OPINION

Guilty of being BLACK? K@£&%R please!

You know these days I decided I was just going to relax and let holy cows graze in peace. Some few weeks ago I posted my lambast of the Forum for Black Journalists saying my bone with it was that it was out to create exclusive boxes for non-empowered darkie scribes when what they should be doing is to advocate on behalf of young black journalists who are exploited everyday without any of the top dogs who form the elite body raising a finger to question it.

One of my favourite media personalities is Lizeka Mda who I have followed from her days at Tribute magazine through to Sawubona and now at City Press. I love her to bits I must confess. She wrote quite a telling article over in The Media magazine questioning the morality and loyalty of these race-based bodies given that she used to chair FBJ. She said she would be the last to stop a journalist from joining but raised a question of why South African National Editors Forum (SANEF) was quick to defend Sunday Times when government (Essop Pahad) threatened to starve advertising but was not there when South African Communist Party honcho Blade Nzimande threatened to mobilize for the boycott of City Press.

Quite interesting heh? And now the Human Rights Commission says that the racial constitution of FBJ goes against the spirit of the country's Constitution and what does the FBJ do? It retaliates by playing the race card and retorting that it has 'been found guilty of being black'. Enlightened Americans would have said 'Nigga please' but I respect my elders and would say 'please Bra Abbey not in our race'

I know of many junior journalists in outlying places like Polokwane and Nelspruit who are exploited daily by big media houses without FBJ or any of the bodies in the black lobby raising a finger to question it. The same bodies that FBJ says it's going to summon to a meeting to counter the ruling of the HRC.

* On another note to me it's like Mike Stofile (brother to the Minister of Sports) saying that there's no place for a black person in South African rugby after losing a presidential contest to Coloured Oregon Hoskins. When did the black brother notice this fact? Why didn't he say it all those five years when he was deputising for Hoskins and getting paid non-black figures? Black shouldn't be such a cheap capital that people like Abbey who holds a cushy job at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (a parastatal) can use to buy publicity whenever it suits them. Black is an issue that should be tackled from an economic platform, not some cheap off-the record briefing with the next president of the Republic.