Call for white people to embrace their ‘special responsibility’

May 27, 2025 147

Diversity specialist, Teresa Oakley-Smith, has raised concern over some white South Africans yearning for the bad old days under the apartheid regime.

Her remarks come on the back of a video posted by Afrikaans musician, Steve Hofmeyer, lusting for the opportunity to use the derogatory “K” word and paint his face black without any repercussions.

Hofmeyer alleges that being unable to do these things is a violation of his rights, despite research that has found that white people used to paint their faces black to depict black people as born fools, whenever whites perceived their racial superiority to be threatened.

Confronting Schuster race-to-face: post-apartheid blackface in Mama Jack

Afrikaans singer Steve Hofmeyr has ignited widespread backlash after he demanded the right to use the K-word and display the old South African flag pic.twitter.com/raE2qhxt7e

— MDN NEWS (@MDNnewss) May 26, 2025

Hofmeyer’s video emerged days after US President, Donald Trump, asked President Cyril Ramaphosa why Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema was never arrested for continuously chanting the controversial anti-apartheid song ‘Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer.’

This was despite public knowledge of a Constitutional Court ruling which found no hate speech in the song, re-affirming activists’ stance that the song is a struggle chant that doesn’t incite violence.

In response to suggestions that Hofmeyer’s wish should be granted in light of the court’s decision, Oakley-Smith believes matching the chant to the musician’s frustration is like comparing apples to pears.

“The kill the Boer song is contextual it was sung during the struggle many of us sang it without intentionally intending to kill any Boers. When it is sung nowadays it is also contextual for example during an EFF rally and indeed the constitutional court did not ban it. To try and relate that to Steve Hofmeyer using the “K” word is totally inappropriate there is absolutely no context where it would be acceptable to use the “K” word it has absolutely nothing to do with free speech.”

She’s expressed regret that some people, in a post-apartheid South Africa, are still clinging onto the past.

“This has nothing to do with freedom of speech. We should be trying to unite our country and by using the “K” word we are doing exactly the opposite. As whites who got off scot-free with no price to pay for our apartheid past, I believe we have a special responsibility to uphold unity and to move our country forward.”

President Ramaphosa on the sidelines of the Sustainable Infrastructure Development Symposium in Cape Town, reiterated that the slogan is protected by the Constitution.

“We are a very proud sovereign country that has its own laws, processes and we take into account what the Constitutional Court also decided when it said that slogan – ‘Kill the boer, kill the farmer’ – is a liberation chant and slogan.”

We are a proud sovereign country with its own laws. We follow the dictates of our Constitution and respectfully uphold its provisions. pic.twitter.com/95jpRwPgZf

— Cyril Ramaphosa 🇿🇦 (@CyrilRamaphosa) May 27, 2025