Columnist David Bullard axed over K-word tweet

The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) has fired columnist David Bullard as a contributor to its Daily Friend news platform after he posted a racially insensitive tweet about the K-word.

Bullard tweeted on Wednesday: “I realise this is risky [but when have I ever cared?] but maybe we need a new word to replace the K-word to describe the people [not all] that we described as K's. Help me out here ... This ain't racial; it's K-specific.”

IRR spokesperson Michael Morris said they do not regard South Africans as being members of one group or another but rather as individuals, however they may wish to self-identify. Suggesting there was a need to find a word to define one or another group was at odds with what they stood for.

“The edifice of racialism was and still is propped up by name calling that has a long history of harm and hurt .... The K-word in particular has for too long been used only to denigrate and demean people on the basis of their skin colour, and nurturing it in any form only sustains that harm - and sustains the rationale of all racialism,” he said.

“We don’t ever call for those we disagree with to be censored or sanctioned or charged, but we subscribe equally to the right to freely associate, and we choose to associate with those who support our liberal ideas.”

Attempts to contact Bullard were unsuccessful on Thursday, but he told News24 that it was up to the institute to decide what it wanted to publish. He would not comment on the specific reasons for the termination of his column.

“They are quite entitled to say they want [my column] or not. It's neither here nor there as far as I'm concerned,” he was quoted as saying.

Bullard was fired by the Sunday Times in April 2008 after writing a controversial piece titled “Uncolonised Africa wouldn't know what it was missing”.