RANJENI MUNUSAMY: The haters won't silence me
'To silence us, we have been made to take responsibility for the racism of other people'
EXTRACT
The observation of former Constitutional Court justice Zak Yacoob during a lecture in March that many Indians are racist was used to batter us further.
The social media abuse includes demands that we leave the country, "go and die", and that we "deserve a bullet in the head".
EFF national chairman Dali Mpofu has written a lengthy riposte to the "mob" explaining Indian racism. But he did not respond to the origin of the controversy, which is what I wrote about: EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu's objection to Momoniat and the link to corruption allegations involving VBS Mutual Bank and the Public Investment Corporation.
'America for Americans! Go home!" I turned to look at who had spoken. Everyone in the line of people I was walking past was staring at me so I could not tell. "Build the wall!" someone shouted behind me. I wondered where they thought I came from, where my home was. For the people gathered at Moon Township in Pennsylvania, as long as I did not look like them, I must have entered their country illegally and should have been restrained by a border wall.It was November 2016 and these "real Americans" were queueing outside an airport hangar to see Donald Trump on his final night of campaigning before the presidential elections. Had this been my home, I would have responded to the taunts aloud instead of in my head. Because I was a stranger in a foreign land, whose draconian border policies separate immigrant children from families, I walked in silence into the rally. It is not often that I have to consider my identity in the course of doing my work, but I remembered what happened at the ...
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