, makes him a racist.
But now included in the chorus arguing in his defence are strong voices, whose blackness cannot be called into question and social justice credentials far outshine their own.
But if one is to follow the logic of the internet, then they have made themselves guilty – and therefore racist – by association.
So let’s see the internet try to cancel Madonsela, Pityana, Professor Zeblon Vilikazi, Judy Dlamini, Justice Malala and Palesa Morudu.