Social Media: An index for SA's race relations?

Social Media: An index for SA's race relations?

4 February 2015 5:16 PM

Former presidents FW De Klerk and Kgalema Motlanthe, and business tycoon, Johann Rupert have said that race is dividing South Africa.

Motlanthe said this was evidenced in the race rows that raged on social media in recent weeks.

They spoke at a conference yesterday held by the FW de Klerk Foundation to mark the former president’s unbanning of the ANC and other political movements 25 years ago.

“If there is one space that provides a useful index (of) racial relations in the country it is social media. In the recent past the social media space has seen torrential racial abuses across the social spectrum openly advocating the biological, historical, economic and social utility of the construct of race as the organising principle in human affairs.

“Most disheartening about this open manifestation of racial hostilities is the debilitating effects on what we are trying to build; a nation united in diversity.”

City Press Columnist, and self-described "social media sensei" Shaka Sisulu agrees with Motlanthe, saying people's true, often hidden views about other races, see the light on Twitter and other platforms:

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