Parents clash outside Witbank school after alleged racist incident

A violent fight between white and black parents broke out at the Witbank Technical High School on Monday morning after an alleged racism incident at the school.

Television news channel Newzroom Afrika showed visuals of parents scuffling before a fight breaks out.

According to the report, the black parents were protesting after an alleged racist incident that happened at the school last week.

In the video, a group of white parents are seen forming a guard in front of the school gates while the black parents are seen opposite the road.

A man said the protest started as a school yard scuffle between black and white pupils.

He said part of the reason parents were upset was because a man from Pretoria was allowed inside the school to address the children yet they were not allowed inside.

A man interviewed by the TV news team said the white community did not intend for a fight to break out, adding that they just wanted to protect the pupils.

“The white community or the white people protecting the school, we never had the intention to do the violent thing,” he said.

Last week, various videos circulated on Twitter. One of them was of a white adult pushing a black pupil at the school.

In another video, Devon Hofmeyr, Steve Hofmeyr’s son and founder of youth movement Bittereinders, spoke to pupils at the school.

Speaking in Afrikaans, he told the learners that they could not allow that people were walked over, spat on or beaten because of the colour of their skin or because they had less than others did.

He said it was their school and their parents paid school fees.

Hofmeyr told the pupils that they had the right to demand respect, accountability and safety at the school. If it was not to given to them, they had the right to stand up and demand it.

The video of the white parent pushing a pupil can be seen below:

https://twitter.com/FollowerRSA/status/1403012860540825602?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1403020831459004416%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es2_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.iol.co.za%2Fnews%2Fsouth-africa%2Fmpumalanga%2Fparents-clash-outside-witbank-school-after-alleged-racist-incident-d756d30c-93dc-47c7-baf5-cf1cfbebc0f8

Defending the video doing the rounds on social media, Hofmeyr said he did not incite violence, adding that he would personally pay R10 000 to the person who could prove that he made the incident at the school a “racial thing”.

He said more than 150 learners at the school stood with Bittereinders to raise their voices against what he called “the injustice” that was taking place in their school.

IOL was not able to verify the details on what led to the violence outside the school on Monday morning or the initial fight.

Mpumalanga Education MEC Bonakele Majuba’s office was not immediately available for comment. IOL