Woman lives in fear after Bobani 'baboon' slur
Gelvandale resident gets threats after Facebook post
A Port Elizabeth woman who called new mayor Mongameli Bobani a baboon on Wednesday sobbed as she said she did not know what had come over her when she posted the offensive slur on Facebook.
But there was no taking it back for Gelvandale resident Gretchen November, who said she and her children had been threatened and that she had been phoned by people claiming to be from the EFF – saying they were coming to her house to trash it.
“I commented on someone else’s status, this guy was talking about baboons and I just made a simple statement which I so badly regret now.
“I don’t know what came over me, I really did not mean that our new mayor was a baboon, I just went with the joke that was going on on the post,” she said.
November, 43, who is now living in fear after receiving threatening phone calls and messages, said her children have also been affected.
“People are calling my house phone, threatening my 16-year-old daughter, and I even got a call from someone within the EFF saying they are coming to trash my house.
“I am scared to leave my house because my address is all over Facebook but this is not who I am, I am not a racist person. I regret what I posted.
“I don’t know what in God’s name I was thinking to post it,” she said.
The mother of four has since deleted her post and inboxed about 14 people, apologising for what she had said.
“There were people who accepted my apology but I can’t take back what I said because it was already posted and I also regret this,” November said.
For Zola Tshayana, 38, of Pretoria, who had seen the post shared by friends on his timeline, this was unacceptable.
“These kinds of incidents are happening much too often in our country.
“There has been too much racism on social media lately and we need to take a stand against racist people,” he said.
“Racism of this nature cannot be tolerated and the saddest part of it all is that she is a coloured woman, she knows the struggle but she is going around calling people baboons.
“You can’t go around saying things like this – it needs to be stopped,” he said.
Tshayana said while November was not the only one who had used racial slurs on the post, he managed to track down her number and when he called her she had been sobbing.
“We need to teach people that it is not OK to go around saying these things and if people are having racial thoughts and are sharing it on social media it just takes us as a country so many steps backwards.
“People need to understand that we are all living in this country and that we should do so in harmony as a people and as a nation.
“We need to unlearn all the things we have been taught so that we can create an environment where future generations do not have to fight this fight,” he said.
Bobani read several text messages requesting comment, but did not respond. Nor did he answer phone calls to him.
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