PICTURE: GALLO IMAGES Are the DA's core tenets an unintentional camouflage for racism?Is the DA a substitute for the inner work the white part of its constituency left undone in 1994?Does Penny Sparrow embody this philosophical misfiring at its ultimate logical conclusion?The social media battle around racism is about words. Words are verbal carriers of universally negotiated meaning, connotation and shock-value. Unless you are a brilliant copywriter, you cannot think of a new way to use the word “yellow” and expect people to instantly get or let you get away with it. Unless the context obviously shows it, yellow almost always refers to a particular colour.This basic logic flies out the window when we discuss racism in general and skin colour in particular. An instance of this is with the use of the word “kaffir” below. A Marleen Theunissen commented on Facebook, “Can I come in with a side-thing here? The word ‘kaffir’ is definitely offensive. But I use it to refer to a mentality, ...
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